Learning By Heart »

Roland S. Barth is one of the country’s most renowned educators and the author of the best-selling Jossey-Bass book Improving Schools from Within (over 100,000 copies sold). He has been a public school teacher and principal, recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, and member of the faculty of Harvard University, where he founded the Harvard Principals’ Center and the International Network of Principals’ Centers.

Down-to-earth, inspired, and full of wisdom, Roland Barth knows what it takes to create wonderful schools for youngsters and adults alike. Learning by Heart is the long-awaited sequel to Improving Schools from Within.

A decade after publication of his best-selling book, Barth returns to the schoolhouse. Drawing from a career committed to building schools rich in community, learning, and leadership, he shows how to accomplish the most difficult task of school reform-transforming a school's culture so that it will be hospitable to human learning. In an engaging conversational style, he suggests how school people can become the architects, engineers, and designers of their own schools-and of their own destinies.

"The way we do things around here" is incredibly resistant to change. Yet shaping a school's culture so that it encourages risk-taking and invention is the critical precondition for building a community of learners and leaders. Barth invites the reader to accompany him on a journey to examine the things that really make a difference in schools-building community, developing leadership, encouraging risk-taking, inspiring a lifelong love of learning, reflecting on practice, celebrating craft knowledge-and poses for teachers and principals the tough questions that will guide each of them on their own journey to discover their vital work and give their heart to it.

The Author

Roland S. Barth is one of the country's most renowned educators and the author of the best-selling Jossey-Bass book Improving Schools from Within (over 100,000 copies sold). He has been a public school teacher and principal, recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, and member of the faculty of Harvard University where he founded the Harvard Principals' Center and the International Network of Principals' Centers.

Introduction
Thinking Otherwise
Culture in Question
A Community of Learners
Information Rich and Experience Poor
Exploration
Craft Knowledge
Reflection
Teacher Leadership
Impediments and Opportunities
Teachers and Principals
On Becoming a Principal
Conditions for Learning
Some Questions
Risk
Coming to a Vision