This is a list of books I currently have on my bookshelf related to education, that I’ve found incredibly thought-provoking and inspiring. I love these books — I’ve highlighted, underlined, and annotated them all up 🙂 — I hope to work my way through this list, providing small summaries and “best of” quotes from each book.

This list is more or less in order of recommendation … although it’s hard to say because they’re all amazing! 🙂 (Note: I’ve read most of these and can definitely recommend them. The ones here that are still on my to-read list come highly recommended by others.)

I will gladly take your recommendations on any other good education books!

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Free to Learn: Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students for Life — by Peter Gray

Creative Schools: The Grassroots Revolution That’s Transforming Education — by Ken Robinson, Ph.D. and Lou Aronica (Ken Robinson is well known for his TED talk entitled, “Do Schools Kill Creativity?”)

A Mathematician’s Lament: How School Cheats Us Out of Our Most Fascinating and Imaginative Art Form — by Paul Lockhart

Beyond Measure: Rescuing an Overscheduled, Overtested, Underestimated Generation — by Vicki Abeles with Grace Rubenstein (from the director of Race to Nowhere)

By John Taylor Gatto – Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling (2nd Revised edition) (1.2.2002)

Instead of Education: Ways to Help People do Things Better — by John Holt

The One World Schoolhouse: Education Reimagined — by Salman Khan (This is the founder of Khan Academy)

Schools on Trial: How Freedom and Creativity Can Fix Our Educational Malpractice — by Nikhil Goyal

Waiting for “”SUPERMAN””: How We Can Save America’s Failing Public Schools (Participant Guide Media) — Edited by Karl Weber (this is also a movie)

The Unschooled Mind: How Children Think and How Schools Should Teach — by Howard Gardner (famous for his theory on multiple intelligences)

The Schools Our Children Deserve: Moving Beyond Traditional Classrooms and “Tougher Standards” — by Alfie Kohn

The Teenage Liberation Handbook: How to Quit School and Get a Real Life and Education — by Grace Llewellyn

Will Standards Save Public Education— by Deborah Meier

Radical: Putting Students First — by Michelle Rhee

Letters to a Young Teacher — by Jonathan Kozol

The Normal Accident Theory of Education: Why Reform and Regulation Won’t Make Schools Better — by Andrew K. Milton