- Paperback: 608 pages
- Publisher: Broadway Business; 1 edition (Sep 2000)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0385493231
- ISBN-13: 978-0385493239
- Product Dimensions: 22.6 x 18.8 x 4.6 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 488,966 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Schools That Learn
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Product Description
Review
Advance Acclaim for Schools That Learn:
"Today, more than ever, all the forces within society must join together to prepare our children to meet the challenges of our rapidly changing world. Schools That Learn is an important resource for all those wanting to tackle the challenge of integrating family, school, faith community, and policymakers into one coalition on behalf of children."
--Dr. James P. Comer, Maurice Falk Professor of Child Psychiatry, Yale Child Study Center, Associate Dean, Yale School of Medicine
"I don't know of a country that is happy with its educational system. That is because most schools are crafted for the mass production ethic of industrial society. Changing this obsolete state of affairs is the best investment that a government or community can make. This book can help; it shows how schools can reorient themselves to emphasize humanity, adventure, entrepreneurship, leadership, teamwork, problem-solving, and experimentation, instead of rote learning."
--Kenichi Ohmae, author of The Mind of the Strategist and The Invisible Continent
"I plan to read long passages to my daughter. Whenever I think about the world in which she (and her children) will grow up, the educational system seems to be the locus of both hope and despair. Reading this book is like opening the curtains and letting in rays of hope, illuminating an entire, systemic, detailed map for change."
--Howard Rheingold, author, The Virtual Community
What Educators and Students Say About How Our Schools Work
"It took us three years to define the standards we expected of students, because we engaged the community from the beginning. It mattered to us that [the people ofMemphis] own the standards."
--1999 U.S. Superintendent of the Year Gerry House
"Ordinarily, teachers are taught to work as individuals, so staff development has to help them learn to work together. And it needs to be an ongoing process, with enough time to learn new ways of teaching, to develop esprit de corps, and to unlearn old habits."
--Ed Joyner, executive director of the Yale School Development Program
"We work harder than kids in other schools. But we have more fun doing it. All the kids have different rates of learning, so the teachers keep up different rates of training."
--Students at a "five disciplines" -oriented middle school in Chelmsford, Massachusetts --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
"Today, more than ever, all the forces within society must join together to prepare our children to meet the challenges of our rapidly changing world. Schools That Learn is an important resource for all those wanting to tackle the challenge of integrating family, school, faith community, and policymakers into one coalition on behalf of children."
--Dr. James P. Comer, Maurice Falk Professor of Child Psychiatry, Yale Child Study Center, Associate Dean, Yale School of Medicine
"I don't know of a country that is happy with its educational system. That is because most schools are crafted for the mass production ethic of industrial society. Changing this obsolete state of affairs is the best investment that a government or community can make. This book can help; it shows how schools can reorient themselves to emphasize humanity, adventure, entrepreneurship, leadership, teamwork, problem-solving, and experimentation, instead of rote learning."
--Kenichi Ohmae, author of The Mind of the Strategist and The Invisible Continent
"I plan to read long passages to my daughter. Whenever I think about the world in which she (and her children) will grow up, the educational system seems to be the locus of both hope and despair. Reading this book is like opening the curtains and letting in rays of hope, illuminating an entire, systemic, detailed map for change."
--Howard Rheingold, author, The Virtual Community
What Educators and Students Say About How Our Schools Work
"It took us three years to define the standards we expected of students, because we engaged the community from the beginning. It mattered to us that [the people ofMemphis] own the standards."
--1999 U.S. Superintendent of the Year Gerry House
"Ordinarily, teachers are taught to work as individuals, so staff development has to help them learn to work together. And it needs to be an ongoing process, with enough time to learn new ways of teaching, to develop esprit de corps, and to unlearn old habits."
--Ed Joyner, executive director of the Yale School Development Program
"We work harder than kids in other schools. But we have more fun doing it. All the kids have different rates of learning, so the teachers keep up different rates of training."
--Students at a "five disciplines" -oriented middle school in Chelmsford, Massachusetts --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
Product Description
Created by bestselling author and MIT senior lecturer Peter Senge and a team of educators and organizational change leaders, this new addition to the Fifth Discipline Resource Book series offers practical advice for educators, administrators, and parents on how to strengthen and rebuild our schools.
