“ Teaching for a Living Democracy: Project-Based Learning in the English and History Classroom offers both a method for civic engagement and a message of faith in the power of young people to serve as agents for change within their own communities right now.”
—Teachers College Record
“Using his own teaching practice as the foundation, Block illustrates effective, context-based principles that have allowed him to teach in ways that encourage democratic thought and civic engagement. He does not prescribe best practices, but rather invites the reader into his classroom to experience his projects, showing rather than telling what works. In his descriptions of classwork, Block presents a raw picture not only of classroom successes, but of challenges, pivots, and necessary adaptations that accurately depict the often messy space of learning.”
— Choice
“In a time when standardized tests are increasingly critiqued by teachers, students, families, and communities, Block’s work offers an important alternative to such emaciated yardsticks of ‘learning.’ Indeed, by showing us what is possible in a classroom, he provides us with more than a model: He gives us hope, an animating force in any democracy.”
—Democracy & Education
“Simultaneously inspirational and useful, this book is a visionary, hopeful invitation to dream and a practical, generous resource for translating our dreams into concrete new realities of teaching and learning. What a rare combination in a single text, and a gift that only a practicing teacher working and speaking from direct, daily experience is positioned to offer. We need books like this.”
—From the Foreword by Carla Shalaby, author of Troublemakers: Lessons in Freedom from Young Children at School
“The author’s argument for a ‘living democracy’ is both timely and compelling, illuminated with a richly detailed and accessible account of what it has meant—over 20 years in the classroom—to co-create a curriculum and pedagogy with his diverse group of urban students. Not only does this make his classroom an unusually engaged and lively space for learning that builds from his students’ interests, questions, lived experiences, and collaborative relationships, but together Block and his students have also found agentive ways to extend and deepen their inquiry by forging unique connections with people, places, and spaces in the wider community. A pedagogical tour de force, this book is a must-read for all those who seek new images of what it means to strive for and embrace a truly transformational view of schools and schooling.”
—Susan L. Lytle, Professor Emerita of Education, University of Pennsylvania
