Out of the Ruins: The Emergence of Radical Informal Learning Spaces

by Robert H. Haworth (Editor), John M. Elmore (Editor)

Contemporary educational practices and policies across the world are heeding the calls of Wall Street for more corporate control, privatization, and standardized accountability. There are definite shifts and movements towards more capitalist interventions of efficiency and an adherence to market fundamentalist values within the sphere of public education. The important news is that emancipatory educational practices are emerging. In many cases, these alternatives have been undervalued or even excluded within the educational research. Out of the Ruins sets out to explore and discuss the emergence of alternative learning spaces that directly challenge the pairing of public education with particular dominant capitalist and statist structures.

Genres: Education, Politics, Nonfiction, Activism

288 pages, Paperback

Published July 1, 2017

Reviews

[Elliott]

I'm not hostile to anarchists just their choice of words.
Principally it's the word "statist" that annoys me. I literally cannot help but roll my eyes when reading it, or hearing it leveled as an insult because anyone not anarchist is lumped into that word: social democrats, fascists, communists, your great aunt Sally... There being of course huge disparities between each of those identifications. It's a word that reminds me of Puritan tracts and "No ___ allowed!" clubs from your schoolyard days. It's also a word dearly loved by their right-wing libertarian cousins. I guarantee a drinking game around that word would leave every participant certifiably sloshed by the final pages and the subsequent hangover a temple throbbing with what sounds like: 'statist! statist! statist! statist!...' echoing between the ears.
But for all that there are the occasional interesting ideas for informal learning spaces and as a socialist I try to keep abreast of anarchist thought no matter how painful it is to read as they often present some legitimate criticisms.

[Rallie]

Teachers, especially university teachers, may find this a useful text for exploring alternate teaching pedagogies.

[Rachel Rose]

I am really enjoying this book. I appreciate the criticisms to the current structure of the school system. Lots of interesting ideas in this book.

[Mills College Library]

371.04 O942 2017