b Kohl's now-classic essay on "not learning," or refusing to learn, is available for the first time in an affordable paperback edition along with four other landmark essays. Drawing on an idea of Martin Luther King Jr.'s, Kohl argues for "creative maladjustment" in the classroom and anywhere else that students' intelligence, dignity, or integrity are compromised by a teacher, an institution, or a larger social mindset.

This volume also includes "The Tattooed Man," Kohl's autobiographical essay about "hopemongering," which Kohl finds essential for all effective teaching in these difficult times.