Awakening Young Minds
Perspectives on Education
Compiled by Denise D. Nessel
Denise D. Nessel
Denise D. Nessel, Ph.D., has worked as a teacher, a university professor, and a school-district supervisor of curriculum and instruction. She has co-authored four methods books for teachers and has designed and written a variety of print and electronic instructional materials for students. Dr. Nessel currently resides in California and is a senior consultant with the National Urban Alliance for Effective Education (NUA), an education consortium based at Teachers College, Columbia University, whose members are dedicated to improving the way students think and learn.
Awakening Young Minds
Perspectives on Education
Compiled by Denise D. Nessel
“Both educators and non-educators will find these readings most interesting and thought-provoking.”
—Judith N. Thelen, Ph.D., Professor, Frostburg State University (Maryland) and past president of the International Reading Association
A perennial challenge for educators, writes Nessel, is one Plato addressed in The Republic: “how to avoid simply feeding students information and instead get them to use their innate capacities and think for themselves.” The solution, she says, is not to impose a specific curriculum or method of instruction on all, but to think creatively about the individual situations of students to improve conditions for learning. In this volume she presents a range of perspectives on schools, teaching and learning from writers as diverse as Leo Tolstoy, Howard Gardner, Elaine Landau and others — all concerned with the development of inquiring minds and critical thinking abilities.
“Awakening Young Minds is really about awakening the minds of any of us interested in reforming education. The provocative and responsible essays in this volume, written by some of the intellectual giants of the last two centuries, raise some enticing issues: myths of education, schools interfering with education, and what’s worth knowing, just to name a few. This is an important book for serious students of education, be they professional educators or simply concerned citizens in a democratic society.”
—W. Dorsey Hammond, Professor, School of Education and Human Services, Oakland University (Michigan)
“This book should be required reading for all who care deeply about the education of our children.”
—Dr. Carol D. Dixon, Ph.D., Senior Lecturer and assistant Dean, Graduate School of Education, University of California, Santa Barbara
