Reimagining the Educated Mind: Using Student Choice Curriculum to Transform Educational Practices [Hardcover]

Reimagining the Educated Mind presents Student Choice Curriculum, a descriptive argument for a major change in high school education. This is a system where students select topics/subjects of interest and then, in negotiation with teachers, design the curriculum and assessment strategies they will follow. Four hypothetical students serve as models; thus, the reader sees both the overall structure of Student Choice Curriculum and the day-to-day educational practices within schools that might use it. Student Choice Curriculum will help students learn how to learn and how to situate that learning in the real world, something current educational paradigms do not accomplish.Ben Graffam currently teaches Theory of Knowledge and Philosophy at International Baccalaureate East in Haines City, Florida. Since beginning in education in 1982, he has earned a Masters Degree in Gifted Education, a Ph.D. in Special Education, taught Gifted Studies at University of South Floridas College of Education, and served as an Education Specialist at USFs College of Medicine. His research has been published in journals of both Gifted and Medical Education. He lives in Lakeland, Florida, with his wife, Cheryl and their cats, Tawny and Ruby, the Port Sisters.

At a time when education is being debated in economic and political terms, Graffams substantive proposal for a student choice curriculum is refreshing and challenging. His well-written, grounded, and thoughtful work deserves the serious attention of educators and education policymakers. By challenging the philosophy and structure of the top-loaded curricula, he reminds us that &schools ought to be places where students learn & (how) to investigate and imagine different methods and outcomes for their world. James Paul, Professor Emeritus, author of Introduction to Philosophies of Research and Criticism in Education and the Social Sciences

In this lively, provocative volume, Ben Graffam asks, What would happen to educaló§