| Summary: | Critically Engaged Learning: Connecting to Young Lives by John Smyth, Lawrence Angus and Peter McInerney, Barry Down provides revitalization and recharged zeal for educators struggling to reach disengaged youth. Teachers show a remarkable capacity to build productive relationships with students (Smyth et al., 2008). This book celebrates the stories of successful teachers and communities who engage young people in ‘real world’ learning. Though the debate on early school leavers and the enhancement of school arrangements for young learners has been in place for some time (Smythe & McInerney, 2007), this study moves beyond the school context “to examine the institutional and community processes of capacity building that lead to improved learning for students” (p. x). By critically interrogating many of the basic assumptions on which issues of student retention and student engagement are based, this book turns the tide of student disengagement towards ‘a people’s scholarship’ (Featherstone, 1989).
|
|---|