New Books In Education

Are robots going to be our overlords? In Human Work in the Age of Smart Machines (RosettaBooks, 2020), Jamie Merisotis says they don't have to be. We can make them our friends. Jamie Merisotis is a globally recognized leader in philanthropy, education, and public policy. Since 2008, he’s served as president and CEO of Lumina Foundation, an independent, private foundation committed to making opportunities for learning beyond high school available to all. Jamie previously served as co-founder and president of the nonpartisan, D.C.-based Institute for Higher Education Policy. This episode covers the need to link ongoing learning and work in a virtuous cycle that provides workers with both meaning and stability. It addresses the challenges of the 4th Industrial Revolution and how in the new people-centered economy it’s important to develop those flexible skills and capabilities that will enable workers to distinguish themselves from what automation and artificial intelligence is capable of. Dan Hill, PhD, is the

Welcome to The Academic Life. You are smart and capable, but you’re not an island, and neither are we. So, we are reaching across our own contacts – and beyond - to bring you podcasts on everything from how to finish that project to how to take care of your beautiful mind. Want to hear a particular expert or topic? Email your ideas to cgessler@gmail.com or dr.danamalone@gmail.com or DM us on Twitter @AcademicLifeNBN. In this episode, you’ll hear: our paths to college and graduate school, and the instructive moments along the way, why you might need a mentor (or two or three) to accomplish your goals, and how this channel offers a virtual community for your journey – in, out, or through – academia. Your co-host is: Dr. Dana Malone, a scholar and practitioner energized by facilitating meaningful learning experiences for students and educators alike. She loves connecting with kindred academic spirits, like Christina, and collaborating on inspiring projects. When she’s not having engaging conversations on TAL pod

A number of curious communities sprang up across the United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century: simulated cities, states, and nations in which children played the roles of legislators, police officers, bankers, journalists, shopkeepers, and other adults. They performed real work—passing laws, growing food, and constructing buildings, among other tasks—inside virtual worlds. In States of Childhood: From the Junior Republic to the American Republic, 1895-1945 (MIT Press, 2020), Jennifer Light examines the phenomena of “junior republics” and argues that they marked the transition to a new kind of “sheltered” childhood for American youth. Banished from the labor force and public life, children inhabited worlds that mirrored the one they had left. Light describes the invention of junior republics as independent institutions and how they were later established at schools, on playgrounds, in housing projects, and on city streets, as public officials discovered children's role playing helped th

Listen to this interview of Kit Nicholls, Director of Cooper Union Center for Writing. We talk about writing, thinking, the university, and what everyone cares about. Interviewer : "That's the key, and the sense that I get from many students, and even also from faculty, when it comes to the point that they're writing up their results––well, it's basically, this is just a necessity, a thing that's just sort of got to be got around, got through. But if you can actually provide them with the view that the writing is the research, that you're doing your research right now as well. Or even if you can get them to drop the 'as well' and say, 'I'm doing my research still.'" Kit Nicholls : "Yeah, it's not like you do sort of all this prior work and then you sit down and write. That's a surefire way to produce some pretty terrible writing. It's much better to write your way through, which is exactly why the Center for Writing offers ongoing sessions, because otherwise students almost automatically come to the assumptio

Some of America’s most pressing civil rights issues—desegregation, equal educational and employment opportunities, housing discrimination, and free speech—have been closely intertwined with higher education institutions. Although it is commonly known that college students and other activists, as well as politicians, actively participated in the fight for and against civil rights in the middle decades of the twentieth century, historical accounts have not adequately focused on the roles that the nation’s college presidents played in the debates concerning racism. Based on archival research conducted at a range of colleges and universities across the United States, The Campus Color Line: College Presidents and the Struggle for Black Freedom (Princeton UP, 2020) sheds light on the important place of college presidents in the struggle for racial parity. Focusing on the period between 1948 and 1968, Eddie Cole shows how college presidents, during a time of violence and unrest, strategically, yet often silently, in

