Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Delta
Date Published: 1971
ISBN-13:9780385290098ISBN:0385290098
Description: New. Brand New! Buy with confidence-your satisfaction is guaranteed at B-Logistics! Due to the large scale of our operation, we do not have access to the specific contents/condition of our items. Please note that Expedited shipping is not available at this time. read more
Description: Fair. Satisfaction Guaranteed. Shipped quickly. 1971. Paperback. Used, acceptable. Dust jacket has small tears/bends on edges. Cover has some edge wear. Modest sunfade/discoloration on spine/cover. Previous owner's name/address inside. Text pages show modest aging/yellowing. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Delta
Date Published: 1971-07-15
ISBN-13:9780385290098ISBN:0385290098
Description: Good. Good paperback, a few pages are dog-eared, ink to ffep, some soil to page edges. Cover is quite worn, with small creases, bit of soil/tanning. read more
"Feel like things are going wrong in the world of public education? Want to create a revolution, or at least reform? Want some ideas for how to completely change things in your classroom? This book is a must-read. I read it for the first time almost 10 years ago and re-read it this summer. Amazing how much hasn't changed.
"I tried reading this book about 10 years ago, got partway through and didn't finish. I started the book again during winter break. I got 2/3 of the way through and finally finished last night (couldn't sleep). So, I feel like it's a monumental accomplishment.
There are a lot of aspects of this book I don't like. It's very sexist, for one. Women and girls are almost completely excluded from their writing and that bothers me intensely. Also, the authors seem to desperately want to be cool which is so uncool. It's as if they're hoping some cool high school dudes will read it and say, "Whoa man. Finally someone over 30 who really understand my scene man."
However, there are a plethora of amazing ideas in this book, especially when you consider that it was written in 1969. The idea that students should ask their own questions, and be given a chance to decide what is worth learning are two seeming simple but immensely powerful ideas."
"I used the beginning of this book to help me write my Masters Thesis. It was extremely helpful and relevant to my topic and my role as a teacher in my own classroom. I felt after a while, Postman turned a bit too extreme for my taste. (Let me interject that I am a big Postman fan and have really enjoyed reading him throughout my grad classes.) Although I appreciated what he had to say, he was so radical he makes it hard not to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
It came to a point where he convicts schools for not doing their job and proposes they could and should be the panacea for all their community's problems. Is your school in an urban area with many students dropping out? Then infiltrate the community with student-operated bakeries, gardens, and jewelry shops. I hate to be cynical, but do I really think this will be what turns that drug dealer into an A-student, probably not. He seemed to place virtually no responsibility on students or parents.
He blames administration for basically being "the man" and he suggests we move toward student-created policies/repercussions. I fear for the school that lets its teenagers create all of its policies and is forced to self-regulate. I do agree that students can and should have more of a part in the life of the school, but on a subtler level.
He proposes we throw out all curricula and texts; why not let the students decide the direction of class? Although this can be done to a certain extent, learning through inquiry/discovery only takes them so far and assumes a basis of knowledge. Some teaching needs to take place, there is no way students can inquire their way to facts of history or math theorems. We cannot run schools on a "have it your way" approach. It is completely valid to let students have time to ask and answer their own questions, but to run a class this way the majority of the time seems a bit ridiculous.
I know to a certain extent, Postman was being radical for the sake of riling up the reader to make him think. I do agree that the school system needs shaking up; students need to take a bigger role in the everyday learning and meaning needs to come from what is taught. The fact of the matter is that for learning to occur, teaching needs to take place."
"Ok, this book should actually get like 3.5 stars but I like Neil Postman so I'm going to round up. "Conserving" was better, but there was some interesting stuff from the 60s reform movement about "relevance" etc. Sometimes I think the "inquiry method" would be hard to use to get anything done by the end of the day, but perhaps not after the first few weeks. I suppose the method I plan on using is more inquiry method than anything else, and I plan to use it to get a lot done, but his examples make me want to poke my eyes out. Anyway, teachers could learn from this but teacher is not a part of my identity in the same sense that it is for schoolteachers, so we likely learn different things from his ideas."
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