1st Edition
Humanistic Teacher First the Child, Then Curriculum
The Humanistic Teacher: First the Child, Then Curriculum supports teachers and parents in their quest to provide the best possible education for each and every child. Meeting the needs of every child is the basic tenet of humanistic education, and this text explores both theory and practical methods for achieving this difficult goal. Using examples from their fifty years of experience as teachers, administrators, and researchers, the authors explain the importance of humanistic methods such as self-study of one's own teacher practice, working together with other teachers, and establishing realistic boundaries with children of all ages. The Humanistic Teacher enables teachers to meet the different needs of individual students and to become the educators they want to be.
Biography
Jerome S. Allender, Donna Sclarow Allender,
“Donna and Jerry Allender are pioneers in the world of humanistic education, both in theory and in practice. Their work exemplifies the principle that a good school is as educative for its teachers as it is for its students. Their commitment is to study the work they do and to share the lessons they learned from their teacher colleagues, students and parents with fellow educators across the world. They write autobiographically and yet self-critically about the development of humanistic schools, and they personify the even more elusive value of becoming humanistic scholars. The Allenders' discussion of their personal and professional development as educators is an inspiring account of lives in which pedagogy and scholarship have come together to teach, to learn, and to learn from teaching. In so doing, they become powerful examples of a robust partnership in education and personal life.”
—Lee S. Shulman, President, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching
“This unique book weaves together the story of Philadelphia’s ‘Project Learn,’ the authors’ reflections about their own educational autobiographies over almost 50 years, and a number of powerful lenses for understanding teaching, learning, and learning to teach over the lifespan through practitioner inquiry. The result is an engaging and thought-provoking description of ‘humanistic teaching,’ a concept that rightly deserves our attention.”
—Professor Marilyn Cochran-Smith, Boston College
“In The Humanistic Teacher, learning is purposefully linked to teaching through a focus on the needs of the student. In so doing, the practical and theoretical come together in ways that illustrate how education can be conceptualized, structured, and practiced. Through this book, the authors draw on their wealth of educational experiences to encourage the reader to reconsider that which is possible in teaching, learning, and research, and to do so in creative and engaging ways. They show how they have been able to turn ideas into practice in positive and meaningful ways.”
—Professor J. John Loughran, Monash University
