In this classic of natural history, National Medal of Science winner May Berenbaum weaves a web of spellbinding portraits that acquaints readers with the multitudes sharing our world and, alas, our kitchen. Go small or go home as Berenbaum reveals: Why the "Jesus bug" can walk on water How the katydid's nighttime noise inspired romantic poetry The trapping prowess of the hungry antlion That disgusting thing chiggers do to eat your skin A witty and educational guide that's as accessible as the container of flour you should have closed more tightly, Ninety-nine Gnats, Nits, and Nibblers is the fascinating story of our million closest neighbors.

In this provocative book, influential scholar E.D. Hirsch, Jr., addresses critical issues in contemporary education reform - over-testing, teacher blaming, preschool fadeout, and the persistence of achievement gaps over time. In each case, he shows how cherished truisms about education and child development have led to unintended and negative consequences. Drawing on recent findings in neuroscience and new data from France, he provides new evidence for the argument that a coherent, knowledge-based elementary curriculum is essential to providing the foundations for children's life success and ensuring equal opportunity for students of all backgrounds.

"Profound, vital and correct. Hirsch highlights the essence of our American being and the radical changes in education necessary to sustain that essence. Concerned citizens, teachers, and parents take note! We ignore this book at our peril."-- Joel Klein, former Chancellor of New York City Public Schools Now in paperback, the bestselling author of Cultural Literacy delivers a powerful manifesto on the failures of America's early education system and its impact on our current national malaise, advocating for a shared knowledge curriculum students everywhere can be taught--an educational foundation that can help improve and strengthen America's unity, identity, and democracy. In How to Educate a Citizen, E.D. Hirsch continues the conversation he began thirty years ago with his classic bestseller Cultural Literacy, urging America's public schools, particularly at the elementary level, to educate our children more effectively to help heal and preserve the nation. Since the 1960s, our schools have been relying on "child-centered learning." History, geography, science, civics, and other essential knowledge have been dumbed down by vacuous learning "techniques" and "values-based" curricula; indoctrinated by graduate schools of education, administrators and educators have believed they are teaching reading and critical thinking skills. Yet these cannot be taught in the absence of strong content, Hirsch argues. The consequence is a loss of shared knowledge that would enable us to work together, understand one another, and make coherent, informed decisions. A broken approach to school not only leaves our children under-prepared and erodes the American dream but also loosens the spiritual bonds and unity that hold the nation together. Drawing on early schoolmasters and educational reformers such as Noah Webster and Horace Mann, Hirsch charts the rise and fall of the American early education system and provides a blueprint for closing the national gap in knowledge, communications, and allegiance. Critical and compelling, How to Educate a Citizen galvanizes our schools to equip children with the power of shared knowledge.

Yes, we should hold public schools accountable for effectively spending the vast funds with which they have been entrusted. But accountability policies like No Child Left Behind, based exclusively on math and reading test scores, have narrowed the curriculum, misidentified both failing and successful schools, and established irresponsible expectations for what schools can accomplish. Instead of just grading progress in one or two narrow subjects, we should hold schools accountable for the broad outcomes we expect from public education —basic knowledge and skills, critical thinking, an appreciation of the arts, physical and emotional health, and preparation for skilled employment —and then develop the means to measure and ensure schools’ success in achieving them. Grading Education describes a new kind of accountability plan for public education, one that relies on higher-quality testing, focuses on professional evaluation, and builds on capacities we already possess. This important resource: Describes the design of an alternative accountability system that would not corrupt education as does NCLB and its state testing systems Explains the original design of NAEP in the 1960s, and shows why it should be revived. Defines the broad goals of education, beyond math and reading test scores, and reports on surveys to confirm public and governmental support for such goals. Relates these broad goals of education to the desire for accountability in education.

