Product reviews for Around the world in 80 schools

I enjoyed this book, which I found well-written and highly readable. Adam J. Seldon describes many of the 80 schools he visited around the world – spanning an impressive range of countries, contexts and cultures – in an engaging, reflective and insightful way.  He comments on and evaluates what he saw, but the focus is on what he learnt. It brought to mind Nancy Kline’s approach of ‘Seek first to understand …’ rather than to convince or to persuade. I found especially interesting what Adam had to say about school culture, following his visits to very different schools in countries ranging from South Africa to the USA, Finland to New Zealand.

As I read the book, it seemed to me that Adam was focusing on telling the stories of these schools and the people in them and allowing us to draw our own conclusions about what education really means – and how it might be more, or less, successful – which could help us to reflect on our own contexts, priorities and evidence of success.