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Teaching As a Subversive Activity

4.14 of 5 stars 4.14 · rating details · 430 ratings · 41 reviews

A no-holds-barred assault on outdated teaching methods--with dramatic and practical proposals on how education can be made relevant to today's world.

Paperback, 240 pages

Published July 15th 1971 by Delta (first published March 28th 1969)

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The First Days of School by Harry K. Wong

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Nov 30, 2011 Emma Thompson rated it 4 of 5 stars

Probably the only useful thing that's come out of the university based portion of my teaching course so far. Postman advocates for large-scale change to the school system which would move the child back to the centre instead of the focus being on teaching. I can't say anything about anywhere else but I can see how elements of his ideas have been incorperated in the UK, with the idea of student-focused lessons and moving away from transmission-learning, but at the end of the day it's all the same...more

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May 16, 2009 John Lilly rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: everyone

Recommended to John by: Jared Kopf

This is an amazing book -- written in 1968 by always smart Neil Postman and Charles Weingartner, it's ostensibly a book about education reform -- and it's a very good one to read about that. But it also reads like it could have been written in the last year or so, about what we're all experiencing with the incredible pace of change on the connected Internet. Postman's ability to see what the future had in store -- along with great minds like McLuhan -- is totally astounding. The first couple of...more

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Nov 15, 2010 Spencer B rated it 4 of 5 stars

This book was written primarily as a manifesto for inquiry based learning. It is reasonably convincing as such, but has a major flaw. While discussing the problems brought about by the educational bureaucracy he fails to even consider the schooling model most suited to an inquiry based learning environment, homeschooling. Not only are parents not included as potential teacher or implementers of his strategies he fails to consider them even as parents or the impact that parents have either as age...more

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Oct 06, 2009 Guida Allès rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: educació

Si tuviera que elegir qué libro me ha provocado más ganas de ser maestra, diría que ha sido éste que leí en castellano en los 80. Por la convicción en el poder de la educación para construir la identidad.

Resumen del libro en castellano elaborado por el profesor Mario Núñez Molina.
Fuente: http://www.vidadigital.net/blog/2009/...

Estas sugerencias que hizo Neil Postman en su libro “Teaching as a Subversive Activity” van a cumplir unos 40 años pero de manera sorprendente tienen una gran vigencia p...more

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Aug 11, 2010 Elea rated it 5 of 5 stars

So far it's been an incredible read by, Niel Postman. Written the year I was born and every words applicable today! Sadly he stated that much of what he wrote could have been applied to the 1930's. When can we stop this cyclical disease? By not allowing corrupt government dictate and create our world.
Something is truly problematic and dysfunctional if the structure and development of our public schooling system cannot and still does not allow for change. A system that does not allow or even enco...more

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May 31, 2009 Julianne rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

This is one of the very best books on education I’ve ever read. Although published in 1969, I find myself wishing that everyone everywhere would pick it up and read it. Though it’s a bit long on references to Vietnam and rather out of date in some of its neuroscience (see Ch. 7: Languaging), it still has extremely important things to say to both teachers and students. (Sorry, administrators, you don’t even make the list, seeing as how you are unnecessary and in many cases counterproductive to th...more This is one of the very best books on education I’ve ever read. Although published in 1969, I find myself wishing that everyone everywhere would pick it up and read it. Though it’s a bit long on references to Vietnam and rather out of date in some of its neuroscience (see Ch. 7: Languaging), it still has extremely important things to say to both teachers and students. (Sorry, administrators, you don’t even make the list, seeing as how you are unnecessary and in many cases counterproductive to the learning process.)

Postman and Weingartner make many points, not the least of which is that there exists in the public educational system of the modern United States a pretty sharp demarcation between school and real life, a demarcation that results from using outdated methods to inculcate irrelevant information, and which serves to discourage real learning and real learners. They trace student cheating, conformity, cynicism, behavioral problems, emotional problems, and high dropout rates (among other problems) to this needless demarcation between “real” and “school,” and advocate, among other things, a questions-based curriculum as a way to close the gap.