Transforming Ethos: Place and the Material in Rhetoric and Writing (Utah State UP, 2020) approaches writing studies from the rhetorical flank, the flank which, for many, is the only flank the discipline has. However, at a time when universities are optimizing structurally and streamlining pedagogically, the book must plead the case for a university where character is formed. Now that writing studies has shouldered up to its other disciplinary and institutional neighbors, composition instructors need to begin asking themselves tough questions about administration, teaching, and assessment, and perhaps more importantly, composition instructors need to begin providing answers. Rosanne Carlo provides answers, answers which spring from the New Rhetoric, from the writings of Jim Corder, from ethos as a gathering place for community, from kairos, chora, and from many another well found and well placed theoretical tool turned to her overriding purpose of teaching writing and teaching rhetoric as a way of life. Schola

Do you teach, or do you care about education? Then you have to read this book. At turns radical in the interventions it proposes in educational practice, at turns perspicacious in the views it opens on the act of teaching, at turns inspirational in the words it drops in the teacher's ear, Syllabus: The Remarkable, Unremarkable Document that Changes Everything (Princeton UP, 2020) belongs in every teacher's hand, as well as in the hands of many an administrator and policymaker. William Germano's and Kit Nicholls's idea to tag an entire pedagogy to one single document is brilliant, and it's brilliant because the document deserves the attention. As any college instructor and also many high school teachers will know, the syllabus kicks off the academic season, fills in as the rulebook and the referee, and presents that scoreboard of disciplinary knowledge called the reading list. William Germano and Kit Nicholls have much to say about all these functions of one remarkable and unremarkable document, much that is n

Dr. Christopher Harris (@chrisharris) is a neuroscientist, engineer and educator at the EdTech company Backyard Brains. He is principal investigator on an NIH-funded project to develop brain-based robots for neuroscience education. In their recent open-access research paper, Dr. Harris and his team describe, and present results from, their classroom-based pilots of this new and highly innovative approach to neuroscience and STEM education. They argue that neurorobotics has enormous potential as an education technology, because it combines multiple activities with clear educational benefits including neuroscience, active learning, and robotics. Dr. Harris did his undergraduate degree in Psychology and Philosophy at the University of Warwick, where he developed his life-long love of the brain. For his graduate work at the University of Sussex and subsequent postdoctoral work at the National Institutes of Health he applied electrophysiological, optical and computational techniques to construct cellular-resolutio

Kathryne M. Young, an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, has written a combination of a sociological study and self-help book about and for American law school students. In How to Be Sort of Happy in Law School (Stanford UP, 2018), Dr. Young surveyed over 1,100 then-current law students, 250 alumni, and conducted detailed interviews with law students about their experiences in law school and concerns about pedagogy, other students, law professors, and hopes and fears about school and their future careers. Young’s work reveals the diversity of types of people and personalities who attend law school and how remarkably similar their experiences are, ranging from the most selective schools to the least. She reveals the varieties of perspectives and coping mechanisms used by students to grapple with the challenges of legal education. Dr. Young also includes much of her own impressions from when she was a law student at Stanford. Her perspectives and the responses of her s

Every fall on move-in day, parents tearfully bid farewell to their beloved sons and daughters at college dormitories: it is an age-old ritual. The residence hall has come to mark the threshold between childhood and adulthood, housing young people during a transformational time in their lives. Whether a Gothic stone pile, a quaint Colonial box, or a concrete slab, the dormitory is decidedly unhomelike, yet it takes center stage in the dramatic arc of many American families. This richly illustrated book examines the architecture of dormitories in the United States from the eighteenth century to 1968, asking fundamental questions: Why have American educators believed for so long that housing students is essential to educating them? And how has architecture validated that idea? Living on Campus: An Architectural History of the American Dormitory (University of Minnesota Press, 2019) is the first architectural history of this critical building type.  Grounded in extensive archival research, Carla Yanni’s study hig

