Q & A with John Taylor Gatto
Ode talks with John Taylor Gatto, an ex-New York City schoolteacher and author of five anti-public schooling books, including Weapons of Mass Instruction: A Schoolteacher's Journey through the Dark World of Compulsory Schooling , which you’ll find an exclusive excerpt in the October 2008 issue. Read More...
Adventures in learning
At Aventurijn, a small private school in the Netherlands, children decide what to study and how to study it. Ineke Noordhoff | October 2008 issue Fifteen-year-old Jurriaan de Vos doesn’t have to worry about his report card; his school doesn’t give grades. “There is a class schedule,” he Read More...
Childhood's end
Schools train children to remain children all their lives, John Taylor Gatto argues in his new book. There’s another way: Teach them to become leaders and adventurers. John Taylor Gatto | October 2008 issue I taught for 30 years in some of the worst schools in New York City, and in some Read More...
Lessons in Love
At his City Montessori School in Lucknow, India, Jagdish Gandhi teaches kids how to change the world. Ingrid Eissele| March 2008 issue Sitting in the back seat of his car one evening, Jagdish Gandhi puts away his cell phone and places a handkerchief over his thin knee. It’s time for dinner. Read More...
The transformation of an extremist
How a former Taliban fighter learned that teaching young girls is the best way to help impoverished, war-torn Kashmir. Karin Ronnow | November 2007 issue How a former Taliban fighter learned that teaching young girls is the best way to help impoverished, war-torn Kashmir. Going from Taliban Read More...
School for social change
At a pioneering academy in Johannesburg, underprivileged Africans are learning to become entrepreneurs. Fred De Vries | October 2007 issue Behind the public library, at the corner of Commissioner and Sauer streets, the problems of Johannesburg—and other cities on the African continent—are Read More...
Educating Akello
One man's effort to help a Ugandan girl stay in school shows the complicated issues involved with Western aid. Richard Dowden| March 2007 issue Too small to reach the seat, she cycles with one leg sticking through the frame of the old-fashioned bicycle and stops in front of me, blocking my way. She Read More...
Pulling themselves up by their keyboards
By bringing computers into slums, an Indian physicist shows that illiterate children can educate themselves - and help their country progress. Lex Veldhoen | Jan/Feb 2007 issue The alleys are narrow in Madangir, a slum on the edge of New Delhi. Rickety huts crammed together house emigrants from Read More...
Free school
For 85 years, England's Summerhill community has shown children learn more when they are in charge of their own educations Matthew Appleton | October 2006 issue A few days ago I dropped off my 13-year-old daughter Eva for a new term at Summerhill—theEnglish school famed for its emphasis on Read More...
Playing together
The father of the industry emphasizes the social value of games | September 2006 issue “The video game business has taken a turn that is not typical. Typically games were social. You played games together with others, at a party or at home. Then the video games came. We’ve seen the rise of many Read More...