Harvard University Press
In Search of Deeper Learning: The Quest to Remake the American High School
Key Metrics
- Jal Mehta
- Harvard University Press
- Paperback
- 9780674248250
- 8.2 X 5.4 X 1.3 inches
- 0.92 pounds
- Education > Educational Policy & Reform
- English
Secure TransactionBook Description
Winner of the Grawemeyer Award
In their brave search for depth in American high schools, scholars Jal Mehta and Sarah Fine suffered many disappointments...Undeterred, they spent 750 hours observing classes, interviewed more than 300 people, and produced the best book on high school dynamics I have ever read.
--Jay Mathews, Washington Post
A hopeful, easy-to-read narrative on what the best teachers do and what deep, engaging learning looks like for students. Grab this text if you're looking for a celebration of what's possible in American schools.
--Edutopia
This is the first and only book to depict not just the constraints on good teaching, but also how good teachers transcend them. A superb book in every way: timely, lively, and entertaining.
--Jonathan Zimmerman, University of Pennsylvania
What would it take to transform our high schools into places capable of supporting deep learning for students across a wide range of aptitudes and interests? To find out, Jal Mehta and Sarah Fine spent hundreds of hours observing and talking to teachers and students in and out of the classroom at thirty of the country's most innovative schools. To their dismay, they discovered that deeper learning is more often the exception than the rule. And yet they found pockets of powerful learning at almost every school, often in extracurriculars but also in a few mold-breaking academic courses. So what must schools do to achieve the integrations that support deep learning: rigor with joy, precision with play, mastery with identity and creativity?
In Search of Deeper Learning takes a deep dive into the state of our schools and lays out an inspiring new vision for American education.
Author Bio
Jal Mehta is a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. His research explores the role of different forms of knowledge in tackling major social and political problems, particularly problems of human improvement. He has also written extensively on what it would take to improve American education, with a particular focus on the professionalization of teaching.
Jal is the author of The Allure of Order: High Hopes, Dashed Expectations and the Troubled Quest to Remake American Schooling (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013) and the co-editor of The Futures of School Reform (Cambridge: Harvard Education Press, 2012). He is currently working on two projects: In Search of Deeper Learning, a contemporary study of schools, systems, and nations that are seeking to produce ambitious instruction; and The Chastened Dream, a history of the effort to link social science with social policy to achieve social progress.
He is co-editor of the Learning Deeply blog at Education Week, and in 2014 was the top-ranked junior faculty scholar in the Rick Hess Education Week rankings. He is also the winner of the Morningstar Teaching Award at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He was recently awarded a Radcliffe Fellowship and will be on sabbatical for the 2016-17 academic year.
Education
- Harvard University 2006 Ph.D. Sociology and Social Policy
- Harvard University 2002 M.A. Sociology
- Harvard University 1999 B.A. Social Studies, Magna Cum Laude
Source: Harvard Graduate School of Education
Videos
Community reviews
Write a ReviewNo Community reviews