Rethinking Schools: Chapter 1

One of the reform practices I disagree with is that all classrooms should be student centered. I can see where students should be more of a part in the classroom than simply having teacher centered classrooms, but the classrooms should be split-teacher centered and student centered. The danger with having classes completely student centered is that students would learn only what they wished to explore. While the student engagement would probably be great, the teacher is the "expert" on the material and knows how to make the content continuous. He/she knows great ways to teach the class and students, though they may think they do, don't.

There were a lot of connections between this chapter and the Second to None video. This book promises to discuss most of the topics that were discussed in the video. The curriculum chapter in the book would go with the "Creating curricular paths to success" in the video, the chapter on professional development would go with "Creating new professional roles", chapter 5 goes with "Developing powerful teaching and learning", and chapter 3 goes with providing integrated student support.

An idea from the book that I would like to investigate further is the idea of democracy in the classroom. I don't know if it would work or not and am curious on how this would be implemented into the classroom. I can see allowing students to pick projects they may want to do from a list the teacher has provided. I can also understand if a teacher gives an outline for a project, the student designs it completely, and then the teacher gives final approval. I, however, cannot envision what a traditional exam would look like in such a class. Would students write the questions for the test? Would they decide when the tests would be? How much freedom does the teacher allow the students?