"In I Won't Learn from You! Kohl turns his attentive and loving eye to a perennial problem in education: the refusal of many youngsters to learn what we prescribe for them... Kohl moves quickly beyond the labels, the stereotypes, the taken-for-granted explanations for school failure, even beyond descriptions of the putative behavior of children in crisis... We begin to turn the world upside down, to see the refuseniks in our schools as people acting sensibly and intelligently in the face of brutality and craziness.

"This essay is a plea to 'distinguish not-learning from failure' and to 'respect the truth behind this massive rejection of schooling by students from poor oppressed communities.' It is based on recognizing the all learning must on some level be voluntary... [Khol] gets us looking in the right direction, at the actions and reactions of learners."      -- William Ayers, Mothering

"Not since Mina Shaughnessy's ground-breaking educational treatise, Error and Expectations, has so loving and perceptive a lens been applied to student 'failure.' "    --Phillip Lopate