Stupidity and Tears

By Herbert R. Kohl

Book Overview

In Stupidity and Tears, renowned educator and National Book Award winner Herbert Kohl offers us a thoughtful and ultimately optimistic meditation on the forces that conspire to keep teachers and students "stupid"--i.e., frustrated and unable to excel in an education system that is clearly failing them.

Among the topics explored by Kohl are the pressures of standards based assessments and harrowing sink-or-swim policies, the pain teachers feel when asked to teach against their pedagogical conscience, the development of a capacity to sense how students perceive the world, and the importance of hope and creativity in strengthening the social imagination of students and teachers.

A rousing call for common sense in the face of dwindling budgets, crippling state mandates, and injudicious politics, Stupidity and Tears is "vintage Kohl--incisive, funny, reflective, profound . . . a provocation to educators to better teach all our children" (Norman Fruchter, NYU Institute of Education and Social Policy).

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1565848519
• ISBN13: 9781565848511
• Release Date: January 2004
• Publisher: New Press
• Length: 160 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.8" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

This book revitalized my energy for teaching

This book highlighted many of the frustrations I have with the school as an institution, both in my teaching program as a pre-service teacher and in my experiences of working with students in secondary schools. Don't be fooled: Kohl's is not a message of hopelessness, but one of endurance.

Previous reviewer reasonably unhappy

I understand perhaps why the previous reveiwer was unhappy about this new book. Although I am relatively new to Kohl, this book is somewhat repetitious. It feels more like an overview of some of Kohl's work in schools, with some noticeable development of his critical ideas. Kohl details his ideas about stupidity in the current public school system (related to his idea of "not-learning" in "I Won't Learn from You") and he has some pretty strong words for special education programs and the flood of ADD/ADHD "cases" in our schools. It's a good book, definitely worth a read; however, if you know Kohl's work intimately, you might be happier borrowing it from the library instead of shelling out $20.