FIVE MISTAKEN APPROACHES TO EDUCATION

Abstract

The field of education is being inundated by the written and spoken word. Speeches, articles, books, conferences, television interviews, and true confessions have come pouring out, indicating the grave shortcomings in what is (or is not) being done in our schools and what should (or should not) be done to remedy them. Educational reformers have become pop celebrities with a ready market for their polemics. Even scholarly academics have roused themselves to add their observations and analyses. Those of us interested in education and concerned for its improvement stand on the brink of this rising flood of verbiage and scarcely know where to plunge in. We urgently need some kind of signposts to warn us of the shallow and rocky, steer us through the deep and murky, guide us into (or against) the mainstream and eventually get us onto solid ground.