 The Legacy of a Freedom Schoolreviewed by Kathy Emery - March 21, 2006  Title: The Legacy of a Freedom SchoolAuthor(s): Sandra Adickes Publisher: Palgrave/MacMillan, New York ISBN: 1403964270, Pages: 200, Year: 2005 Search for book at Amazon.com Why does progressive educational reform seem so impossible? Lawrence Cremin (1964) would have us believe it is because progressive pedagogy asks too much of teachers or, as others argued, that John Dewey is misapplied and misunderstood (Semel, 1999; Zilversmit, 1993). Sandra Adickes, however, provides important insight into why Cremin and his disciples may be wrong. In The Legacy of a Freedom School, Adickes tells us the story of her journey from the New York public schools to the Priest Creek Baptist Church Freedom School and back again. Hers is an important personal story, one which contrasts the debilitating effects of the lecture-based, hidden curriculum of enforced schooling with that of a schooling freely chosen, based on questions and derived from the students’ experiences. All schooling is political. Adickes tells a story of what can happen when a school’s politics is made explicit and is part of a larger social movement. Adickes... (preview truncated at 150 words.) To view the full-text for this article you must be signed-in with the appropriate membership. Please review your options below:
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