The Discipline of Hope: Learning from a Lifetime of Teaching

The first paperback edition of the master educator's insights from four decades in the classroom. The Discipline of Hope chronicles veteran educator Herb Kohl's love affair with teaching since his first encounter forty years ago, chronicled in his now-classic 36 Children. Beginning with his years in New York public schools and continuing throughout his four decades of working with students from kindergarten through college across the country, Kohl has been an ardent advocate of the notion that every student can learn and every teacher must find creative ways to facilitate that learning. In The Discipline of Hope he distills the major lessons of an attentive lifetime in the classroom.

This is a sort of Man's Search for Meaning for educators. Why teach when America's educational system is in shambles and the students would rather scribble graffiti than learn how to write persuasive essays? Kohl, author of more than 40 books (including the classic chronicle of inner-city schools, 36 Children), offers provocative reasons in this retrospective of his decades as an innovative teacher of all grades, from kindergarten to college-level.

Kohl doesn't sugarcoat his career; he acknowledges his missteps. But he focuses on the core of his teaching style: he triumphantly looks to his students for inspiration. Kohl also forms his curriculums with his students, not for them: he included street theater and poetry writing in an alternative storefront classroom in Berkeley, California, in the 1960s, and convinced an elementary school to serve in its cafeteria the produce grown in a student-cultivated garden. Although his students were disrupted by the Vietnam War, by poverty, and by the civil rights movement, he formed lasting bonds with them--some children whom he taught in kindergarten reappear in his college lecture halls. This is a book for both freshly certified teachers and veterans, as Kohl reassuringly illustrates that through the faith and creativity of teachers, the spirit and love of learning will emerge in students.