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The American educational system, because it is based in behaviorist rather than progressivist philosophy, has not well-served the development of a citizenry capable of effective participation in the democratic decision-making process, the remedy being the progressivist methods described in the later chapters of Progressive Education for Democratic Society. The mistreatment of mind in schools, historically, is intentional, the consequence being the use of curriculum and methods that are intended to inculcate students in a manufactured truth rather than promote the development of critical thinking skills necessary for assessing the truth value of contents. While this emphasis does not educate students to be critically thoughtful participants in the societal decision-making process, it does pave the way for passive acceptance of an unfair and inequitable economic system, its beneficiaries the few and the wealthy while the masses are kept content and relatively subdued. Progressive educational methods are described and promoted as means for the creation of a sane and humane democratic society. These methods are student-centered, the student the creator of meaningful knowledge developed by treating information analytically in order to discover inherent truth value-this, the basis for effective decision-making as an individual and as a member of a democratic society. Freedom and responsibility are the linchpins of a free and, at the same time, humane society, responsibility leading to voluntary curtailment of freedom, enough so that all may enjoy the benefits of a free society. The book discusses issues of proper and improper authority in order to argue for schools in which students know how to benefit from the proper and challenge the improper.
List of contents
A Rationale and Evidence - Ortega y Gasset. Ant- man and the Wasp - Autobiographical - Smitty Appears to Labor - Psychology, Statistics, Reals Students, and Real Democracy - Truthful Elegance in Science and Truth in Fiction - Mind - Trained to Be Predictable - Chronic Psychology - Spearman and the Reduction of Mind to g. Psychometrics and the Court - Basic Humanity and the Inhumanity of the "Basics" - Progressivism and the Reactionary Response - Conservatively "Effective Schools." Moving Progressively - No Child Left Behind versus The New Standards - On Writing and Thinking - A Better Classroom Environment - Huckleberry and Holden and the Sane and Humane Democracy - Index.
About the author
Stephen Lafer holds a Ph.D. in curriculum and instruction and a master's degree in the teaching of writing, and was a professor at the University of Nevada, Reno for 28 years, teaching courses in English education and social and cultural contexts of education.
Report
"Important and timely scholarship for the maturing of the Digital Age... Much of the trouble with education over the last century derives from two flaws: educators ignore the history of their profession, and that education attempts to emulate business. ... Professor Emeritus Stephen Lafer's fine study addresses both flaws, as well as miseducation and student learning."-Tom Gage, Professor Emeritus, Cal Poly Humboldt, Arcata, California
