Learning by Heart: An Unconventional Education

In this earnest memoir, Wagner (Creating Innovators) shares the school experiences that compelled him to teach high school. Wagner writes of being expelled from high school and dropping out of two colleges in the early 1960s before enrolling in the Friends World Institute, a Quaker college in Washington, D.C., where he discovered an educational setting that encouraged him to pursue his passion for writing and make connections between his studies and culture. Wagner sought out teachers who inspired him, and he discovered that learning required concentration and self-discipline. After college he began teaching, which eventually led him to various Quaker schools including the Sidwell Friends School in D.C., after which he became headmaster at Cambridge Friends School. Wagner eventually attended Harvard, where he earned a PhD in education and became a “teacher of teachers,” and realized that “education fads come and reforms come and go and most are not grounded in research about how children learn best.” Wagner’s passionate memoir serves as blueprint for educators looking to inspire their own students. (Apr.)