Books by
Rob Evans

Family Matters:
How Schools Can
Cope with
The Crisis in
Childrearing

The Human Side
of School Change

Books

Rob's second book is Family Matters: How Schools Can Cope with The Crisis in Childrearing. Available online from Amazon, and Barnes and Noble, among others. It takes a sharp look at the enormous changes occurring among children and parents and the dilemma these changes pose for schools.

Students everywhere are harder to reach and teach, their attention and motivation less reliable, their language and behavior more provocative.

This is largely because parents, suffering a widespread loss of confidence and competence, are increasingly anxious about their children’s success, yet increasingly unable to support and guide them—and increasingly assertive and adversarial toward the school. Examining these trends and their underlying causes, the book calls for a combination of limits and leverage.

At the policy level, we must rethink our notions of accountability, accepting the reality that schools cannot overcome all the forces that affect children’s lives and learning.

At the schoolhouse, educators can improve their impact by clarifying and asserting purpose (core values) and conduct (norms for behavior), and by becoming more appropriately parental vis à vis students and parents.

The book outlines concrete ways to implement these measures, and closes with a reflection on ways to sustain hope and commitment in the face of unprecedented challenge.

Table of Contents

Part One: The The Changing Context of Child Development

1. "Something's Gone Way Wrong"

2. The Building Blocks of Healthy Growth

3. Back to Basics: A Parenting Primer

4. Fast Forward: The Fragile Family

5. Losing Connection

6. Abandoning Authority

7. Building Résumés

8. The New Insecurity

9. The New Individualism

Part Two: Limits and Leverage: Real-life Coping for Schools

10. Rethinking Accountability

11. What Makes Us, Us: Clarifying Purpose and Conduct

12. Redefining The Home-School Partnership

13. Resistance and Leadership: Building Faculty Will

14. Parenting Parents: Building Faculty Skill

15. Paradox, Realism, and Hope

Appendix: Practical Parent Education