Education for Life: Preparing Children to Meet the Challenges

Rating:
Summary: Meaning in Education
Review: If education followed this model, we wouldn't be having all the problems in high schools resulting from the kids' perceived meaninglessness in these institutions.

First, a goal for education is established--educating for all of life, not just for the standardized tests or for job competency. Then we are given some ideas of how this can be done.

For example, Walters suggests helping students develop four Tools of Maturity. They are more basic than Gardner's eight multiple intelligences, and by addressing each Tool, every child's strengths will be found and recognized.

For me the most powerful part of the book is the section on Progressive Development. A rather different model of working with different children differently according to their energy level has proved very useful in my classroom. I know of only one other author who proposes approaching children differently in this way, and that's Lickona who recommends different approaches depending on moral development. Energy level seems easier to perceive for me.

The book could have more specific examples of how to implement the insights it provides, but I think it is meant to be a signpost for parents and teachers, pointing the way, but encouraging us to use our own intuitions to make the journey.