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This book newly interprets the educational implications of Thomas Jefferson's revolutionary thought. In an age where American democracy is imperilled and the civic purposes of schooling eviscerated, Burch turns to Jefferson to help bring to life the values and principles that must be recovered in order for Americans to transcend the narrow purposes of education prescribed by today's neoliberal paradigm. The author argues that critical engagement with the most radical dimensions of Jefferson's educational philosophy can establish a rational basis upon which to re-establish the civic purposes of public education. Bracketing the defining features of Jefferson's theory throughout each of the chapters, the author illuminates the deficiencies of the dominant educational paradigm, and charts a new path forward for its progressive renewal.
List of contents
1. Introduction.- 2. Educationalizing Jefferson's Revolutionary Thought.- 3. 20th Century Jeffersonian Intervention: John Dewey on the Predicaments of American Democracy.- 4. Reading George S. Counts's "A Call to the Teachers of the Nation" as a Jeffersonian Text.- 5. To Protest Against Standing Armies.- 6. Freedom from Monopolies.- 7. An Education Amendment.- 8. Crystallizing the Educational Implications of Jefferson's Revolutionary Theory.- 9. Reimagining Educational Purpose Through Jeffersonian Categories.- 10. Jeffersonian Directions in Curricular Renovation.
About the author
Kerry T. Burch is Professor of Philosophy of Education at Northern Illinois University, USA. He is the author of Democratic Transformations: Eight Conflicts in the Negotiation of American Identity (recipient of the 2014 Society of Professors of Education Book Award) and Eros as the Educational Principle of Democracy (2000). In his teaching and research, he is committed to a vision of democratic moral education anchored in the need to keep the enlightenment-oriented spirit of education alive.
