Routledge Critical Issues in Democratic Schooling: Curriculum, Teaching, and Socio-Political Realities

Focusing on a wide range of critical issues, this book provides a comprehensive analysis of the linkage of different educational ideas, policies, and practices to a commitment for democratic schooling. Informed by significant, interdisciplinary research, as well as by his own extensive professional experiences as a teacher, professor, department chair, and dean, Teitelbaum examines contemporary concerns related to three broad areas: 1) teaching and teacher education; 2) curriculum studies; and 3) multiculturalism and social justice. His approach is to integrate the current and the historical, the practical and the theoretical, the technical and the socio-political, and the personal and the structural. With this volume, Teitelbaum considers how schools should be organized and funded, what they should teach and to whom, the role that teachers, students, and parents should play in school life, and the need and prospects for schools and teacher education programs that foster meaningful learning, critical reflection, and social justice. Review "Given the contentious nature of educational policy and practice, educational professionals as well as informed community people are hungry for persuasive, rational, well-supported insights about the complex educational decisions facing them. This book provides that clarity in a jargon-free manner. What particularly distinguishes it is the multi-disciplinary perspective on a variety of themes, put together in a coherent conceptual framework." Wendy Kohli, Ph.D., Professor Emerita, Educational Studies and Teacher Preparation, Fairfield University   "This book is a tour de force. It is engaging, thoughtful, and filled with great insights and advice. It is also a pleasure to read, with a blend of scholarly work, career experience, autobiography, concrete examples, and literature that makes it unique as a guide to understanding education. Teitelbaum leads the reader nicely into deeper wisdom about schooling, teaching, learning, democracy, and society." Lawrence C. Stedman, PhD, former professor, School of Education, SUNY-Binghamton   "Teitelbaum thoughtfully weaves together insights from his decades of experience as an educator and scholar to address a broad range of issues in education. Readers new to these issues as well as those who are weary of school-bashing and reform agendas, will find in these essays ways to deepen their own critical understandings of―and ways to change―education in a democracy." Linda Valli, PhD, Professor Emerita, Curriculum and Instruction, University of Maryland College Park   "[The book is] an illuminating set of reflections about what it means to be a teacher, teacher educator, administrator, and education scholar and what gives meaning to all of these practices. Throughout, Teitelbaum’s voice is engagingly conversational, avoiding the usual academic jargon and pontification in favor of just talking to you as a fellow educator about why we do what we do, how we do it, and why it matters." David Labaree, Professor Emeritus, Graduate School of Education, Stanford University About the Author Kenneth Teitelbaum is a former education dean at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, University of North Carolina Wilmington, and Kutztown University of Pennsylvania. He was also a department chair at Kent State University and a faculty member and graduate program coordinator at Binghamton University and Syracuse University. He is a recipient of the Distinguished Alumni Achievement Award from the School of Education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.