Adapted from Molière's "School for Wives" by Lochhead, 'Scotland's greatest living dramatist' (Scotland on Sunday)

Why we need to stop wasting public funds on education Despite being immensely popular—and immensely lucrative—education is grossly overrated. Now with a new afterword by Bryan Caplan, this explosive book argues that the primary function of education is not to enhance students' skills but to signal the qualities of a good employee. Learn why students hunt for easy As only to forget most of what they learn after the final exam, why decades of growing access to education have not resulted in better jobs for average workers, how employers reward workers for costly schooling they rarely ever use, and why cutting education spending is the best remedy. Romantic notions about education being "good for the soul" must yield to careful research and common sense—The Case against Education points the way.

Agnes Nobel examines the importance of art in the development of the child and looks for some answers to the vital question: what is education for? She goes on to investigate why Waldorf schools attach such importance to art in education. She describes Steiner's picture of the developing child, his views on the imprint of early experience in the child's whole being and the importance of living relationships and community in the Waldorf school. She shows how these ideas were expressed in the curriculum of the schools. There have been many books written on the Steiner approach to education, but they have usually been written from within the Steiner educational movement. This book takes an independent view of Waldorf education and critically assesses its unique qualities, successes and relevance to the modern day.

A Smithsonian Notable Book for Children A School Library Journal Best Book of the Year “Genius.” —The New York Times Book Review A beautiful repackage marking the twentieth anniversary of the beloved, award-winning novel that celebrates teachers and learning. Ten-year-old Frederika (Fred for short) doesn’t have much faith that the new teacher in town will last very long. After all, they never do. Most teachers who come to their one-room schoolhouse in remote Alaska leave at the first smell of fish, claiming that life there is just too hard. But Miss Agnes is different: she doesn’t get frustrated with her students, and finds new ways to teach them to read and write. She even takes a special interest in Fred’s sister, Bokko, who has never come to school before because she is deaf. For the first time, Fred, Bokko, and their classmates begin to enjoy their lessons—but will Miss Agnes be like all the rest and leave as quickly as she came?

As humankind moves deeper into the Anthropocene, a period marked by climate disruption, species extinction, and profound challenges to human and animal welfare, what and how we teach our children has never been of greater importance. In this passionate, incisive, and diverse collection of thirteen interconnected essays, educators at every level of education and from four continents call for a re-imagined pedagogy that embeds respect for the other-than-human world, encourages imagination and resilience, and fosters open inquiry based on principles of justice, fairness, and equity. By turns polemical, visionary, and practical, Teaching Liberation is an essential book for critical animal studies scholars, humane educators, and all those who practice pedagogy, whether in the classroom or outside it.

Covers all the topics which are important for those studying to become early childhood practitioners. Focuses on using everyday language and objects to teach numeracy skills to young children.

Drawing on the life histories of three teachers, this book explores their narrative strategies to author themselves as active agents within and against the essentializing discourses of teaching. The complex and contradictory ways in which these women construct themselves as subjects, while simultaneously disrupting the notion of a unitary subject, provide new ways to think about subjectivity, resistance, power and agency.

From the bestselling Bridget Jones's Diary that started the trend to the television sensation Sex and the Citythat captured it on screen, "chick lit" has become a major pop culture phenomenon. Banking on female audiences' identification with single, urban characters who struggle with the same life challenges, publishers have earned millions and even created separate imprints dedicated to the genre. Not surprisingly, some highbrow critics have dismissed chick lit as trashy fiction, but fans have argued that it is as empowering as it is entertaining. This is the first volume of its kind to examine the chick lit phenomenon from a variety of angles, accounting for both its popularity and the intense reactions-positive and negative-it has provoked. The contributors explore the characteristics that cause readers to attach the moniker "chick" to a particular book and what, if anything, distinguishes the category of chick lit from the works of Jane Austen on one end and Harlequin romance novels on the other. They critique the genre from a range of critical perspectives, considering its conflicted relationship with feminism and postfeminism, heterosexual romance, body image, and consumerism. The fourteen original essays gathered here also explore such trends and subgenres as "Sistah Lit," "Mommy Lit," and "Chick Lit Jr.," as well as regional variations. As the first book to consider the genre seriously, Chick Lit offers real insight into a new generation of women's fiction.

The learning portfolio is a powerful complement to traditional measures of student achievement and a widely diverse method of recording intellectual growth. This second edition of this important book offers new samples of print and electronic learning portfolios. An academic understanding of and rationale for learning portfolios and practical information that can be customized. Offers a review of the value of reflective practice in student learning and how learning portfolios support assessment and collaboration. Includes revised sample assignment sheets, guidelines, criteria, evaluation rubrics, and other material for developing print and electronic portfolios.

On Teaching and Learning takes the ideas explored inrenowned educator Jane Vella’s best-selling book Learningto Listen, Learning to Teach to the next level and explores howdialogue education has been applied in educational settings aroundthe world. Throughout the book, she shows how to put the principlesand practices of dialogue education into action and usesillustrative stories and examples from her extensivetravels. Dialogue education values inquiry, integrity, andcommitment to equity—values that are also central todemocracy. Learners are treated as beings worthy of respect,recognized for the knowledge and experience they bring to thelearning experience. Dialogue education emphasizes the importanceof safety and belonging. It is an approach that welcomesone’s certainties and one’s questions.