"Playing for Keeps"

Life and Learning on a Public School Playground
Deborah Meier, Brenda S. Engel, and Beth Taylor

Teachers College Press 
Pub Date: June 2010, 144 pages

“Those of us who've been close to Mission Hill will rejoice to see the vision of a humane and happy school reaching a wide audience. We need this book more than ever—bursting, as it is, with the words of children and with their sense of mystery, spontaneity, and sheer jubilation. This is a great antidote to the poison of drill-and-grill austerity imposed upon our children by the technocrats of corporate accountability.”
—Jonathan Kozol, author of Letters to a Young Teacher and Shame of the Nation

 Playing for Keeps surrounds us with the authentic and urgent language of make-believe as heard on a Boston public school playground. Fortunately, the three author-teachers are there to lead us expertly between children’s play and the work of school. It is an adventure well worth taking, for teachers, parents, and administrators.”
—Vivian Gussin Paley, author of The Boy on the Beach: Building Community Through Play

Deborah Meier has spent almost five decades working in public education as a teacher, writer, and public advocate. She is currently a Senior Scholar in the faculty of the Steinhardt School of Education at New York University. Brenda S. Engel has taught elementary school art and was on the faculty of Lesley University in Cambridge, MA. Beth Taylor has taught in preschool through college, including in teacher training, program evaluation, early childhood education, and teaching at the Mission Hill School in Boston.