Talking about a Revolution

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Talking about a Revolution
The Languages of Educational Reform

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Jacqueline Cossentino - Author

SUNY series, Restructuring and School Change
SUNY series, Teacher Preparation and Development

Price: $95.00
Hardcover - 184 pages

Release Date: March 2004

ISBN10: 0-7914-6019-3
ISBN13: 978-0-7914-6019-1

Price: $31.95
Paperback - 184 pages

Release Date: October 2004

ISBN10: 0-7914-6020-7
ISBN13: 978-0-7914-6020-7

Available as a Google eBook for other eReaders and tablet devices. Click icon below...

Summary

Analyzes how teachers attempt to translate the language of reform into pedagogical action.

Talking about a Revolution tells the story of school reform from the perspective of teachers engaged in it, illuminating the complexity of teachers' roles in transforming policy into practice. Al, Brian, and Camille teach at a large, comprehensive high school in a suburb of a major mid-western city. They use the languages of educational reform to inspire new ways to think about teaching, to shield themselves from the confusion of contradictory understandings of reform, and to construct a shared understanding of what reformed teaching might mean.

"In some ways Al, Brian, and Camille are contemporary inhabitants of Horace's School, making Horace's Compromise, and facing Horace's Dilemma. That this is so years after Sizer's trilogy says much about the extent to which the language of reform (or more accurately, the language of transformation) has not yet become the language teachers speak 'like natives.' The challenge remains: to empower teachers to speak RSL—Reform as a Second Language." — Nina Dorsch, author of Community, Collaboration, and Collegiality in School Reform: An Odyssey Toward Connections

"Deftly blending rigorous empiricism with aesthetic sensibilities, Cossentino explores the complex layers of the teachers' language: the text and subtext, the substance and the symbolism, and the public and private meaning, and examines the ways in which teachers contribute to the complex discourse of school reform. In reading Cossentino's lucid and evocative prose, we discover, of course, that she is not 'talking about revolution' or offering quick fixes; rather she is describing the complex, subtle evolutionary changes in rhetoric and action that are part of the daily work of teachers." — Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot, Professor of Education at Harvard University and author of The Essential Conversation: What Parents and Teachers Can Learn from Each Other

"Finally a book that marries policy and practice by using the experiences and words of teachers. A must read for superintendents and principals." — Susan Marks, Community Superintendent, Montgomery County Public Schools, Maryland

Jacqueline Cossentino is Assistant Professor in the Department of Education Policy and Leadership at the University of Maryland at College Park.

Table of Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

PART I: INTRODUCTION

1. Teaching and Meaning

2. How Reform Means

PART II: THE LANGUAGES OF EDUCATIONAL REFORM

3. Exhibition as Test

4. Exhibition as Pedagogy

5. Exhibition as Curriculum

6. Exhibition as Rite of Passage

PART III: TEACHER AS COACH: REVISING ROLES, TRANSFORMING PRACTICE

7. Teacher as Designer

8. Teacher as Manager

9. Teacher as Critic

10. Conclusion: Policy, Practice, and a New Role for Language

Appendix A: Methodology

Appendix B: Rubrics

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Related Subjects

School Change and Reform
Teaching and Learning

42223/43914(LC/LDS/AV)

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