Wounded By School | Book Review

Wounded by School: Recapturing the Joy in Learning and Standing Up to Old School Culture a book that opens the doors of the typical American classrooms. The author Kirsten Olson is a seasoned educational consultant and has worked on the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Kennedy School at Harvard, numerous large public school systems and charter schools. This is a controversial book that exposes the devastating consequences of the educational approach that values conformity over creativity, flattens students’ interest, and dampens down differences among learners. The pages are filled with true stories of students who were wounded by experiences in school and offers solutions on how to move forward producing a more dynamic classroom and a better educated youth.

While reformers and policymakers focus on achievement gaps, testing, and accountability, millions of students mentally and emotionally disengage from learning and many gifted teachers leave the field. Ironically, today’s schooling is damaging the single most essential component to education — the joy of learning.

How do we recognize the “wounds” caused by outdated schooling policies? How do we heal them? In her controversial new book, education writer and critic Kirsten Olson brings to light the devastating consequences of an educational approach that values conformity over creativity, flattens student’s interests, and dampens down differences among learners. Drawing on deeply emotional stories, Olson shows that current institutional structures do not produce the kinds of minds and thinking that society really needs. Instead, the system tends to shame, disable, and bore many learners. Most importantly, she presents the experiences of wounded learners who have healed and shows what teachers, parents, and students can do right now to help themselves stay healthy.

I know first hand how bored kids get in school, it is actually one of the reasons I chose to homeschool, so they wouldn’t be bored and possibly left behind. Now I am not saying that I make everything all fun and such but with a daughter who is a little ahead of her grade she became bored waiting for everyone else to catch up. For my son, well as a teenager he was always bored in school which actually stopped his learning. Teachers that have no enthusiasm for their craft anymore because of teaching conditions aren’t doing our children any justice. And those that teach advance classes are hard to come by these days as their teaching environment is unfavorable. It really saddens me to read some of these stories.

I feel schools need to stop pouring their time on what to spend school money on (although important, it’s not what school is about) and focus on the children, our future,who need all the knowledge they can get. I believe one never stops learning in their lifetime, but I am all for not making the hump of their actual school years not a difficult one to achieve. I really enjoyed reading this book and I recommend it to everyone.

Kirsten Olson is a writer, educational consultant, and national-level Courage To Teach facilitator, and principal of Old Sow Consulting. She has been a consultant to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Kennedy School at Harvard University, and many large public school systems and charter schools.

For more information please visit http://www.kirstenolson.org/