Table of Contents

Contents: Part I:Current Educational Models: Misguided By Scientific Psychology. Can Schools Be Growthful in a Non-Growthful World? Development and Learning: What Psychology Has Constructed. Part II:A New Cultural, Performatory Psychology. Vygotsky's Promise: The Unity Learning-Leading- Development. Performing Development: Non-Epistemological Learning. Part III:Radical Educational Alternatives and Their Developmental Potential. Project Golden Key: A Russian Experiment in Developmental Education. When Democratic Education is Developmental--The Sudbury Valley School Model. The Barbara Taylor School--A Development Community Where Children Learn. Not a Conclusion.

About the Author

Lois Holzman

Reviews

"Holzman passionately argues that educators need to dismiss a traditional emphasis on knowledge and concentrate on 'activating the human capacity to perform--to create ourselves by being who we are not'....This text packs much information in its 150 pages, both theoretically and practically....would serve as a worthwhile course text....[recommended] to any educators interested in rethinking the role of language, communication, epistemology, and performance in their own classrooms....prods us to stretch beyond our current selves and practices."
—Communication Education"...this volume merits inclusion for graduate students and researchers intent on understanding how learning takes place."
—CHOICE"...the book offers a fresh and unusual perspective on Vygotsky that is likely to stimulate discussion and disagreement."
—Contemporary Psychology"It is refreshing to read the writing of a theorist who puts her theory into practice in a very public way....the book lives up to its title in that it presents three institutions which offer an education operating within a model different from the dominant one. These case studies give hope to practitioners seeking evidence of successful alternatives to conventional school."
—British Educational Research Journal"...advances a passionate critique of the premises on which schooling rests and presents an original alternative that is synthesized from the psychology of Vygotsky and the philosophy of Wittgenstein. The book is smoothly written and its argument is well-grounded in the current literature in the neo-Vygotskian sociohistorical school of psychology/education. The notion that education should be primarily performative is distinctive and intriguing....The book will appeal to an audience seeking radical alternatives to current models of schooling."
—Steven Gelb
University of San Diego