The prizewinning educator's brilliant and timely meditation on the misleading ways in which we teach the story of Rosa Parks: a "Detroit News" pick for notable books on Rosa Parks.
Originally published in the fall of 2005 shortly before Rosa Parks died, "She Would Not Be Moved" is a timely and important exploration of how the story of Rosa Parks and the Montgomery bus boycott has been distorted when taught in schools. Hailed by the "New York Times Book Review" when it was first published as having "the transcendent power that allows us to see...alternate ways of viewing our history and understanding what is going on in our classrooms," this expanded version of Kohl's original groundbreaking discussion "deftly catalogs problems with the prevailing presentations of Parks and offers [a] more historically accurate, politically pointed and age-appropriate alternative" ("Chicago Tribune").
In addition to Marian Wright Edelman's introduction, "She Would Not Be Moved" includes an original essay by Cynthia Brown on civil rights activists Septima Clark, Virginia Durr, and Rosa Parks; a teachers' resource guide to educational materials about Rosa Parks and the civil rights movement; and an appendix explaining how to evaluate textbooks for young people about this critical period in U.S. history.

Poetry has the power to move and challenge the reader. It can intensify or even celebrate misery, be cynical or wry, or just laugh outright in an outrageous way. Poetry is as serious and antic as life, and yet reading modern poetry can be shocking to our sense of what language is or must be.

In A Grain of Poetry, Herbert Kohl presents a series of guideposts to help everyone read poetry and discover those poems that inform and inspire them. In clear, direct language, he covers all of the essential-but often unchartedpaths to understanding poetry: form and structure, line breaks and pauses, rhythm and melody, imagery, and recitation. Written by one of the country's leading educators, A Grain of Poetry is a comprehensive and accessible guide for all poets, students, and poetry lovers.

This is an essential guide to these intriguing and important words. Organized by topic--including the Arts, Literature, Religion, Psychology, Economics, and Political Science--the book explains each word in a comprehensive yet concise definition, with a pronunciation guide and derivation added for easy reference.

With the passion and wisdom that have made him one of our leading educators, Herbert Kohl has written a wonderful book about how he has done theater with young people and how you can too. He tells how to explore improve, develop significant themes out of improve, use dialogue and monologue as starting points for students to write their own plays, develop full performance, and how to adapt plays and stories for performance. He also includes generous excerpts from plays and stories that are particularly good examples.

"This book is for people thinking about becoming teachers as well as for people in teacher training and for people who are in the classroom and think of themselves as still learning how to teach. It is about the specifics of working with children and developing curriculum material. It is also about educational politics, the social structure of the school, and the ways in which the feelings we have as adults reflect the work we do in school."
--from the Preface by Herbert Kohl
Herbert Kohl is one of America's most thoughtful and best known-writers on education. In "On Teaching "he explores the reasons people choose to teach in elementary and secondary schools. He describes the skills and techniques they must develop in dealing with students and parents. He stresses the importance of becoming attuned to the social system that exists among fellow teachers as well as among the members of the community one serves.

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).