Few would argue that schools today are in trouble. The problems are sparking a national debate as educators, school boards, administrators, and parents search for ways to strengthen our school system at all levels, more effectively respond to the rapidly changing world around us, and better educate our children.
Bestselling author Peter Senge and his Fifth Discipline team have written Schools That Learn because educators—who have made up a sizable percentage of the audience for the popular Fifth Discipline books—have asked for a book that focuses specifically on schools and education, to help reclaim schools even in economically depressed or turbulent districts. One of the great strengths of Schools That Learn is its description of practices that are meeting success across the country and around the world, as schools attempt to learn, grow, and reinvent themselves using the principles of organizational learning. Featuring articles, case studies, and anecdotes from prominent educators such as Howard Gardner, Jay Forrester, and 1999 U.S. Superintendent of the Year Gerry House, as well as from impassioned teachers, administrators, parents, and students, the book offers a wealth of practical tools, anecdotes, and advice that people can use to help schools (and the classrooms in them and communities around them) learn to learn.
You'll read about schools, for instance, where principals introduce themselves to parents new to the school as "entering a nine-year conversation" about their children's education; where teachers use computer modeling to galvanize student insight into everything from Romeo and Juliet to the extinction of the mammoths; and where teachers' training is not just bureaucratic ritual but an opportunity to recharge and rethink the classroom.
In a fast-changing world where school violence is a growing concern, where standardized tests are applied as simplistic "quick fixes," where rapid advances in science and technology threaten to outpace schools' effectiveness, where the average tenure of a school district superintendent is less than three years, and where students, parents, and teachers feel weighed down by increasing pressures, Schools That Learn offers much-needed material for the dialogue about the educating of children in the twenty-first century.
Few would argue that schools today are in trouble. The problems are sparking a national debate as educators, school boards, administrators, and parents search for ways to strengthen our school system at all levels, more effectively respond to the rapidly changing world around us, and better educate our children.
Bestselling author Peter Senge and his Fifth Discipline team have written Schools That Learn because educators—who have made up a sizable percentage of the audience for the popular Fifth Discipline books—have asked for a book that focuses specifically on schools and education, to help reclaim schools even in economically depressed or turbulent districts. One of the great strengths of Schools That Learn is its description of practices that are meeting success across the country and around the world, as schools attempt to learn, grow, and reinvent themselves using the principles of organizational learning. Featuring articles, case studies, and anecdotes from prominent educators such as Howard Gardner, Jay Forrester, and 1999 U.S. Superintendent of the Year Gerry House, as well as from impassioned teachers, administrators, parents, and students, the book offers a wealth of practical tools, anecdotes, and advice that people can use to help schools (and the classrooms in them and communities around them) learn to learn.
You'll read about schools, for instance, where principals introduce themselves to parents new to the school as "entering a nine-year conversation" about their children's education; where teachers use computer modeling to galvanize student insight into everything from Romeo and Juliet to the extinction of the mammoths; and where teachers' training is not just bureaucratic ritual but an opportunity to recharge and rethink the classroom.
In a fast-changing world where school violence is a growing concern, where standardized tests are applied as simplistic "quick fixes," where rapid advances in science and technology threaten to outpace schools' effectiveness, where the average tenure of a school district superintendent is less than three years, and where students, parents, and teachers feel weighed down by increasing pressures, Schools That Learn offers much-needed material for the dialogue about the educating of children in the twenty-first century.
