Description
Book SynopsisMany of our schools are failing our children. Frequently, 'normal' children are experiencing difficulties coping and learning in their traditional school setting. The author of Hidden Dangers identifies the roadblocks that contribute to failing schools. These subtle school issues appear to unintentionally reinforce an increase in school related violence, diagnosis of learning disabilities, ADHD, depression, and other behavioral and emotional problems, and meager attainment of basic skills in reading, writing, and mathematics. By developing a strong foundation of the needs for a healthy school climate and challenging and changing faulty assumptions, attitudes, beliefs, policies, and practices that guide failing schools, the author deftly offers a solution for changing failing schools into thriving schools. This book is the culmination of years of solid teaching, testing, and counseling experience combined with a well-researched perspective. It is helpful for all educators, psychologists, parents, coaches, and all those working with children; even for the children who are struggling in failing schools. Hidden Dangers: Subtle Signs of Failing Schools guides us toward developing balanced schools where children learn and like to be, and where professionals can take pride in doing their best work and ultimately have a very positive impact on our society as whole.
Trade ReviewThe level of anxiety about our children's schooling needs some grounding. Betsy Gunzelmann's book helps us be more specific about the real dangers—which aren't because we have the wrong kids, parents or teachers, but because we increasingly reinvent ways to cripple schools, and thus kids, by unexamined assumptions. She neatly and deftly lays them out chapter by chapter. -- Deborah Meier, senior scholar and adjunct professor, New York University's Steinhardt School of Education; board member and director of New Ventures at Mission Hill; director and advisor to Forum for Democracy and Education
Betsy Gunzelmann, (educator and psychologist) will be regarded as a prophet speaking of ways to save our ailing educational system. She uncovers some surprising hidden dangers in our schools, AND provides us with remedies to fix them! This is a book that needed to be written; the issues it unveils will be on both Democratic and Republican Education platforms in 2008. -- Diane Connell, professor of education at Rivier College in Nashua, New Hampshire
In Hidden Dangers: Subtle Signs of Failing Schools Betsy Gunzelmann presents a fresh and unique perspective at the conditions and climate of our schools. With the analytical skills, shaped by her experiences as a psychotherapist, she systematically examines the journey that too many of our children travel towards mediocrity and failure. Her disciplined approach, informed and shaped by her role as college professor, creates a context by which the not-so-obvious signs of danger challenging the well-being of our academic enterprise can be examined. Yet while analytic skills and research strength serve her well, it is the compassion of a teacher that is the heart of this book. Difficult issues examined and possible solutions recommended. Dr. Gunzelman is clearly not an uninvolved bystander. [This book] is her wake-up call for all who care about our schools and what goes in them. -- Dr. Francis Doucette, professor emeritus, Southern New Hampshire University
Betsy Gunzelmann's Hidden Dangers is at the same time a lovely and yet forceful examination of one of America's most pressing and vexing issues. With straightforward, even kindly prose, Professor Gunzelmann enlightens us on the matters of the crises in our schools, offers beautiful interpretations, and even more, solutions to the problems she addresses. Her book emerges as a primer in a significant field of educational psychology. It ought to be required reading for students, teachers, administrators, and parents, which means just about all of us. -- Thomas J. Cottle
This book is one people have been waiting for though they may not always have known it. It meets the needs of parents who may not have realized there are alternatives other than those they've been offered, and questions not always recognized or addressed. It is also a book for teachers, who have seen situations but might not recognize the fullness of what they may entail; or, who have felt they were more alone than there was need to be. Perhaps, even more so this is a book for administrators, superintendents, and members of school boards, or of government—the people charged with developing processes and procedures. Dr. Gunzelmann gives them questions to consider, options to pursue, and ways to respond respectfully and effectively to essential issues, ones overlooked to the disadvantage of all. -- Michael Noonan, Rochester School Department (NH)
Table of ContentsChapter 1 Understanding Hidden Dangers Chapter 2 A Necessary Foundation to Identify Hidden Dangers Chapter 3 Hidden Assumptions, Attitudes, and Procedures Chapter 4 Hidden Dangers in Testing Chapter 5 Hidden Dangers With Labeling Chapter 6 Hidden Dangers: Gender Problems in Our Schools Chapter 7 Hidden Dangers: Paradoxical Safety Problems in Our Schools Chapter 8 Hidden Dangers in Our School Buildings Chapter 9 Safe and Healthy School Climates Chapter 10 Transcending Hidden Dangers for All Children