The updated paperback edition of Hate: Why We Should Resist it With Free Speech, Not Censorship (Oxford University Press) dispels misunderstandings plaguing our perennial debates about "hate speech vs. free speech," showing that the First Amendment approach promotes free speech and democracy, equality, and societal harmony. As "hate speech" has no generally accepted definition, we hear many incorrect assumptions that it is either absolutely unprotected or absolutely protected from censorship. Rather, U.S. law allows government to punish hateful or discriminatory speech in specific contexts when it directly causes imminent serious harm. Yet, government may not punish such speech solely because its message is disfavored, disturbing, or vaguely feared to possibly contribute to some future harm. "Hate speech" censorship proponents stress the potential harms such speech might further: discrimination, violence, and psychic injuries. However, there has been little analysis of whether censorship effectively counters

“Consider the works of the renowned Nobel-prize-winning African American writer, literary and social critic, and activist Toni Morrison (b. 1931),” writes Majid Daneshgar. “Hers—like Said’s—are popular in the West and cover most of the principal themes covered by Orientalism, including otherness, outsider-ship, exploitation and cultural colonialism and imperialism. Yet … one would be hard-pressed to find, for instance, even a free publisher’s copy of Morrison’s essay The Origin of Others, in translation or not, on the bookshelf of one of the Muslim academy’s experts on Islam or history, or politics, or sociology.” With this provocative introductory passage to set the stage for his book, Studying the Qur’an in the Muslim Academy (Oxford University Press), Majid Daneshgar invites his readers on a journey exploring how the Muslim academy—that is, academic institutions in the Muslim-majority world—teaches Islamic Studies, with an emphasis on the Qur’an. Through his personal experience and scholarly endeavors span

In this episode, I speak with fellow New Books in Education host, Jonathan Haber, about his book, Critical Thinking (The MIT Press, 2020). This book explains the widely-discussed but often ill-defined concept of critical thinking, including its history and role in a democratic society. We discuss the important role critical thinking plays in making decisions and communicating our ideas to others as well as the most effective ways teachers can help their students become critical thinkers. Haber oversees the projects, Critical Voter, LogicCheck, and Degree of Freedom, and can be reached at jonathan@degreeoffreedom.org. His recommended resources included the following: Thank You for Arguing, Fourth Edition: What Aristotle, Lincoln, and Homer Simpson Can Teach Us About the Art of Persuasion by Jay Heinrichs (Broadway Books, 2020) Think Again I: How to Understand Arguments Critical Thinker Academy The Dream of Reason: A History of Western Philosophy from the Greeks to the Renaissance by Anthony Gottlieb (W.

In this episode, I speak with Federico R. Waitoller about his book, Excluded by Choice: Urban Students with Disabilities in the Education Marketplace (Teachers College Press). This book highlights the challenges faced by students of color who have special needs and their parents who evaluate their educational options. We discuss the services to which students with disabilities are entitled, how they are manifested in neighborhood and charter schools, and how they may be in tension with practices sometimes found in schools marketing themselves based on high test scores and college enrollment numbers. You can follow him on Twitter at @Waitollerf. His recommended books included the following: Ghosts in the Schoolyard: Racism and School Closings on Chicago's South Side by Eve L. Ewing (University of Chicago Press, 2018) Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies: Teaching and Learning for Justice in a Changing World by Djano Paris and H. Samy Alim (Teachers College Press, 2017) Savage Inequalities: Children in Americ

Teaching world history surveys can be a nightmare! How on Earth is anyone supposed to cover so much information from all over the world and from so many different time periods? It can be nothing short of overwhelming. But fear not, listeners! Professor David Eaton has a strategy to stay sane and make the class more accessible to your students. Instead of following the “laundry list” approach of covering everything under the sun, he suggests using selected case studies to illustrate key concepts. In his World History through Case Studies: Historical Skills in Practice (Bloomsbury Academic, 2019), he holds that mastering these concepts will build the critical thinking skills essential to a historian. While World History through Case Studies could be used in the classroom, the real target audience is world history teachers who wanted to make their courses more successful. In our conversation, Dr. Eaton discusses the book and offers his thoughts on the field of world history. We also get into some of his case stu

