First published 1972
Jonathan Kozol explores the free school movement that emerged in American education during the late 1960s and early 1970s. He examines how parents, teachers, and communities created independent schools outside the traditional public system. These institutions rejected conventional classroom structures, standardized curricula, and authoritarian teaching methods. Kozol describes the philosophical foundations driving these experiments in democratic education. He analyzes both the successes and failures of various free school attempts across the country. The book documents how these alternative institutions struggled with funding, organization, and sustainability while pursuing their vision of child-centered learning. Kozol presents the free school movement as both a critique of mainstream education and an attempt to create more humane learning environments for children.
Genres: 20th-century, education, activism, academia, american-history
Vibes: intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: critique-of-mainstream, social-change
Period: 1960s, 1970s
146 pages · Hardcover · Houghton Mifflin