Richard Hofstadter, the distinguished historian and twice winner of the Pulitzer Prize, brilliantly assesses the ideas and contributions of the three major American interpretive historians of the twentieth Frederick Jackson Turner, Charles A. Beard and V.L. Parrington. These men, whose views of history were shaped in large part by the political battles of the Progressive era, provided the Progressive movement with a usable past and the American liberal mind with a historical tradition. The Progressive Historians is at once a critique of historical thought during this decisive period of American development and an account of how these three writers led American historians into the controversial political world of the twentieth century. Turner, in developing his idea that American democracy is the outcome of the experience of frontier expansion and the settlement of the West, introduced his fellow historians to a set of new concepts and methods, and in doing so doing re-drew the guidelines of American historiography. Beard insisted upon the elitist origins of the Constitution, crusaded for the economic interpretation of history, and ultimately staked his historical reputation on an isolationist view of recent American foreign policy. Parrington emphasized the moral and social functions of literature, and read the history of literature as a history of the national political mind. In recent years, the tide has run against the Progressive historians, as one specialist after another has taken issue with their interpretations. The movement of contemporary historical thought has led to a rediscovery of the complexity of the American past. Although he cannot share the faith of the Progressive historians in the sufficiency of American liberalism as a guide to the modern world, Richard Hofstadter believes we have much to learn about ourselves from a reconsideration of their insights.

At each stage of their lives--from infant cribs to teen dropouts to welfare dependents to basement shelters for the elderly--the people of the underclass are shunned by the rest of the population, even by the working poor. The cycle is vicious: Underclass children get little help in their own homes (when they have homes); they are shoved aside at school until they drop out like their parents did; they are unable to find decent work without an education; they have children of their own for whom they cannot provide adequate care; and finally, they are dumped into human (but inhumane) warehouses for the not-quite-deceased. America cannot afford to do this to its poorest citizens; we cannot afford not to rescue the underclass. In the richest country on earth, the people of the underclass are not merely a problem, they are a scandal.

An Eater Best Food Book of 2023 A Smithsonian Best Food Book of 2023 From the New York Times- bestselling author of Cod and Salt , a delectable look at the cultural, historical, and gastronomical layers of one of the world's most beloved culinary staples - featuring original illustrations and recipes from around the world -now in paperback. As Julia Child once said, “It is hard to imagine a civilization without onions.” Historically, she's been right-and not just in the kitchen. Flourishing in just about every climate and culture around the world, onions have provided the essential basis not only for sautés, stews, and sauces, but for medicines, metaphors, and folklore. Now they're Kurlansky's most flavorful infatuation yet as he sets out to explore how and why the crop reigns from Italy to India and everywhere in between. Featuring historical images and his own pen-and-ink drawings, Kurlansky begins with the science and history of the only sulfuric acid–spewing plant, then digs through its twenty varieties and the cultures built around them. Entering the kitchen, Kurlansky celebrates the raw, roasted, creamed, marinated, and pickled. Including a recipe section featuring more than one hundred dishes from around the world, The Core of an Onion shares the secrets to celebrated Parisian chef Alain Senderens's onion soup eaten to cure late-night drunkenness; Hemingway's raw onion and peanut butter sandwich; and the Gibson, a debonair gin martini garnished with a pickled onion. Just as the scent of sautéed onions will lure anyone to the kitchen, The Core of an Onion is sure to draw readers into their savory stories at first taste.

"Technology provides new ways for students to receive first contact with material, enhanced opportunities to connect and create community, better ways to ensure that students are prepared for class, and new options for the sequence of learning encounters and activities. “Teaching Naked” is really about rethinking the how, where, when, and what of technology. José Bowen’s Teaching Naked Cycle provides higher education professionals with a practical, student-centered way to increase opportunities for interactivity. Teaching Naked Techniques helps higher education faculty create more effective and engaging lessons--or groups of lessons--on a wide range of topics. Based on Bowen’s Teaching Naked Cycle, the book focuses on each step of class preparation from the student’s perspective. There is a chapter on each step in the cycle with an abundance of discipline-specific examples (10-20 for each concept) plus additional resources. The book helps faculty take the first step in adopting this new pedagogy; by the final chapter, readers will learn how to implement larger (e.g. entire course) redesign projects. As the “Techniques” title implies, faculty can turn to this book to find multiple ideas at different points throughout the semester"--

Examines the public school systems in Chicago and San Francisco, and argues that equal opportunity is no longer regarded as a right

