Educator's Memoir Illuminates the Teaching Life

After putting down The Discipline of Hope, master educator Herbert Kohl's memoir of his thirty-year plight to reorganize education in the United States from the ground up, one can't help but wonder how to categorize the work. Is it a disheartening account of the state of public schools in New York and California, a disparaging, almost Biblical example of a pedagogue martyred for his outspoken support for children's rights, or the uplifting autobiography of a man who turned the complacent public education system on its ear? The simplest answer is that it is a synthesis of the three: a sometimes maudlin, occasionally fierce and always passionate enumeration of a life devoted to teaching.

Kohl outlines his complete career, beginning with his first teaching assignment in the New York City public school system, and ending up at the experimental high school he founded in California. Along the way, he directs attention to each of his students on a case-by-case basis. Kohl relinquishes center stage to his students on several occasions, reinforcing the impression that his relationship with the children who pass through his classroom reaches beyond the year they spend with him. Kohl states with great pride that several of his classes referred to him as Uncle Herbie, and with good reason: the avuncular consideration given to each child fosters a sense of humanity and belonging. Kohl's sensitivities to the needs of children is touching, as is his vehement contention that love is an absolute necessity for a culture of responsible, altruistic adults.

Kohl's enthusiasm for the talent and creativity of the individual saturates each child's profile, giving the impression of a teacher as excitable and enthusiastic about the process of learning as the most idealized of students. Kohl also shows the reader the dark side of his experiences as an educator, placing considerable emphasis on the squalid conditions in which his students spent forty hours a week. He lambastes indifferent school directors and educational boards with as much zeal as he supports the creative power of his students. Kohl points out case after case of wasted time and money, antiquated lunch programs leftover from the Roosevelt era, and badly needed text-books that rot away in basements due to simple neglect on the part of educational directors.

Kohl draws stiff lines early and often between the educational policies he perceives as detrimental or constructive. While his outrage vented toward the policies of the New York Board of Education is reasonable, he has left at least one reader unconvinced of its necessity. For all his good intentions, Kohl tends to crowd educational instructors into anti-and pro-groups, conveniently dichotomized so that all who share his beliefs are members of the latter. Teachers who advocate distance between teacher and student are categorized as the opposition, and classified as uncaring brutes. While Kohl is completely convincing as an ardent and outspoken advocate for his students, the sweeping vilification of his opponents seems heavy-handed at times and not altogether believable. As most will find themselves enthused with Kohl and his honesty, such a flaw is understandable considering the simple and equaniminous approach he uses with his children.

Kohl's most endearing trait is his straight-forward, bluntly honest voice--one might surmise that after thirty years experience with school-age children, the author's gift for clearing out needless discourse has been honed to a razor's edge. Simple diction, while vital for pedantry, has its drawbacks in the modern non-fiction market: every once in a while Kohl's hand can be felt patting the reader on the head, as if recruiting another kindergartner into his throngs of supporters. This is not to say that condescension (if it can be called such) is not totally displeasing; the smothering presence of a truly dedicated teacher is a welcome change from the assembly-line approach of modern education.

On the whole, Kohl's naivete and charm more than make up for his one-sided judgments. The passion he develops in the reader for elementary school is completely infectious and equally uplifting, while his students are more often than not downright cute (case in point, the Pee-Wee song: "I'm a Pee Wee / You're a Boo Boo / Get the heck out of here"). In spite of the flaws present in his approach or the occasional Elijian woe-is-me depression, Kohl's enthusiasm and unbroken spirit motivate and inspire, giving a bright point of light in the oft-maligned field of teachers and public education.