The End of Education: Redefining the Value of School - Softcover

Postman, Neil

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0679750312 ISBN 13: 9780679750314

Publisher: Vintage, 1996

Synopsis

Postman suggests that the current crisis in our educational system derives from its failure to supply students with a translucent, unifying "narrative" like those that inspired earlier generations. Instead, today's schools promote the false "gods" of economic utility, consumerism, or ethnic separatism and resentment. What alternative strategies can we use to instill our children with a sense of global citizenship, healthy intellectual skepticism, respect of America's traditions, and appreciation of its diversity? In answering this question, The End of Education restores meaning and common sense to the arena in which they are most urgently needed.
"Informal and clear...Postman's ideas about education are appealingly fresh."--New York Times Book Review

About this title

About the Author

Neil Postman was University Professor, Paulette Goddard Chair of Media Ecology, and Chair of the Department of Culture and Communication at New York University. Among his twenty books are studies of childhood (The Disappearance of Childhood), public discourse (Amusing Ourselves to Death), education (Teaching as a Subversive Activity and The End of Education), and the impact of technology (Technopoly). His interest in education was long-standing, beginning with his experience as an elementary and secondary school teacher. He died in 2003.

From Booklist

One of the best writers among contemporary cultural critics, Postman is never better than when writing about education. His Janus-faced title refers both to the idea that schools as we know them are on the way out and to his own perception that American schools need new reasons--ends for learning. He calls such reasons "gods" --cultural conceits intended to inspire students to learn. He critiques gods that are failing in today's schools, such as the god of economic utility, in whose name students are supposed to believe that if they get through school halfway well, they will then get a well-paying job, and the god of consumership, whose golden rule is: The one who dies owning the most toys wins. He then proposes five new gods to make schooling vital again. He calls the five "The Spaceship Earth," "The Fallen Angel," "The American Experiment," "The Law of Diversity," and "The Word Weavers/The World Makers." If each of these rubrics has the ring of a familiar belief system, well, each is meant to. As Postman defines the five, they are myths, in the most complimentary sense of the word, for realizing ourselves as responsible individuals in our communities, from smallest to largest. Beautifully written, breathtakingly high-minded, this is Postman's best book on American education. Ray Olson

About this edition

• Publisher: Vintage
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0679750312
• ISBN 13: 9780679750314
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 209