Politician and consumer advocate Ralph Nader, in his December 22 column “Recommended Holiday Reading for the Caring, Agitated Mind” posted on his website, recommended Jack Shelton’s Consequential Learning: A Public Approach to Better Schools as “a wake-up call to parents and students.” NewSouth published Consequential Learning in 2005. From the column:
[Consequential Learning is] a wake-up call to parents and students so indentured to sterile, high-frequency multiple-choice standardized tests. Mr. Shelton stresses that student learning comes from both the classroom and the community, with the lessons of the former applied to the benefit of the latter. He shows from his experience in Alabama’s schools and colleges how students become “self-aware learners” from connecting school and community “in the formation of their personal characters.” Filled with examples and strategies for both civic and academic growth.
Jack Shelton has worked with rural schools and communities for thirty years, and has served as an education consultant in the United States and Australia. In 1979, he organized the Program for Rural Services and Research at the University of Alabama to foster rural education, economic development, entrepreneurship, cultural documentation, and community health.
Consequential Learning: A Public Approach to Better Schools by Jack Shelton is available direct from NewSouth Books, Amazon, or your favorite bookstore.