A Journalist's Education in the Classroom: The Challenge of School Reform

After an impressive career in journalism, David S. Awbrey became a middle-school social studies teacher in Springfield, Missouri, a typical American community that he uses as a compelling case study to explore many of the social and academic problems facing education nationwide. A Journalist's Education in the Classroom is an insightful, poignant and often humorous account of his experiences teaching medieval and Renaissance history. What Awbrey found in the classroom should alarm all Americans: students obsessed with popular culture and disengaged from academics, teachers intellectually unprepared for the 21st-century global society, and an educational establishment focused more on protecting its own power than on ensuring that the next generation possesses the scholastic skills necessary to advance American democracy and prosperity. But Awbrey offers hope. Citing historical precedents, including Charlemagne's lifting Europe out of the ignorance of post-Roman Empire barbarism and the 15th-century Italian Renaissance, he examines how the rediscovery of classical learning preserved Western civilization and persuasively argues that America's future hinges on a similar restoration of the liberal arts to primacy in the nation's schools.