The End of Education: Redefining the Value of School

In this comprehensive response to the education crisis, the author of Teaching as a Subversive Activity returns to the subject that established his reputation as one of our most insightful social critics. Postman presents useful models with which schools can restore a sense of purpose, tolerance, and a respect for learning.
From Publishers WeeklyBecause American society operates on the unspoken assumption that schooling is for preparing students for well-paying jobs, our educational system is falling apart, declares Postman (Technopoly), a New York University communications professor. In a wise and provocative essay, he argues that public schools subtly reinforce worship of technology, economic utility and consumerism. He outlines several alternative “narratives” that would give public schools a compelling reason to exist and that would motivate students to learn. These include “Spaceship Earth,” which casts humans as caretakers of a vulnerable, interdependent planet; the “Law of Diversity,” teaching how art, science, politics and customs have been vitalized through the intermingling of cultures; the “American Experiment,” portraying U.S. history as an imperfect crucible of democracy; and “Word Weavers,” the social and moral dimensions of language and its central role in transforming the world. Postman's visionary, perhaps somewhat utopian blueprint for transforming our schools sets a new standard for debate. Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library JournalAfter 20 books (e.g., Technopoly, LJ 1/92), Postman, social critic par excellence, has returned to his original turf: education. Sharp, witty, and frequently quotable, he demolishes many leading popular themes as lacking in meaning. Education without spiritual content or, as he puts it, without a myth or narrative to sustain and motivate, is education without a purpose. That purpose used to be democracy and could still be, if only we were willing to look for the elements that unite rather than separate. Postman considers multiculturalism a separatist movement that destroys American unity. Diversity, however, is one of the themes he would employ in teaching language, history, and culture. Postman offers a number of positive and uplifting themes around which a new education philosophy could be formulated, some of which are far-fetched or extreme but nonetheless interesting. A most welcome addition to the education debate; highly recommended for all libraries.-Arla Lindgren, St. John's Univ., New YorkCopyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.