Gil Talbot
From the Head of School A high school, no matter how sophisticated or famous, is, at the core, a simple operation: we bring together young people with adults for the purpose of teaching and learning. The way we make this connection may be changing; the subject matter we engage is shifting; the world is bigger, more complex, and more diverse. But fundamentally, we are in the business of an explicit, daily, human, emotional connection between students and faculty. As we move through the strategic planning process to guide the Academy over the next three to five years, we are looking hard at how innovation in teaching and learning makes sense at Andover. And as we consider this essential aspect of our work, we are reading a great deal. I’d like to recommend a few of the books that have been on my nightstand and that many other faculty have been reading as we do our own homework. College: What It Was, Is, and Should Be by Andrew Delbanco
Princeton University Press, 2012
Columbia University professor Andrew Delbanco takes up the problem of what college ought to be. In exploring “the traditional four-year college experience,” Delbanco challenges us to think hard about the premise of a liberal arts education before we move too quickly toward a world of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and other newfangled ideas. The New American High School by Theodore R. Sizer Jossey-Bass, 2013
In addition to being Phillips Academy’s 12th head of school, Theodore Sizer is a giant in 20thcentury educational theory and practice. Faculty Emerita Nancy Faust Sizer, the late Dr. Sizer’s widow, wrote the introduction. Dr. Sizer wrote this book and nearly published it before his death; Mrs. Sizer and their editor brought it to fruition last year. It is a great introduction to the Sizers’ work, which continues to have reverberations throughout our Academy today. (I have in mind a present-day Andover update to Sizer’s 6
Andover | Winter 2014
short chapter, the ninth, on technology.) [Editor’s note: For more about The New American High School, see Andover Bookshelf, page 52.]
Why Teach? In Defense of a Real Education by Mark Edmundson Bloomsbury, 2013
University of Virginia humanities professor Mark Edmundson makes a passionate statement about what makes a teacher great. And while the Harper, 2007 author is the crankiest of the lot I This book is a wonderful synthesis of recommend in this column, this book hundreds of studies of how the brain hits the hardest. It is well worth readworks, especially with respect to reading. If you are an Abbot Academy or ing, by Tufts professor Maryanne Phillips Academy graduate, I suspect Wolf, who specializes in early childthis book will make you recall your hood education. The emphasis falls favorite teachers from high school and on kids younger than ours, but the how they opened your mind. I know implications for our student body are it has made me rethink my approach clear—especially for students whose both to administration and classroom parents didn’t read to them or encourteaching (which in my case is the great age them to read at an early age. joy of winter term). The One World Schoolhouse: Education Reimagined Reading these books, as stimulating by Salman Khan as they are, is no substitute for the Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain by Maryanne Wolf
Twelve, 2012
As you may have heard, we at Phillips Academy are partnering through our math department with Sal Khan and his team at Khan Academy. But if you think you know Khan’s views on education based on what you’ve seen on his website, think again. This is an impressive, thoughtful book about education broadly conceived.
best interactions, face to face, with a great teacher. We have the luxury of personal connections at Andover, and I give thanks every day for the opportunity to work with both the talented adults and the curious, energized students who come to our campus to live and learn. John Palfrey