For further reading

We have adopted a quotation from Plutarch for our epigraph:

“The mind is a fire to be kindled, not a vessel to be filled.”

The two metaphors— fires and vessels —  present opposing ideas of how the mind works and how children develop. It’s not just a catchy phrase. Plutarch wrote this about 2,000 years ago, which indicates that people have been having this discussion about education for a long time.

Kino looks like a new model of education in comparison with more conventional schools, but the ideas behind Kino are not new. Our camp, with the fire, is shared by Socrates and Jean Jacques Rousseau, John Dewey and Thomas Jefferson.

It is also supported by the work of Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky, psychologists who have dominated the field of child development in the 20th century. When you read any recent book about education, you will see the impact of both Piaget and Vygotsky. They have given a philosophical position about education a solid base of scientific work.

So if you really want to do some heavy reading on the subject, those are some of the names you could start with.

More accessibly:

Alfie Kohn has written a number of very readable books about education, including

Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A’s, Praise, and Other Bribes (1999)
What to Look for in a Classroom, and Other Essays (1998)
The Case Against Standardized Testing: Raising the Scores, Ruining the Schools (2000)
The Homework Myth: Why Our Kids Get Too Much of a Bad Thing (2006).

You can read many of his articles and blog entries on his website www.alfiekohn.org

Articles about the importance of play are available at the website of the Alliance for Childhood

The website for the film Race to Nowhere collects articles and promotes discussion about the failure of high pressure, test-based schooling.

Many of the schools that are accredited, like Kino, by N.A.L.S.A.S provide information and references about education on their websites. You can find them here.

See also:

Kenneth R. Ginsburg, MD, MSEd., The Importance of Play in Promoting Healthy Child Development and Maintaining Strong Parent-Child Bonds, issued by The American Academy of Pediatrics (2006)