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
There was once a young boy who was curious and bright; he had his own way of thinking about things, and his own pace for caring about them. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
There was once a young boy who was curious and bright; he had his own way of thinking about things, and his own pace for caring about them. Read the first page
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Concordance
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Peter Senge has built upon his thesis of learning organisations to offer school leaders an insight into how the eduactional world might be inspired to improve through the application of his methods. This is a thought provoking book: schools exist to promote learning but, argue the authors, need help in learning themselves. The book is successful in assisting those working in our schools make sense of organisational learning and tackles some of the key ideas being discussed in headteacher training and development right now. How do you decide what your core purposes are, how can you get consistent commitment to core principles, how can governors be involved in whole school learning? Powerfully, this book brings home what successful school managers have known all along: there is scope for developing intelligent organisations with a clarity of focus and strength of vision to transform the day to day transactions between pupils and teachers and boost the learning and achievement of the whole school community.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Peter Senge's team deserves a hearty compliment for making the point in this book at last that if schools do not become places where we can learn, where the teachers demonstrate learning itself before the children, they cannot possibly expect the students to want to keep learning after school. I have used the ideas for training teachers and school administrators in Pakistan and have found a great resonance in all participants.
Great!
Great!
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
12 reviews
54 of 56 people found the following review helpful
Oh, Mr. Kotter!
17 Sep 2000
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Whether we experienced our student life as "sweat hogs" or not, each of us have tales to tell of being forced to learn in spite of the schools we attended instead of because of them. If we counted how many "good" schools or teachers we experienced over our lifetimes, we could probably count them on one hand (or finger!). For an institution that plays such a significant part in our development, this is a terrible performance record.
With SCHOOLS THAT LEARN, Peter Senge (et al) legitimize the fieldbook format as an extremely effective teaching tool. Chocked full of examples, tools, theory, tips and traps to avoid, SCHOOLS THAT LEARN outlines an effective strategy for creating a powerful alliance between learners, schools, and communities. His is a call to action that must be heeded.
Readers will be informed, challenged to get involved, inspired, troubled, and made to see how important an issue lifelong learning is. Rather than seeking to place blame, SCHOOLS THAT LEARN simply acknowledge the "opportunities" that are before each of us. Senge then uses this "gap" between the desired state of learning and the current state to motivate readers to take action.
This is a book that should be on desk of every school administrator, teacher, parent and corporate training staff. The dialogue it will initiate has the potential to create, sustain and improve learning throughout all areas of our lives.
Get it, read it, act on it, and SHARE IT WITH EVERYONE YOU KNOW!
44 of 45 people found the following review helpful
A great resource book for educators
31 Aug 2001
Format:Paperback
This is an essential book for anyone interested in education. Its comprehensive coverage gives much background, even at the risk of being distracting when you want to follow-up on the leads to so many interesting source-books and links. Though you are told to dip in anywhere, you must read the first section, esp. "The Industrial Age System of Education" by Senge and "A Primer to the Five Disciplines" (Personal Mastery, Mental Models, Shared Vision, Team Learning and Systems Thinking) (pp. 27-93).
The authors consider this book a "prequel" to their other books about learning organizations (p.7). That's true. Though this is the most recent book, you can start with this one and go on to the others for further depth. Some repetitions may only serve well for mastery.
The whole book is very readable and informative. Concepts are clearly explained. It follows the same excellent editing format as The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook and The Dance of Change.
When you get too enthused by so many ideas and success stories of innovations, heed the advice for "The Strategy of Organizational Change". "Focus on one or two new priorities for change, not twelve. Most school systems are already overwhelmed with change. They don't need a new initiative; they need an approach that consolidates existing initiatives, eliminates "turf battles," and makes it easier for people to work together toward common ends." (p.25)
There are just too many passages that you wish to quote. The book is a treasure mine. However, for those (esp. busy administrators) who find the volume too daunting or verbose (592 pages!) and still want to get a handle on launching into transforming their schools into learning organisations, I would recommend, "Ten Steps to a Learning Organization" and start with the simple questionnaire given there.
28 of 28 people found the following review helpful
Helps Design the School of the Future
2 Nov 2000
Format:Paperback
SCHOOLS THAT LEARN is both a visionary and practical guide for how schools must evolve to meet the needs of students in the next 20 years. The use of multiple authors and perspectives mirrors some of the changes our schools must make to meet the needs of a new age. As Professional Development Director at a diverse Jesuit high school in San Francisco, I recommend this book to any educator, K-college. Senge's work will help prepare students for an era requiring a strong traditional academic foundation coupled with the need for creativity, and the social, emotional, and intellectual skills to work in high performing teams needed to rebuild our world.
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