What School Could Be: Insights and Inspiration from Teachers Across America

Dintersmith (producer of the documentary Most Likely To Succeed and coauthor of the book of the same name) took a deep look inside America's classrooms by taking a yearlong trip to every state in the nation to visit schools of all types (public, private, and charter) and meet with concerned parties (teachers, parents, students, and government officials). Dintersmith here shows the creative highs and mind-numbing lows of schooling today, contending that 19th-century education pedagogies cannot accommodate 21st-century needs. He outlines four principles for students to thrive: purpose, essentials, agency, and knowledge (PEAK). With stories extracted from his travels and additional commentary, Dintersmith breaks down just how schools that apply these PEAK principles are not only meeting the needs of students but also preparing them for the future. Even with the engaging first-person accounts, the text overall gets a bit repetitive and in the end, it is up to the reader to decide how these approaches can be put into action.