Location: United Kingdom
Member Since:
June 18, 2021
Geraldine Rowe
Smashwords book reviews by Geraldine Rowe
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Another Way is Possible - Becoming a Democratic Teacher in a State School
on June 22, 2021
When I was carrying out doctoral research into democracy in the primary classroom, I found many books extolling the virtues of democratic education, but relatively few going into detail about what democracy in the classroom actually looks like. Derry Hannam’s excellent and highly enjoyable book, Another Way is Possible, offers this detail and more. The courage and humanity of Derry Hannam’s teaching shine through his stories and the influence of his democratic approach to teaching is evidenced by the extraordinary creativity and engagement of his pupils. I was especially moved by an account of how the class dealt with a particularly truculent classmate in an unusually loving and inclusive way. Derry Hannam doesn’t gloss over the problems he faced working in an unconventional way in a conventional school, and his description of the tension between himself and teacher colleagues matched some of the experiences of participants in my own research study. I thoroughly recommend Derry Hannam’s book as a key reference for anyone who is interested in the way in which teachers and students can take joint responsibility for the management of their schools and classrooms. The author combines great scholarship and first-hand classroom experience with a phenomenal knowledge of democratic schools across the globe, developed from his personal connections with leading academics, democratic educators, and their students. I understand that this book is already influencing educators in many countries and has been translated into several languages. Dr Geraldine Rowe