The Best Schools by Thomas Armstrong

The Best Schools by Thomas Armstrong

Educators, politicians, parents, and even students are consumed with speaking the language of academic achievement. Yet something is missing in the current focus on accountability, standardized testing, and adequate yearly progress. If schools continue to focus the conversation on rigor and accountability and ignore more human elements of education, many students may miss out on opportunities to discover the richness of individual exploration that schools can foster.

In The Best Schools, Armstrong urges educators to leave narrow definitions of learning behind and return to the great thinkers of the past 100 years--Montessori, Piaget, Freud, Steiner, Erikson, Dewey, Elkind, Gardner--and to the language of human development and the whole child.

The Best Schools highlights examples of educational programs that are honoring students' differences, using developmentally appropriate practices, and promoting a humane approach to education that includes the following elements:

* An emphasis on play for early childhood learning.
* Theme- and project-based learning for elementary school students.
* Active learning that recognizes the social, emotional, and cognitive needs of adolescents in middle schools.
* Mentoring, apprenticeships, and cooperative education for high school students.

Educators in the best schools recognize the differences in the physical, emotional, cognitive, and spiritual worlds of students of different ages. This book will help educators reflect on how to help each student reach his or her true potential, how to inspire each child and adolescent to discover an inner passion to learn, and how to honor the unique journey of each individual through life.

Thomas Armstrong, PhD, is an educator, psychologist, and writer. He is the author of 18 books, including the ASCD books Multiple Intelligences in the Classroom, Neurodiversity in the Classroom, The Power of the Adolescent Brain, The Best Schools, The Multiple Intelligences of Reading and Writing, ADD/ADHD Alternatives in the Classroom, and Awakening Genius in the Classroom. He is also the author of 7 Kinds of Smart, In Their Own Way, The Power of Neurodiversity, and The Myth of the ADHD Child. His books have been translated into 28 languages, including Russian, Arabic, Chinese, and Spanish. Armstrong has delivered more than a thousand workshops, seminars, and keynote addresses in 29 countries on 6 continents. He has written for numerous magazines and journals.