Two Book Reviews on Schools

In his book, Schools That Work, George H. Wood (1992) describes and discusses schools throughout the nation that effectively meet educational objectives. In his introductory remarks, Woods delineates certain features said to be common to all effective schools. Each of these features is more thoroughly described and examined in the body of the book which focuses on the methods and procedures used by several different teachers working at many different kinds and types of schools in various areas of the country.

The common features of excellent schools which are cited by Wood include: halls decorated with student projects; classrooms that contain lots of books and not just texts; classrooms that brim with craft materials and hands-on equipment such as cameras and tape-recorders; small group arrangement of classroom furniture and ample workspaces; friendly teachers; open-door style of principal management; classroom environments that both foster and facilitate learning; and a child-centered rather than teacher-centered approach.

In general, the book has several good features and a couple of fairly problematic features. Regarding the positives, an excellent feature of the book is its personal, non-formal style of writing. Wood collected data for the book by travelling to various schools throughout America. At these schools, he both observed and participated in classroom activities. Moreover, he stayed in the homes of many of the teachers whose classroo

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ducation." Wood states, for example, that Smith's instructional approach evidences the democratic spirit of community, tolerance, and collaboration toward the goal of arriving at mutually satisfactory solutions to social difficulties. What makes these excursions from practical, concrete events to the more abstract values or concepts they are said to represent, problematic is the tone they set. Specifically, these shifts give the book a "preachy" feeling. There is a sense of being told "the gospel of education" in which all methods and practices other than those advocated by Smith are not only incorrect, they may be downright totalitarian! It is difficult to believe that educators choosing more structured, or formal, or traditional American teaching methods are somehow simultaneously fostering things undemocratic. The notion is just too simplistic. Wood might have gotten his point across better if he started the book by defining the terms "democracy," and "democratic education," supplying these definitions by a brief review of what some of the leading educators constitute these constructs. He could have then related the specific events he mentions in his various descriptions of teachers to these initial and agreed upon

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