Skeptical Visionary

SEYMOUR SARASON is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Psychology at Yale University. He is the author of over forty books and is considered to be one of the most significant researchers in education and educational psychology in the country. ROBERT FRIED is an Associate Professor in the School of Education at Northeastern University, and is the author of The Passionate Teacher: A Practical Guide and The Passionate Learner: How Teachers and Parents Can Help Children Reclaim the Joy of Discovery.

"Fried has judiciously selected 24 essays written over a 40-year period. The approach provides both a coherence and a context for Sarason's wide-ranging intellect and results in a rich and deep appreciation of one of the most influential minds in modern psychology." Contemporary Psychology "What does it take for the constituents of education--teachers, students, parents, administrators, and, above all, the culture of the school--to work together synergistically? To find out, read this distillation of Seymour Sarason's fifty years of reflections--always challenging, often wise." --Howard Gardner, author of Good Work: When Excellence and Ethics Meet "Every time I'm getting too cocky, and think I've got 'the answer,' I read and reread Sarason. He pricks my conscience, but in such a delightful way that I go back for more. He goads me into thinking deeper, and being a bit more honest with myself. I find myself always wanting to argue back, wiggle out a bit, build a roadblock to his devastating logic. Of course, that's what Sarason's after--and it works. This collection puts together most of my favorites and it invites a new generation of readers to become skeptical idealists, in the best and most necessary sense of that phrase." --Deborah Meier, author of The Power of Their Ideas: Lessons for America from a Small School in Harlem "The Skeptical Visionary is an indispensable guide to understanding one of the most thoughtful education thinkers of the 20th century--a must-read for practitioners and policymakers alike. Fried's introductory essay provides a concise and illuminating framework for viewing the work of Sarason. This work is an invaluable contribution to the literature of school reform." --Tony Wagner, Co-Director, Change Leadership Group, Harvard University, Graduate School of Education, and author of Making the Grade: Reinventing America's Schools

• Editor's Note and Acknowledgments Editor's Introduction: Seymour Sarason: Sculptor of Ideas Part I: The Teacher 1. Powerlessness Unanticipated 2. You Know More Than You Think and More Than They Give You Credit For 3. Why Teachers Must Also Be Psychologists 4. Teaching as a Lonely Profession 5. Power Relationships in the Classroom 6. Constitutional Issues in the Classroom 7. The "Nonreading" Professional Part II: The School 8. The School Culture and Processes of Change 9. Underestimating Complexity 10. Programmatic and Behavioral Regularities 11. Confronting Intractability 12. Conceptualizing the Educational System 13. Predictable Features and Problems in the Creation of Charter Schools and Other New Organizational Settings Part III: Students and Parents 14. Themes from Childhood and Adolescence 15. Columbine High School and Contexts of Productive Learning 16. An Overarching Goal for Students 17. Students as Teachers 18. Parental Involvement and Power Struggles: Applying the Political Principle to Relationships Within the School and Beyond 19. The Governors: Teachers and Parents Part IV: The Political and Policy Agenda 20. The Non-Learning, Non-Self-Correcting System 21. Are Schools Unique Organizations? 22. Our Expectations of Political Leaders 23. America's Only Serious Education President 24. What Should We Do? Part V: Tables of Contents from Sarason's Books on Education Educational Reform: A Self-Scrutinizing Memoir Questions You Should Ask About Charter Schools and Vouchers American Psychology and Schools Teaching as a Performing Art Charter Schools: Another Flawed Educational Reform? Crossing Boundaries: Collaboration, Coordination, and the Redefinition of Resources Political Leadership and Educational Failure How Schools Might Be Governed and Why Barometers of Change: Individual, Educational, and Social Transformation Revisiting "The Culture of the School and the Problem of Change" Parental Involvement and the Political Principle School Change: The Personal Development of a Point of View Psychoanalysis, General Custer and the Verdicts of History and Other Essays on Psychology in the Social Scene Letters to a Serious Education President You Are Thinking of Teaching? Opportunities, Problems, Realities The Care for Change: Rethinking the Preparation of Educators The Predictable Failure of Educational Reform The Challenge of Art to Psychology The Making of an American Psychologist: An Autobiography Schooling in America: Scapegoat and Salvation Educational Handicap, Public Policy, and Social History: A Broadened Perspective on Mental Retardation Work, Aging, and Social Change: Professionals and the One Life-One Career Imperative The Creation of Settings and the Future Societies The Culture o f the School and the Problem of Change The Psycho-Educational Clinic: Papers and Research Studies The Preparation of Teachers: A n Unstudied Problem in Education Anxiety in Elementary School Children: A Report of Research