The People's Republic of Neverland

There once was a time when teachers and communities were able to exercise democratic control over their schools. Now that power has been taken away, both centralized and privatized, under the guise of "reform." Robb Johnson entered the classroom as a new teacher in the 1980s and has spent a lifetime alongside his pupils encouraging both creativity and a healthy distrust of authority. In The People's Republic of Neverland, Robb Johnson details how we ended up with the contemporary mass education systems and explains why they continually fail to give our children what they need. Combining practical experience as a teacher with detailed pedagogical knowledge and a characteristic playful style, Johnson is both court chronicler and jester, imparting information and creatively admonishing the self-important figureheads of the reform agenda. This book shows that schools and education are contested spaces that need to be reclaimed from the state and turned into places where people can grow not up or old, but as individuals.