Schools on trial : how freedom and creativity can fix our educational malpractice / Nikhil Goyal.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 285-289) and index.

The radical notion that children are people -- The disturbing origins of compulsory schooling -- No child left uncontrolled -- The right to learn freely -- The right to play -- Where children can be themselves -- Not your father's shop class -- Enrolling in the real world -- School without walls.

Are America's schools little more than cinder-block gulags that spawn vicious cliques and bullying, negate creativity and true learning, and squelch curiosity in their inmates, um, students? Nikhil Goyal, a journalist and activist all of twenty years old whom the Washington Post has dubbed a "future education secretary" and Forbes has named to its 30 Under 30 list, passionately thinks so, and in this book he offers both a scathing indictment of our teach-to-the-test-while-killing-the-spirit educational assembly line and maps out a path for all of our schools to harness children's natural aptitude for learning by creating an atmosphere conducive to freedom and creativity. He prescribes an inspiring educational future that is thoroughly democratic and experiential, and one that utilizes the entire community as a classroom.