Education in Hope

Tony Monchinski, Ph.D., is a special education and social studies teacher at Fox Lane High School in Bedford, New York. His publications include The Politics of Education, Critical Pedagogy and the Everyday Classroom, and the novel Eden. Tony is also a writer and photographer for MuscleMag International.

«Tony Monchinski's new book is wonderfully readable, inspiringly humane, eminently sensible, and educationally practical. He teaches us what «an ethic of care» means and how to use it. He poses the urgent need to install «caring» in a society driven by Wall Street's money market and by standardized testing in the schools. Human beings and human needs have disappeared in the equation that now rules school and society. Tony's book is the right book at the right time, a book of knowledge and remedies just in time. He shows us how the theme of «care» unifies and underlies great theories in education. He also proposes practical reforms tomake «caring» the strong foundation for teaching and learning. The scope of his critique is breath-taking while the scale of his solutions is sensible. This is a wise book for troubled times.» (Ira Shor, Professor, City University Graduate Center)
«Although most progressive thinkers have always assumed that a good education must be connected to an universal ethical code, no one has yet spelled out how such a connection is to be primordial in the educational process, that is until Tony Monchinski undertook such a task in his dissertation 'Education in Hope: Critical Pedagogies and the Ethic of Care.' By first analyzing the pedagogical works of John Dewey, Paolo Freire and such feminists as Carol Gilligan who first posited the link between education and the ethic of care, Monchinski is able to show how such a link is especially needed today. That link, Monchinski brilliantly insists, is fundamental to all critical theories of pedagogy.» (John Gerassi, Professor of Political Science, Queens College, City University New Yor)
«Tony Monchinski has accomplished an important task here. He has drawn interesting parallels between critical pedagogy and feminist ethics of care. In doing so, he expands greatly how creative teachers can truly «care» about their students and social justice at once.» (Joan C. Tronto, Professor of Political Science,