Adventures in American Education: The Elementary Years
"If the old way worked better, why are they changing it?"
Dewey, age 4
"We spend too much time sitting still and not enough time figuring out how people actually learn things."
Dewey, age 5
"Nobody's ever going to die because someone took eight seconds instead of three to calculate 7x8."
Dewey, age 8
When four-year-old Dewey John arrives at kindergarten, he brings the kind of curiosity that built tree forts, organized neighborhood expeditions, and ran a surprisingly profitable lemonade stand.
What he finds is a system more interested in measurable outcomes than meaningful learning.
Follow Dewey through six years of elementary school as he navigates standardized assessments, data-driven instruction, and administrators who've never spent five consecutive minutes with a real five-year-old.
Part satire, part love letter to great teachers. A novel for anyone who believes children deserve better than being optimized.
The retirement banner hung like a defeated politician's campaign sign, victim to the gymnasium's ancient heating system that the school board had been promising to replace since the Reagan administration.
Jacob and Eleanor John stood at the edge of the celebration, watching their four-year-old son Dewey examine a display of photographs spanning Ms. Connely's four-decade kindergarten career.
"He would have thrived in her classroom," Eleanor whispered, unconsciously squeezing her husband's hand with the same intensity she'd once used during labor.
"Why did the children in the old pictures build with big blocks, but the new children only use tablets?"
Ms. Connely's eyes widened slightly at the perceptiveness of the question. She crouched down to meet Dewey at eye level.
"That," she said with a gentle smile, "is a very good question, and part of why I'm leaving."
Be the first to know when Dewey John is available.
We'll let you know.