Imagine how school would change if every classroom were “To Sir, With Love.” If textbooks took a backseat to students’ own questions. If teachers drilled students on the art of asking and answering questions instead of the art of 18th-century Polynesia. Maybe students would find their questions leading them to 18th-century Polynesian art anyway. Maybe not. But Postman/Weingartner’s point is that if they don’t, don’t try to teach them Polynesian art. It may be irrelevant, or worse, counterproductive to students’ survival, both intellectual and otherwise.

I opened up the paper today to find that one of the worst teachers I ever had in high school is now an administrator and making in excess of $107,000 a year. Although I was generally a good and compliant student in high school, graduating with a weighted GPA of 4.102 (I think), I didn’t take notes in that teacher’s class; I wrote them. And then passed them on down the row. —Every student there was just as bored as I was. (I still have those notes, actually, and unlike the teaching, they’re funny, wise, and wildly entertaining.) Thanks to better teachers in math, I can calculate that since the state allocated about $5,800 per pupil in its education budget when I was in high school, the $107,000 that teacher made last year could instead have been spent better educating something in excess of 18 pupils per year for the last ten years. To detractors of Postman and Weingartner who call their suggestions unworkable: You don’t think I re-evaluated, if only for a moment, the workability of Post/gartner’s suggestion to drastically cut if not eliminate administrative staff in the schools when I opened my paper this morning?

Despite superficial gains (as measured by such spurious tools as standardized test scores and graduation rates), I do not believe the state of public education is better now than in 1969. Since 1969, arts budgets have decreased, standardized testing has ballooned to take over more of the curriculum than ever before, and the grade the public would give to the public schools in the nation at large hovers around a C (and has actually decreased between 1974 and 2008—see http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d0...). Not to mention that since 1969, the number of school shootings in the United States has increased exponentially. Which means that what we’ve tried hasn’t worked, and what we’re trying isn’t working. However, to my knowledge, no program anywhere has yet “declared a five-year moratorium on the use of all textbooks” or “transferred all the elementary-school teachers to high school and vice versa,” and I’m open to new ideas. In the meantime, I think I’ll keep on reading everything that Neil Postman has ever written.
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Aug 06, 2012 Mosborne01 rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: leading-and-learning

Perhaps one of the most depressing aspects of Postman and Weingartner’s book (written some 45 years ago) is how much of it still applies. Many of the criticisms that he levels at schools of their day are at least as valid now, if not more so.
Some (extremely distilled) points:
- One of a school’s primary functions is to equip students with ‘crap detectors’ so that they may successfully spot time when people are attempting to manipulate them.
- School should be about ‘inquiry’ not about the transmis...more

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May 28, 2012 Hans de Zwart rated it 4 of 5 stars

Anything with "subversive" in the title has my attention, especially if it relates to teaching.

Even though this book is more than 40 years old (1969) Postman and Weingartner are making an argument that is very similar to the argument that is being made today around the bankruptcy of an educational system that is based on the needs of an industrial society. They write that for the first time in history change has become so fast that we can't assume that what made sense to us, makes sense to our c...more

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Jan 04, 2009 Amy rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: education

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 co...more 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.(less)

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Mar 30, 2009 LB rated it 3 of 5 stars

Recommended to LB by: Chris

Shelves: education

While I read the intro and first chapter, I kept having the theme song from the TV show Two and a Half Men playing in my head. Man, men, men, men, Manly men men men... Yikes. This man, man, men, man, he, him, man, man, man in a chapter called Crap Detecting in a book that says, "Those who are sensitive to the verbally built-in biases of their 'natural' environment seem 'subversive' to those who are not." Maybe, before they trying to pick this particular speck out of the eyes of educators, they s...more

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Mar 30, 2009 Lisa Nimz rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: education

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...more

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Sep 09, 2009 HHS Staff rated it 5 of 5 stars

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.

Reviewed by:
Mark Janda
Social Studies Teacher

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Sep 22, 2012 Kelly T rated it 5 of 5 stars

Guess what? Education has not changed one tiny bit since the book was written in 1967. Seriously. One of the best pedagogy books I've ever read. Every teacher, educator or human that works with children or has children should read it. Plus it's funny. Those guys were cranky snarky sons of bitches!

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Sep 19, 2012 Nicole rated it 4 of 5 stars

I became interested in this book when I was in graduate school and working on my teaching certificate. I believe the copyright of this book is 1976. I was fascinated how relevant Postman's insights still were based on my experiences as a student (at all levels) and substitute teacher.

