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Herbert Kohl's Growing Minds is a wonderfully daunting book. Kohl manages to do in 160 pages what ten years of actual teaching experiences never did it make me afraid of teaching. Despite my initial reaction to the deceptively thin book, much if not all of what is contained in Growing Minds applies to me as an arts specialist working within the school system. The book really surprised me, and made me realize how very little I really know about children and about teaching. The author is wonderfully honest about teachers needing time to learn the craft. In many ways this is a book about love. The very best part of the Kohls book is the W. H. Auden quote: May I, composed like them Of Eros and of dust, Beleaguered by the same Negations and despair Show an affirming flame. In many ways, this serves as a summation of the main attitude of Kohls book. The student named Roger says he discovers how affirmation is more important than indulging infirmity. Kohl is suggesting that the affirming spirit is the ground in which the students mind can begin to grow. Near the middle of the book, he specifically defines this affirming spirit as faith in the learner, and asks us to contemplate loving students as learners. Growing Minds has provided a definition of the passionate teacher/student relationship. It is a clarification of the positive attitude toward loving students. Herbert Kohls comments dont directly speak to the compromise a teacher (particularly a male) must make when investing personally in children. Implied in the text is the notion that despite unorthodox methods, pure motives will win out. That the books techniques are still progressive is the greatest insight it provokes.
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