A New Yorker Best Book of 2024 A captivating journey of the expansive world of medieval travel, from London to Constantinople to the court of China and beyond. Europeans of the Middle Ages were the first to use travel guides to orient their wanderings, as they moved through a world punctuated with miraculous wonders and beguiling encounters. In this vivid and alluring history, medievalist Anthony Bale invites readers on an odyssey across the medieval world, recounting the advice that circulated among those venturing to the road for pilgrimage, trade, diplomacy, and war. Journeying alongside scholars, spies, and saints, from Western Europe to the Far East, the Antipodes and the ends of the earth, Bale provides indispensable information on the exchange rate between Bohemian ducats and Venetian groats, medieval cures for seasickness, and how to avoid extortionist tour guides and singing sirens. He takes us from the streets of Rome, more ruin than tourist spot, and tours of the Khan's court in Beijing to Mamluk-controlled Jerusalem, where we ride asses across the holy terrain, and bustling bazaars of Tabriz. We also learn of rumored fantastical places, like ones where lambs grow on trees and giant canes grow fruit made of gems. And we are offered a glimpse of what non-European travelers thought of the West on their own travels. Using previously untranslated contemporaneous documents from a colorful range of travelers, and from as far and wide as Turkey, Iceland, North Africa, and Russia, A Travel Guide to the Middle Ages is a witty and unforgettable exploration of how Europeans understood--and often misunderstood--the larger world.

The government of any community by the members of that community is widely praised and almost universally agreed to be the best of governmental forms. But it is not so well or so deeply understood as it ought to be. This book, DEMOCRACY, is a thorough analytical account of the philosophy of democracy, in six Parts. Part One is a discussion of the nature of democracy -- what it is, and what it is not. Democracy is government through the participation of its members or citizens. Understanding its nature fully requires an understanding of the several dimensions of participation: its breadth, its depth, and its range. Part Two explains the presuppositions of democracy. Some underlying community, and the recognition of that community by its members, is presupposed, as is also a membership exhibiting a substantial degree of rationality. Part Three analyzes the instruments of democracy. Agreed upon decision-making rules is a primary instrument. Majority rule, having many variations, is only one such rule, and there are likely to be different rules for decisions of different kinds. Equally essential in almost every democracy is some representative system, since direct democracy is feasible only in limited contexts. Part Four gives a lengthy account of the conditions of democracy -- the circumstances that must be realized if democracy is to succeed. Five kinds of conditions are analyzed. (1) The material conditions of democracy are critical. These include the environment in which democracy can thrive, the mechanical needs of an electoral system, and most important, the economic conditions of democracy. (2) The constitutional conditions of democracy protect the rights that citizens in a democracy must be free to exercise. Freedom is not identical with democracy, but is required by it. Most critical is the right to speak, criticize, and publish freely. (3) The intellectual conditions of democracy concern the capacity of the citizens to understand the issues they will confront. Even the most rational citizens must receive the education that self-government requires. (4) The psychological conditions of democracy -- the spirit of criticism and self-confidence, the willingness compromise and to accept electoral defeat, the realism and flexibility that the complexities of politics require, are all conditions without which democracy cannot succeed. (5) The protective conditions of democracy are made necessary by the reality of serious threats, external and internal. Democracies must be prepared to defend themselves in war, but must keep military institutions under control. Those who would undermine the democracy from within, even if inadvertently, must be defended against without vitiating rights that democratic citizens must enjoy. Part Five deals with the intellectual defense of democracy. Over the long run democracy is vindicated by the freedoms and other social circumstances it tends to promote. Democracy tends to produce just laws and a loyal citizenry, as well as encourage the peaceful resolution of disputes. More deeply, democracy is justified by a full understanding of its moral foundation, the fundamental equality of its members. The only system of government that can recognize this equality concretely is the one that gives to each community member the right to an equal voice in its direction. Part Six addresses the prospects of democracy over the near and long term future. In most of the nations of the world, but not all of them, the prospects for democracy over the near term are good. But over the long term increasing population and the increasing difficulty of maintaining the conditions of democracy render its prospects much less promising. Increasing material inequalities, and above all increasing educational and intellectual inequalities, make it probable that over most of the globe democracy is not likely to meet with lasting success.

Sermons of pioneering lesbian-feminist rabbi Sheila Shulman, published to mark her retirement from the congregation she founded in London. "Sermon-writing is not a lost art ...in Sheila Shulman we have a gifted, literate, compassionate and committed exponent. Those who know Sheila Shulman from her community work as founding rabbi of Beit Klal Yisrael, or the wide range of educational, social or community tasks she has undertaken, will recognise in every word the breadth of her culture, and the depth of her feelings, for causes but above all for people." - Jonathan Magonet

The edited version of The Jew in the Modern World, edited by the authors specifically for a educational Holocaust class.

