the 60s are back
4 stars
This book feels like it could have been written today (modulo some dated language...). The accelerating change and "future shock" that require a more adaptive concept of learning has only continued. Postman and Weingartner argue quite convincingly for a breaking down of subject boundaries, and a question-asking and learner-oriented conception of what teaching even is, rather than a "download of information from teacher to student"
I've gotta say though that despite this being written over 50 years ago, it doesn't really seem to me as though education has moved in the direction this work calls for. If anything modern tech has instead had us push to more industrialized information-downloading (think Khan academy), the idea of a fixed subject "out there" which should be learned and on which one can be graded has stayed dominant.
So what is to be done? Are ideas like those put out here romantic and infeasible? …
This book feels like it could have been written today (modulo some dated language...). The accelerating change and "future shock" that require a more adaptive concept of learning has only continued. Postman and Weingartner argue quite convincingly for a breaking down of subject boundaries, and a question-asking and learner-oriented conception of what teaching even is, rather than a "download of information from teacher to student"
I've gotta say though that despite this being written over 50 years ago, it doesn't really seem to me as though education has moved in the direction this work calls for. If anything modern tech has instead had us push to more industrialized information-downloading (think Khan academy), the idea of a fixed subject "out there" which should be learned and on which one can be graded has stayed dominant.
So what is to be done? Are ideas like those put out here romantic and infeasible? Or were they simply ahead of their time?