Think Together

We are having the wrong conversations about improving public education in America. Some say teachers unions are the main problem, and if we just get rid of them and create more choice and competition, the market will take care of itself. Another view is that corporate reformers are trying to privatize education and profiteer from America's second largest industry. If we would just feed the system with more taxpayer money, and add universal preschool, the system would perform just fine. Neither approach is likely to meet with broad, sustained success. If America is going to fulfill its economic potential and rebuild its middle class, a high performing public education system is foundational. If you look past the superficial debate, there is more common ground (and reason for hope) than you might think. And in places you might have overlooked. Randy Barth offers a unique perspective. A former stockbroker and corporate CEO, he founded a nonprofit organization called THINK Together. In little more than a decade, it has grown into the top half of one percent of all nonprofit organizations in America. A fusion of business people and educators, THINK Together works in partnership with more than 450 traditional public schools serving low-income kids. The outsider-insider perspective Randy's gained along the way, supported by data that shows what's working, needs to be heard if we are serious about looking for systemic solutions. This is a book for everybody. It describes Randy and his colleagues' personal and spiritual journey to the frontiers of hope. If you are a citizen, taxpayer, parent or grandparent, community volunteer, mentor, philanthropist, school board member, teacher, administrator, a classified school employee, a policy maker or influencer, or a person of faith; this book is a must-read as together we look for solutions that will make our schools, and our country, great again. It all starts with you!

Changes to the landscape of higher education in the United States over the past decades have urged scholars grappling with issues of privilege, inequality, and social immobility to think differently about how we learn and deliberate. Thinking Together is a multidisciplinary conversation about how people approached similar questions of learning and difference in the nineteenth century. In the open air, in homes, in public halls, and even in prisons, people pondered recurring issues: justice, equality, careers, entertainment, war and peace, life and death, heaven and hell, the role of education, and the nature of humanity itself. Paying special attention to the dynamics of race and gender in intellectual settings, the contributors to this volume consider how myriad groups and individuals—many of whom lived on the margins of society and had limited access to formal education—developed and deployed knowledge useful for public participation and public advocacy around these concerns. Essays examine examples such as the women and men who engaged lecture culture during the Civil War; Irish immigrants who gathered to assess their relationship to the politics and society of the New World; African American women and men who used music and theater to challenge the white gaze; and settler-colonists in Liberia who created forums for envisioning a new existence in Africa and their relationship to a U.S. homeland. Taken together, this interdisciplinary exploration shows how learning functioned not only as an instrument for public action but also as a way to forge meaningful ties with others and to affirm the value of an intellectual life. By highlighting people, places, and purposes that diversified public discourse, Thinking Together offers scholars across the humanities new insights and perspectives on how difference enhances the human project of thinking together.

This book draws on extensive research to provide a ground-breaking new account of the relationship between dialogue and children’s learning development. It closely relates the research findings to real-life classrooms, so that it is of practical value to teachers and students concerned that their children are offered the best possible learning opportunities. The authors provide a clear, accessible and well-illustrated case for the importance of dialogue in children's intellectual development and support this with a new and more educationally relevant version of socio-cultural theory, which explains the fascinating relationship between dialogues and learning. In educational terms, a sociocultural theory that relates social, cultural and historical processes, interpersonal communication and applied linguistics, is an ideal way of explaining how school experience helps children learn and develop. By using evidence of how the collective construction of knowledge is achieved and how engagement in dialogues shapes children's educational progress and intellectual development, the authors provide a text which is essential for educational researchers, postgraduate students of education and teachers, and is also of interest to many psychologists and applied linguists.

Introducing a spelling test to a student by saying, 'Let' s see how many words you know,' is different from saying, 'Let's see how many words you know already.' It is only one word, but the already suggests that any words the child knows are ahead of expectation and, most important, that there is nothing permanent about what is known and not known. Peter Johnston Grounded in research, Opening Minds: Using Language to Change Livesshows how words can shape students' learning, their sense of self, and their social, emotional and moral development. Make no mistake: words have the power to open minds – or close them. Following up his groundbreaking book, Choice Words, author Peter Johnston continues to demonstrate how the things teachers say (and don't say) have surprising consequences for the literate lives of students. In this new book, Johnston shows how the words teachers choose can affect the worlds students inhabit in the classroom. He explains how to engage children with more productive talk and how to create classrooms that support students' intellectual development, as well as their development as human beings.

There is considerable interest in education around the world in flexible thinking and learning skills but very little consensus as to the nature of these skills and how best to promote them in schools. This book puts forward a clear and practical framework for understanding thinking, creativity and learning to learn as the fruits of engagement in dialogue. It also outlines in detail how this framework can be applied to teaching across the curriculum at both primary and secondary level, drawing on the best practices associated with the teaching thinking; creativity; and learning to learn movements explaining their success in terms of dialogic theory. In particular the book incorporates aspects of a number of thinking skills approaches, such as Lipman�s Philosophy for Children approach, as well as features of contemporary innovations in education such as assessment for learning and the development of creativity. Each chapter opens with a vignette to set the scene and continue into a light and popularly written exposition of theory, before moving on to a description of practice and concluding with practical guidelines for how to teach for thinking and creativity in schools and classrooms. The first six chapters in the book have more of a focus on developing core theoretical themes and the following six chapters in the second half of the book focus more on practice-led themes. The relationship between theory and practice is treated as flexible and dynamic, theory being developed by practice as much as practice implementing theory.

'Why should we care about philosophy?' Public philosophy, or 'doing philosophy' in the community, is an important and growing trend – revealed not only by the phenomenon of the Parisian philosophy café, but also the contemporary rise of multiple grassroots projects, for example the Philosophy in Pubs movement. This book is the first to offer academic examination of the theoretical contributions and practical applications of community philosophy. Bringing together voices from diverse contexts and subject areas, from activism and political action to religious environments, arts organisations and museums to maximum security prisons, this collection asks key questions about the point of making philosophy available for everyone: 'How do you “do philosophy” with the public?'; 'Is philosophy in the community the same as academic philosophy?'; 'Why is community philosophy important?' Including contributions from practitioners and researchers from professional philosophy, education, healthcare, and community philosophy, this collection offers perspectives on a growing area of study. It offers a timely and critical introduction to, and analysis of, what philosophy can be when grounded in socially-engaged activities.

Gather successful people from all walks of life -- what would they have in common? The way they think! Now you can think as they do and revolutionize your work and life! A Wall Street Journal bestseller, How Successful People Think is the perfect, compact read for today's fast-paced world. America's leadership expert John C. Maxwell will teach you how to be more creative and when to question popular thinking. You'll learn how to capture the big picture while focusing your thinking. You'll find out how to tap into your creative potential, develop shared ideas, and derive lessons from the past to better understand the future. With these eleven keys to more effective thinking, you'll clearly see the path to personal success. The 11 keys to successful thinking include: Big-Picture Thinking - seeing the world beyond your own needs and how that leads to great ideas Focused Thinking - removing mental clutter and distractions to realize your full potential Creative Thinking - thinking in unique ways and making breakthroughs Shared Thinking - working with others to compound results Reflective Thinking - looking at the past to gain a better understanding of the future.