Herbert Kohl, one of America's most influential and provocative educators, believes that the only way to persist and to grow as a teacher is to commit oneself to the development of the child rather than to the regimented training of the pupil. His book is a lively, personal testament of one teacher's efforts to cultivate the natural vitality of the learning process; it is also a wondefully concrete and practical guide full of stories of individual students and how they were helped to grow through learning.

In an elegant affirmation of human capacity and creativity, Patricia Carini counters high stakes testing, the pathologizing of children, and the unrelenting critique of the public schools with a persuasive account of how children, all children, actively make sense of the world and their experience through the making of works such as drawings, constructions, and writings. This engaging and vivid account of the day-to-day possibilities of learning and teaching, and ultimately the remaking of the schools, is indispensable reading for anyone called to teach or committed to a liberating education...