Becoming a Reflective Educator.

This book is but one sign that the writings of John Dewey are being rediscovered and his ideas repackaged for modern educators. Much of the content in this very readable book is drawn from the ideas Dewey expressed in How We Think in 1910 and many other works.

Though admittedly designed to be used as a college text, the book has many features that make it suitable for the general reader. The book is written by three professors in educational leadership at University of Connecticut.

Each of the six substantive chapters is built around case studies. Practicing administrators might well find these cases appropriate vehicles to encourage discussion among staff about the issues raised by each vignette.

The first chapter defines the nature of reflective practice. The second discusses the steps necessary to create the mindset among faculty that everyone is a practical researcher. The next four chapters offer ways to help staff think about some fundamental issues relate to the curriculum, the nature of leadership, the role of the school as community and in the community, and problems related to the values and ethics of teaching.

Another indication that this is not staid textbook: In one case a teacher comes home to discuss a problem with his girlfriend, not his wife. In another a board member asks whether it is "strange that these two single women not only spend all their non-work time together but now want to teach together as well." Dewey would have related to the content of this book but might have been surprised by a little of the context.

(Becoming a Reflective Educator: How to Build a Culture of Inquiry in the Schools, by John W. Brubacher, Charles W. Case, and Timothy G. Reagan, Corwin Press, 2455 Teller Road, Thousand Oaks, Calif. 91320, 1994, 144 pp. with index, $38 hardcover, $18 softcover)