Ed School Follies: The Miseducation of America's Teachers. This item is unavailable.Ed School Follies: The Miseducation of America's Teachers

Revealing that our teacher-training institutes have reached an all-time low, this scathing expose shows a betrayal of traditional ideals and values and a remarkably low intellectual level throughout the educational establishment

After a year of crisscrossing the country and observing the institutions that are producing the next generation's teachers, Kramer ( Maria Montessori ) concludes: "Our schools of education are appalling." This indictment, hardly surprising to anyone who has experienced the gap between teacher certification requirements and the reality of the school room, is supported by the author's log of her visits to classrooms in private and public colleges and universities, among them State University of New York's Teachers College, Peabody College in Tennessee and Michigan State University. Often, knowledge as a value in itself and the mastery of subject matter as teacher goals are downplayed in favor of a leveling, therapeutic approach to one's students. A politicized and homogenized agenda is followed by prospective teachers, whose own educational backgrounds may be sparse. Kramer's tough-minded, much-needed critique is accompanied by constructive suggestions that offer grounds for optimism.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

A trashing of America's schools of education by Kramer (At a Tender Age, 1988; In Defense of the Family, 1983), who made a yearlong tour of leading schools of education in the US from Teacher's College at Columbia to the University of Washington, sitting in on classes and interviewing students and professors. Using a tried-and-true journalistic technique, Kramer lets the accused hang themselves in their own words. Verbatim classroom dialogue from the students who will soon mold America's youth makes a reader flinch: ``like'' as omnipresent modifier, ``neat'' as descriptive as in ``like it was kinda neat.'' Hours devoted to analyzing the values promoted in a book about Tootles the locomotive; adults leaping up in the middle of a class discussion to sing ``If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands.'' According to Kramer, the language is not corrected, and the childish behavior is encouraged as an appropriate way to learn about children, because methodology--the how of teaching--is emphasized far beyond the what, the facts of math, science, and history. Frequently, the professors have a political agenda, usually egalitarian, which puts a premium on ``self-esteem,'' on ``success'' by no objective standard other than by how much a child has improved over his last effort. Clearly, Kramer also has her own agenda: She believes in raising standards in the classroom, jacking up levels of achievement, and returning content to the teaching curriculum. Meanwhile, she is not entirely insensitive to the problems that teachers face--the need to be social worker, substitute parent, and transmitter of values in addition to teaching--or to the problems that colleges face in training teachers to be so multifaceted. Kramer's call to improve schools of education is valid, but the constantly appalled tone, the repeated sarcasm and disapproval, the narrow focus make the call annoyingly off-key. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

In seeking reasons for the dismal state of contemporary education in the United States, Kramer ( At a Tender Age , LJ 5/15/88) focuses on teacher training. During the 1988-89 school year, she visited 14 schools of education in New York, Tennessee, Michigan, Southern California, Washington, and Texas, observing classes and interviewing students and professors. In this account, she concludes that most students are idealistic and eager, but are being misguided. She found students woefully ignorant of subject matter, while sometimes lacking in communication skills. Kramer maintains that new students are forced to abandon the instruction of information and knowledge in favor of theories in developing pupil self-esteem, indiscriminate passing, and reforming society. This will certainly be a controversial book. It presents a critical viewpoint and should be required reading for all school administrators, professors of education, prospective teachers, and concerned parents.
- Shirley L. Hopkinson, California State Univ., San Jose
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.