As a teenager visiting the Andy Warhol Museum, Beth Pickens realized the importance of making art. As an adult, she has dedicated her life to empowering working artists. Intimate yet practical, Your Art Will Save Your Life (The Feminist Press at CUNY) helps artists build a sustainable practice while navigating the world of MFAs, residencies, and institutional funding. Beth Pickens is a Los Angeles-based consultant for artists and arts organizations. She provides career consultation, grant writing, fundraising, and financial, project, and strategic planning services for clients across the US. Before relocating to Los Angeles in 2014, Pickens was based in San Francisco and served as Senior Program Manager at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and Managing Director of both RADAR Productions and the Queer Cultural Center. Dr. Christina Gessler’s background is in women’s history, literature, and anthropology. She works as a historian, poet, and photographer. In seeking the extraordinary in the ordinary, Gessler write

Despite stereotypes of colleges and universities still stuck in the age of the blackboard and sage-on-stage lectures, a quiet revolution has been taking place on America’s campuses led by a diverse group of learning innovators. Digital technology is one catalyst for this “turn to learning,” but professionals leading the charge include instructional designers, media specialists, and experts in data analytics – as well as technologists - working in conjunction with faculty and administrators to transform higher education. Joshua Kim, Director of Online Programs and Strategies at the Dartmouth Center for the Advancement of Learning, and Edward Maloney, Professor of English and Director of the Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship at Georgetown, document major transformations at colleges and universities that have been quietly taking place, even amidst noise about crisis and disruption, in their new book Learning Innovation and the Future of Higher Education (Johns Hopkins UP, 2020), Kim and Maloney

Debates about Ethnic Studies in K-12 and Higher Education have highlighted the importance of culturally inclusive pedagogy in schools. Despite discussions about Ethnic Studies, there is a more extended history of Mexican-origin people pushing for culturally responsive education. In Reading, Writing, and Revolution: Escuelitas and the Emergence of a Mexican American Identity in Texas (University of Texas Press, 2020), historian Philis M. Barragán-Goetz argues that through cultural negotiation, escuelitas (community schools) shaped Mexican American identity and civil rights activism in the late 19th and early 20th century. Barragán Goetz weaves in oral histories, government documents, newspapers, and archival sources to demonstrate the power in grassroots organizing for educational justice in Texas. She debunks a popular myth that Mexican Americans have not cared for education throughout history. Barragán Goetz writes that the progressive education movement in the late 19th century was not all that progressive

Even before the Covid-19 pandemic, boosters of digital educational technologies emphasized that these platforms are vital tools for cultivating global citizenship, connecting students across borders, and creating a participatory learning environment. In Bring the World to the Child: Technologies of Global Citizenship in American Education (MIT Press), Katie Day Good amply illustrates that there is little new about these promises of tech-enhanced education. She demonstrates that already at the turn of the twentieth century, education reformers and technology entrepreneurs promoted emerging media as the necessary tools for preparing America’s children for a century of movement, interconnection, and rapid change. Good examines the promulgation of both hi-tech gadgets, such as lantern slides and stereoscopes, and low-tech innovations that reformers believed would open the wide world to children’s senses and liberate them from provincial ignorance. Good’s analytical focus is on how these purportedly cosmopolitan t

What does it take to both fit in and yet also prosper and grow as a person in the workplace? In today's interview, I discuss this question and others with noted psychologist Arthur B. Markman. Markman is a professor of Psychology and Marketing at the University of Texas at Austin, where he also runs the university’s Human Dimensions of Organizations program. Besides his books, Art writes blogs for Psychology Today and Fast Company, and has a radio show/podcast called Two Guys on Your Head. Topics covered in this episode include: The emotions that often get exhibited in relation to each of the Big 5 traits of Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism – as well as how a “dream team” working on a special project will embody a variety of those traits. What it means to be a boss who punishes negligence instead of failure. What are the kinds of signals you should be alert to in a job interview in order to get a grasp on what kind of corporate culture you might be stepping into. Da