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Aug 09, 2011 Jen rated it 2 of 5 stars

His book was based on a very progressive philosophy of education which called into question the importance of facts. I do not believe that he discounts facts, but he does call into question what facts about our past we should know and seems to indicate that it is impossible for a fact to be objective. I would, in fact, have to disagree.

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Sep 14, 2008 Adria Tingey rated it 4 of 5 stars

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 mak...more

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Dec 09, 2012 J rated it 3 of 5 stars

The material is dated, but it is still forward thinking. I would say its pretty much the blue print for contemporary cutting edge thinking in 2012 - not bad considering Postman wrote this in 1968.

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Aug 08, 2010 David rated it 3 of 5 stars

Quick read. A little over-the-top rhetorically, but with some interesting ideas. Been awhile since I read it, but I remember liking his example final question on the impacts of technology.

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Jun 29, 2009 Zach added it

"It is the thesis of this book that change -- constant, accelerating, ubiquitous -- is the most striking characteristic of the world we live in and that our educational system has not yet recognized this fact."

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Mar 27, 2013 Robb Lightfoot rated it 5 of 5 stars

Still have my old tattered paperback. Metrics may be all the thing these days, but give me Postman over the bean counters any day.

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May 05, 2009 Ian rated it 3 of 5 stars

Just what the title says...how to teach kids skills for intellectual self defense..."crap detection" is one of the chapters.

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Jan 10, 2013 Michelle rated it 2 of 5 stars

I had hoped the book would live up to its title - I love the title! - but I found it mostly disappointing. There was so much snark directed against teachers that you'd think it had been written during present times. I can appreciate the motives behind writing the book, the objective of making school/learning more meaningful for students, and several of the ideas. Towards the end, I made connections to some reading other reading I've done (such as Socrates Cafe). I really wanted to like the book,...more

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Jan 10, 2012 Sarah marked it as to-read

Michael Wesch mentioned this book in his talk at the Islander Forum (2012-1-10)

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Apr 21, 2009 Joseph Tardio added it

Teaching pays the bills... don't over think it.

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Feb 05, 2011 Bwags75 rated it 4 of 5 stars

makes me want to change the way I teach, have incorporated some subversive activities into my classroom. thanks postman.

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Sep 10, 2012 Leeroy Jenkins rated it 3 of 5 stars

Ok, but if you read his other stuff.. There isn't much else to glean.

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Mar 26, 2012 Adam Bradley rated it 4 of 5 stars

The teaching methodology advocated by Postman comes across as unapologetically deconstructionist and post-modern; to borrow a meme from Chesterton, there are some ideas which lead to the destruction of thought, and the possibility of such an outcome seems largely unexamined here. Curious to read his "Teaching As A Conserving Activity" to compare and contrast.

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Aug 09, 2012 Jasonlylescampbell rated it 5 of 5 stars

Very good book on what learning is and therefore a major critique of our current system. If learning is about teaching critical thinking and the ability to ask good, relevent questions, then our current program fails utterly (the stars of our current program are the compliant, quiet, parrot back learners).

I plan on making notes on this and posting here later when I have time. I am reading these things to better understand how to teach my children.

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Mar 26, 2008 Beth rated it 5 of 5 stars

I pulled this book off my dad's shelves when I had dropped out of architecture school and was trying to figure out what to do with my life.

Twenty years later, let me tell you that this was a major turning point in my decision to become a teacher. It was also a philosophy that kept me bordering on mutiny most of my teaching career...

Every education student should read this book -- agree with it or not.

Thank you, Neil Postman!

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Apr 26, 2010 James rated it 5 of 5 stars

I love this book as it describes where my thinking is right now about my educational philosophy. Even though it was written over 40 years ago, the complaints and solutions are still valid. Maybe because education has taken so many steps backwards, thanks to No Child Left Unpunished. I have been reborn with this book and any teacher worth their salt can read this and find some way to adjust their teaching to reach their students.

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About Neil Postman

Neil Postman, an important American educator, media theorist and cultural critic was probably best known for his popular 1985 book, Amusing Ourselves to Death. For more than four decades he was associated with New York University, where he created and led the Media Ecology program.

He is the author of more than thirty significant books on education, media criticism, and cultural change including Te...more

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Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business

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