Herbert Kohl (educator)
| Herbert R. Kohl | |
|---|---|
| Born |
August 22, 1937 Bronx, New York, New York, US |
| Nationality | American |
| Education |
Harvard College, AB, 1958 Teachers College, Columbia University, MA, 1962 |
| Occupation | Educator, writer |
| Known for | Advocacy of alternative education |
| Spouse(s) | Judith Kohl |
Herbert R. Kohl (born August 22, 1937) is an educator best known for his advocacy of progressive alternative education and as the author of more than thirty books on education. He founded the 1960s Open School movement and is credited with coining the term "open classroom."
Originally born into a Jewish household, Kohl attended the Bronx High School of Science and studied philosophy and mathematics at Harvard University from 1954 to 1958. At Harvard he was president of the Signet Society and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, graduating with an AB degree in 1958. During the 1958–59 academic year he attended University College, Oxford on a Henry Fellowship, and in, 1959-1960, studied philosophy at Columbia University with a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship.
Deciding against an academic career, Kohl entered Teachers College, Columbia University, in 1961 and, in 1962, received an MA in teaching, while qualifying for a permanent K-8 teaching certificate in New York City public schools. In 1962 Kohl became a sixth-grade teacher in the New York City public schools, something he had dreamed of doing since childhood.
Kohl has been teaching and writing for over 45 years. During that time, he has taught every grade from kindergarten through graduate school but not in that order.
His career as a teacher began in 1962 in Harlem, where he continued to work for six years. From September 1964 to June 1967, under a grant from the National Institute of Education, he ran a storefront school for junior high and high school students, taught high school psychology and writing, and worked as curriculum coordinator for the Parent Board of the I.S. 201 Community School District.
In 1967, he became the founding director of the Teachers & Writers Collaborative, a project intended to transform the teaching of writing in the schools. He is still a board member of the Collaborative.
In 1964, Kohl's first book, The Age of Complexity, about analytic and existential philosophy, was published at the same time that he was teaching sixth grade. His first writings on education, Teaching the Unteachable (New York Review of Books, New York, 1967) and The Language and Education of the Deaf (The Urban Review Press, New York, 1967), set the themes for much of his future work. They centered on advocating for the education of poor and disabled students and critiquing and demystifying the stigmatization of students who are perfectly capable of learning.
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