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The Future of Education: Reimagining Our Schools from the Ground Up
This engaging book presents a frontal attack on current forms of schooling and a radical rethinking of the whole education process. Kieran Egan, a prize-winning scholar and innovative thinker, does not rail against teachers, administrators, or politicians for the failures of the school. Instead he argues that education today is built on a set of mutually exclusive goals that are destined to defeat our best efforts. Egan explores the three big ideas and aims of education—academic, social, and developmental growth—and exposes their flaws and fundamental incompatibility. He then proposes and describes a process called Imaginative Education that would dramatically change teaching and curriculum while delivering the skills and understanding that we all want our children to acquire. His speculative narrative of education from 2010 to 2060—executed with wit and verve—shows how we might very well get there from here.
- GenresEducation
208 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2008
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72 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
July 26, 2011
*Note: This book really has a 2.5 star rating!!!
The first half of this book is interesting because it describes a different approach to teaching. Egan suggests that teachers should appeal to students' somatic, mythic, romantic, philosophic, and ironic natures. The somatic focuses on what students "perceive, feel, and think." It also emphasizes humor. The mythic involves teaching lessons as if they are stories because "stories help you understand how to feel about events." The romantic involves associating learning with heroic qualities. It also assumes that students will have "a desire to transcend the boundaries of reality while recognizing that [they are] constrained by those boundaries." The philosophic involves "understanding the real truth and the real reality of things." The ironic involves understanding the difference between what is said and what is meant, irony. I really enjoyed the first half of the book, and if Egan had stopped the book here, I would have given it a 4.5 star rating. However, he had to include a second half, which is horrible. In it, Egan pretends as if he is a researcher who is living in the future and writing about the past decades, spanning from 2010-2060. In this portion of the book, Egan praises his own educational reform system, which is bogus, impractical, and downright stupid. I don't even think I can do justice to the horrors contained in the latter half of the book. Suffice it to say that Egan comes off as arrogant and idiotic. He contradicts himself and his philosophies multiple times. He also praises his educational theories. One commands that all teachers should teach their lessons in the forms of stories. Another dictates that all students should be arbitrarily assigned a topic to research at the beginning of their freshmen year. This research, about such topics as dust-I kid you not, he actually thinks students are interested in learning this, would continue until their senior year in high school, which is when they would finally present their findings. Another belief of his involves having students of all ages learn how to tell jokes in class each week and learn all their subjects from a certain perspective, like from the perspective of human history one year and innovations the next year. Because the second half of this book is completely ridiculous, I can only give the novel a 2.5 rating
The first half of this book is interesting because it describes a different approach to teaching. Egan suggests that teachers should appeal to students' somatic, mythic, romantic, philosophic, and ironic natures. The somatic focuses on what students "perceive, feel, and think." It also emphasizes humor. The mythic involves teaching lessons as if they are stories because "stories help you understand how to feel about events." The romantic involves associating learning with heroic qualities. It also assumes that students will have "a desire to transcend the boundaries of reality while recognizing that [they are] constrained by those boundaries." The philosophic involves "understanding the real truth and the real reality of things." The ironic involves understanding the difference between what is said and what is meant, irony. I really enjoyed the first half of the book, and if Egan had stopped the book here, I would have given it a 4.5 star rating. However, he had to include a second half, which is horrible. In it, Egan pretends as if he is a researcher who is living in the future and writing about the past decades, spanning from 2010-2060. In this portion of the book, Egan praises his own educational reform system, which is bogus, impractical, and downright stupid. I don't even think I can do justice to the horrors contained in the latter half of the book. Suffice it to say that Egan comes off as arrogant and idiotic. He contradicts himself and his philosophies multiple times. He also praises his educational theories. One commands that all teachers should teach their lessons in the forms of stories. Another dictates that all students should be arbitrarily assigned a topic to research at the beginning of their freshmen year. This research, about such topics as dust-I kid you not, he actually thinks students are interested in learning this, would continue until their senior year in high school, which is when they would finally present their findings. Another belief of his involves having students of all ages learn how to tell jokes in class each week and learn all their subjects from a certain perspective, like from the perspective of human history one year and innovations the next year. Because the second half of this book is completely ridiculous, I can only give the novel a 2.5 rating
February 15, 2012
A really interesting and totally different perspective on what education should be in future. The book comes from Vygotskian point of view which is refreshing also it is true to what it preaches by choosing a very unconventional genre for public-academic audience. I may not agree with the whole view but I liked the ideas very much.
March 5, 2013
I liked the idea of the book and when the author was speaking in very general and very vague terms his ideas sounded good. However, whenever he attempted to provide more details and create his narrative things quickly feel apart. When viewed in the context of Khan Academy and the various online options becoming available it is hard to see how his vision will stand the test of time.
August 14, 2014
Read the first half and skip the rest. Egan's ideas are relatively unique (meaning that they're uncommon in a world of educational criticism), but they're not groundbreaking. The second half of the book is an unnecessary fictional account of the future of the education system. It's weird. The tone is irksome. Don't waste your time reading it.
April 16, 2009
Intriguing because it succeeds in offering a radically different though coherent and stable understanding of how schools can grow to meet the goals that they've always had in the future. A definite recommend.
January 1, 2010
A thorough and accurate account detailing the problems and contradictions inherent in the American education system. The prescription for correction is impressive but the implementation of such changes seems widely optimistic.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews