Walk Away in the Sunshine

About the Book

Everyone wants to improve schooling. We are going to tell you some real-life war stories about one high school principal’s journey through the maze of secondary education. You will meet students, parents, teachers, principals, superintendents, and school boards, all trying hard but often working at cross-purposes and getting in one another’s way. In these stories the good guys win some and lose some, and some get rained out. But they all shed light on the murky world of educational theory and the way it works out in the real world.

The author, a former teacher and high school principal, has some strong, well-documented opinions about what real education ought to look like. Her purpose is not to increase polarization but to figure out what went wrong and is still going wrong, and why these things sometimes work. Finally, she offers a prescription that trumps the Back-to-Basics movement by exploring what the real basics are and offering a vision of what schools could be.

About the Author

Phyllis DiGiacomo Dunnam, Ph.D. was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1927. She graduated from high school with honors and then St. Joseph’s College in 1948 where she earned her B.A. in English. She then earned her M.S. in Educational Administration, M.A. in Counseling, and finally her Ph.D. in Administration. She also served as a Communications Officer in the US Navy during the Korean War. Her academic career spanned 23 years as a teacher, principal and administrator. During her 16-year professional career she served as a Senior Vice President, counselor and career consultant for an international company providing a broad range of consulting services to executives and other professionals.