Fragments of a Lesson Plan

An informal, sometimes flip, scathingly provocative journal, Fragments of a Lesson Plan has emerged from Robert Belenky's personal and professional journey in search of ways to be useful to others as a psychologist-educator. His style is indicative of the art--exploratory, questioning, ambivalent at times. Belenky has pulled together tangential pieces and parts of his work as a psychologist, educator, and researcher. He presents the good with the bad in a collection from his personal journal, from reports, from tape-recorded interviews of the people he has dealt with--children, mothers, criminals, teachers, comp counselors, juvenile delinquents and colleagues. With frankness and honesty, he lets the reader in on the open disputes, the racial friction, the "ego trips," and the muddling-through which occur in all experimental projects--but never get reported. He presents real programs and real people from a close perspective. The result is a welcome antidote to the self-laudatory, jargon-filled memoranda and papers written for the heads of foundations and professional journals. His "ruminations" make indispensable reading for the would-be community mental health architect.