Amazon Item: 

Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong

Review

"Every teacher, every student of history, every citizen should read this book. It is both a refreshing antidote to what has passed for history in our educational system and a one-volume education in itself."

-- Howard Zinn, author of A People's History of the United States

What goes by the name of character education nowadays is, for the most part, a collection of exhortations and extrinsic inducements designed to make children work harder and do what they're told. Even when other values are also promoted -- caring or fairness, say -- the preferred method of instruction is tantamount to indoctrination. The point is to drill students in specific behaviors rather than to engage them in deep, critical reflection about certain ways of being.

Lest there be any misunderstanding, the point here is not to call into question the importance of supporting and encouraging children, the need to love them and hug them and help them feel good about themselves. Praise, however, is a different story entirely. Here's why.

One of the most incisive critics of Anglo-American hegemony. As an activist historian he is best known for his book – George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography (1992), a masterpiece of research which is still a must read. He is a 9/11 Truth Scholar and activist; AB Princeton 1966, summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa; Fulbright Scholar at University of Turin, Italy; and MA in humanities from Skidmore College.

Amazon Item: 

A Mathematician's Lament: How School Cheats Us Out of Our Most Fascinating and Imaginative Art Form

A research mathematician who has devoted his career to teaching, reveals math to be creative and beautiful and rejects standard anxiety-producing teaching methods. Witty and accessible, Paul Lockhart’s values are very close to those of creative Waldorf-inspired teachers.

Educators working to defend the civil liberties of oppressed minorities and persecuted individuals in the US.