This book introduces the Descriptive Review of the Child, a disciplined, collaborative method for understanding children as thinkers and learners….In an educational climate that calls increasingly for standardization, this book is a timely resource for educators, parents, and administrators who value individual human capacity.

Teachers College Press, Teachers College, Columbia University

In an elegant affirmation of human capacity and creativity, Patricia Carini counters high-stakes testing, the pathologizing of children, and the unrelenting critique of the public schools with a persuasive account of how children, all children, actively make sense of the world and their experience through the making of works such as drawings, constructions, and writings. This engaging and vivid account of the day-to-day possibilities of learning and teaching, and ultimately the remaking of the schools, is indispensable reading for anyone called to teach or committed to a liberating education for all children.

Teachers College Press, Teachers College, Columbia University

The authors introduce the Prospect Center’s Descriptive Review of Practice, a collaborative inquiry process that provides an opportunity for teachers to examine their practice and gain new perspectives from other participants. The contributors to this volume respond to each child’s modes of thinking as they develop curriculum or find “wiggle room” in curricula they are given. By demonstrating how it is possible to pursue careful knowledge of craft, this book offers ways of teaching that allow for continuing growth and change.

Teachers College Press, Teachers College, Columbia University