"How do societies go through major technological, economic and structural changes peacefully? The Nordic Secret explores how Denmark, Norway and Sweden went from poor feudal agricultural societies to rich industrialized democracies thanks to the German educational concept of Bildung. The book also investigates the close relationship between Bildung and contemporary developmental psychology, i.e. the concepts of "ego-development" and "transformative learning". The Nordic Secret concludes with a discussion about what we can learn from this positive transformation and how to apply it in the current global crises"-- Publisher description.

A personal memoir traces the "New York Times" sportswriter's journey through his unpromising educational years to become a writer, describing his father's influence on his character, his discovery of his writing passion, and his relationships with such individuals as columnist Red Smith, Hall of Fame coach Red Holzman, and Michael Jordan.

Pt. 1 (pp. 43-172) discusses various aspects of the Eichmann trial in 1961, including Israeli reactions to Eichmann's capture, especially those of David Ben-Gurion; technical and investigative preparations for the trial; the witnesses, most of whom were Holocaust survivors; the appointment of the defense attorney and the judges; and the sentencing. Pt. 2 (pp. 175-240) deals with effects of the trial on various groups in Israel: Holocaust survivors, youth, the Sephardi community, and the educational system. Pt. 3 (pp. 243-287) discusses various issues which were raised and debated as a result of the trial, as well as whether it was actually a show trial. Contends that it was a trial about the past, for the future.

Make Your Own Bar/Bat Mitzvah is using and inspiring guide that takes you step-by-step through the process of creating a very personal and meaningful Bar/Bat Mitzvah. This book offers a joyful and effective planning process that will help you produce a coming of age ritual filled with innovative ideas and sound guidance. Rabbi Goldie Milgram provides an effective, exciting process to help you organize this experience to meet your needs, in particular your studies, mentors, service, Torah talk, party, gifts and expressions of appreciation. Pragmatic and inspiring, this ground-breaking work will help students, families and communities to create healthy and memorably happy bar/bat mitzvah experiences. Rabbi Goldie Milgram is spearheading the Bar/Bat Mitzvah Institute Initiative, developed under a grant from the Nathan Cummings Foundation and focused upon creating more meaningful and effective ways of preparing students for bar/bat mitzvah. Author of Reclaiming Judaism as a Spiritual Practice: Holy Days and Shabbat , she is Founder and Executive Director of the non-profit educational research and training group, P?nai Yachadut and also runs the highly regarded web site family ReclaimingJudaism.org. ?Reb Goldie Milgram is an extraordinary, creative, and wise teacher/mentor/guide/partner in the exploration of the Bar/Bat Mitzvah process. She takes the reader on a multi-dimensioned journey to discover various meaningful traditions and rituals and, in turn, to express them into a spiritually significant celebration. This book is the Bar/Bat Mitzvah's equivalent to What Color Is Your Parachute.? -Peninnah Schram, author, Stories One Generation Tells to Another ?Rabbi Goldie Milgram restores relevance and spirituality to the process of becoming bar/bat mitzvah. Her guidance is delivered with great wisdom and compassion. I highly recommend this work.? -David A Cooper, author of God is a Verb

The epitome of the modernist engineer-architect-artist, El Lissitzky is one of the most influential and genuinely experimental artists of the early twentieth century. Equally prolific as a painter, designer, architect and photographer, he connected countries and cultures as a leading ambassador between the Soviet and European avant-gardes of the 1920s, promoting Suprematist and Constructivist art in the West and European abstract movements in Russia. For El Lissitzky, art was conceived not as a personal expression and production of objects, but rather as a collective and social activity. Working with Malevich, he developed the new visual language of Suprematism, which he applied not only to painting, but also to print and book works, architectural and theater projects, ceramics, educational theory and propaganda. Fusing this array of media, his three-dimensional work "Proun Room" used the actual space of a room to merge painting, sculptural installation and architecture; similarly, with his students he adorned the trams and buildings of Vitebsk with Suprematist triangles and squares, and used his "Proun" motifs to design costumes and machinery for the stage (most famously for the 1920 Futurist opera, Victory over the Sun ). This volume provides a comprehensive view of Lissitzky's influential career. Eliezer (Lazar) Markovich Lissitzky, El Lissitzky (1890-1941) was one of the most experimental and controversial artists to work with the Russian and European avant-garde during the early twentieth century. After 1917, during the first communist period, El Lissitzky served as a cultural ambassador, promoting Russian art and Soviet ideas in the West. Later he worked as a propagandist for the Stalinist regime during the 1930s. He died of tuberculosis in 1941.