Articles | Book Reviews | Bibliographies | Useful Things by  Colleagues 

Book Review

The Schoolhome:  Rethinking Schools for Changing Families
by Jane Roland Martin

1992.  Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press

Today's schools are based on a factory model -- put in raw materials, pass them through several stages, and come out with a finished product.  Jane Roland Martin, in her lively and cogent book, says that schools would better serve the whole community -- children, parents, teachers and the general public -- if they focused on the development of community based upon the best model of home and family. 

Citing John Dewey's dictum that when society changes, schools must alter to reflect those changes, Martin says that as young children have come to be cared for more and more outside the home, we have lost the curriculum that was taught in the home. That curriculum is one of care, concern and connection to others. These three C's got lost because, as a society, we have never validated as tangible assets the work women do at home for free. The work of the Academy has been seen as education; the work of the home has only been socialization, not as weighty or scientific or important.  Where does that leave our culture's ethics? 

Martin proposes a reorganization of the school that incorporates at the most tangible, visible, honored level, consideration of the values we need -- cooperation; tender respectful treatment of all people; and gender, race, and class equity -- if our society is to heal itself. Martin reminds us that our constitution commits us not only to "establish justice" but to "insure domestic Tranquility." Neglecting to develop this part of our "more perfect Union" leads to street and domestic violence (especially violence against people -- people of color, women, gay people, the weak elderly, and the undefended young -- from groups who haven't learned to respect), depression, apathy, cynicism, prejudice, greed, and a long list of other grievous sins. 

The best early childhood theories and practices recognize the need to support positive social interaction and to honor and permit appropriate expression of the feelings of all members of the classroom. We often have better theory than we have been able to implement. Reading Martin enlarges the vision and helps us refine and enlarge our vision of wholesome, productive schools right up through the grades. One is reminded of what A.J. Muste said: "There is no way to peace. Peace is the way." 

Martin bases her vision in the work of many others -- Plato, the Founding Fathers, William James, John Dewey, Maria Montessori, Richard Rodriguez, and feminists of both waves in this century, including Virginia Woolf and Carol Gilligan. Martin uses metaphor and logic to support the primacy of ethical education. She reconnects us with the long view of schooling and opens possibilities that delight. Without a vision, one cannot travel far. 

This review was published in Young Children (the journal of the National Association for the Education of Young Children) May, 1993.

E-mail:  sydney@eceteacher.org, www.eceteacher.org • (C) Copyright Sydney Gurewitz Clemens, 2007