Best history of education books according to redditors
We found 59 Reddit comments discussing the best history of education books. We ranked the 28 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
We found 59 Reddit comments discussing the best history of education books. We ranked the 28 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
I would say that Gatto's Underground History got me thinking about modern public education. He is kind of a wingnut, but he has lots of good history, and points about our modern industrial education system. That led me to learn about the history of education, and I realized that when we abandoned the classical liberal arts tradition, we lost a lot. So basically, I thought that by using the Core Knowledge Curriculum, combined with Latin and Singapore Math, we could provide a better education than our local public schools.
Sadly, there's as much variation in the quality of homeschooling as there is in the quality of public schools, apparently, but from what I've seen in our homeschooling community, an involved, caring parent will do just as well as, if not better than the average public school.
As to the reasons for going back to school, a few of her friends decided to go to high school, which means the end of her reading and writing groups. We were prepared to go all the way, but she decided to try high school. I don't have many worries, other than the normal parent-of-teenager worries. She's got a good head on her shoulders.
There's a compelling and well-supported theory that the American public education system is based on the Prussian education system of the late 1800's, which was engineered to turn ignorant rural farm children into functioning industrial workers.
It stresses things like repetition, recitation, strict unquestioning obedience, showing up on time, leaving on time, eating on time, standing in lines, sitting in assigned positions, going through an assembly line of grades indifferent to each child's abilities, reading and following basic instructions, etc.
It is a system expressly designed to remove the instincts for discovery, independence, self-driven growth, etc.
"The Underground History of American Education" is a good book on the subject:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0945700040/ref=cm_cr_othr_mb_bdcrb_top?ie=UTF8
I also strongly recommend Lockhart's Lament:
http://www.maa.org/sites/default/files/pdf/devlin/LockhartsLament.pdf
Not a high schooler anymore but read Dumbing us down by John Taylor Gatto (a multiple winner of "Teacher of the year" for NY city and one time winner of "Teacher of the year" for NY state).
Is this the book you are referring to? Your Children are Not Your Children: The Story of Headfort School
Black American Students in An Affluent Suburb: A Study of Academic Disengagement
Minority Status, Oppositional Culture and Schooling
The book is in google books. You can read a lot of it.
(number of people with "bad" jobs) >>> (number of people with "good" jobs)
This is what the public ed system should be doing. Its not a secret.
http://www.amazon.com/Underground-History-American-Education-Investigation/dp/0945700040/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1395705212&sr=8-2&keywords=public+education+system+john+taylor+gatto
I apologize as this is not a historical analysis of the education system. However, I believe the assertion, "The US school system was designed to churn out factory workers," is most likely referencing John Gatto's The Underground History of American Education. If I recall correctly (and it has been a long while), Gatto looks at the Prussian systems, as well as the relationships between the Indian and British school systems. I have not seen Gatto referenced in conversations about the historical development of the US education system, however; his arguments seem to be a part of a conversation about the state of contemporary education, concerns about standardized testing versus ingenuity, etc. To be sure, Gatto tries to develop a historical explanation for the contemporary issues in education, but I have not seen how his work fits in to a broader historical narrative, which poses problems for the viability of his conclusions, I think. Similar arguments about education include [Ken Robinson's Ted Talk] (http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html) on Creativity, for example, which are part of a more current discourse regarding education philosophies like unschooling (in Gatto's case) and inquiry-based programs like Montessori, Reggio Emilia, etc.
So, I'm actually in the middle of Seymour Sarason's book The Predictable Failure of Educational Reform. Just some light reading...;0). But fascinating. In there, he writes this:
"The classroom, and the school and school system generally, are not comprehensible unless you flush out the power relationships that inform and control the behavior of everyone in these settings. Ignore those relationships, leave unexamined their rationale, and the existing "system" will defeat efforts at reform...The first step, recognition of the problem, is the most difficult, especially in regard to schools, because we all have been socialized most effectively to accept the power relationships characteristic of our schools as right, natural, and proper, outcomes to the contrary nonwithstanding (7)."
That makes sense to me. We try to fix the parts but not the whole. We try to do "the wrong thing right" when in our heart of hearts we know better.
You are certainly correct that the quality of public education can vary widely, however no matter how well performing a public school may be they all suffer from the same fundamental issues. As references to this brief diatribe I will point you to (as in my other comment) the school sucks project, a book called Illiberal Reformers which details the frightening truth of the early progressive movement, and finally The Underground History of American Education which is a book by a decorated public school teacher who had a terrifying realization after a his long career. Note, that nothing I say here is an attack on any educators or teachers who might read this. I truly believe most teachers and the like get into the field for the right reasons, but the structure that they are faced with is the problem.
The problem with public school in the US, and many other countries (especially Western), is that learning/education is really only a secondary purpose. It is at all times subordinate, and therefore often undermined, to further the actual goal of creating a subordinate citizenry. The early progressives (Who as an aside were just awful, for example it was they who inspired the Nazis to eugenics. Once you go down this rabbit hole you'll never look at Woodrow Wilson the same again.) who championed the introduction of the American public school system were quite plain about where the idea for the modern public school came from. Namely, the Prussian aristocracy who inflicted it upon the populace in the 1800s for the express purpose of making them easy to rule. They made no attempt to hide this fact. The early progressives were somewhat more cautious in their language, dressing up the idea in Utopian language but their intentions are pretty clear if you go look at the academic papers and such they published at the times (which the two books I linked do).
So as to not get too long winded, let me just as a few rhetorical questions. How do you forcefully educate someone? How do you force someone to learn? How does mandating children show up at a building on pain of confinement for them or their parents further either of those goals? The Athenians are turning in their graves. The system forces children to show up at an arbitrary time, irrespective of their individual circumstances, and divides them into arbitrary groups. They are then forced to respect and defer to a person (i.e. Teacher/Adminstrators) arbitrarily. They have to seek permission to perform normal bodily functions (i.e. ask to use the restroom), trained not unlike you would a dog (not that I have anything against dogs!). They are trained to shuffle from one room to another at the sound of a bell, and to fill out meaningless paperwork and to perform meaningless tasks within an arbitrary involuntary hierarchy. It erodes at the mind and soul, creating an obedient populace that is used to dealing with a convoluted bureaucracy, and sometimes you learn something. To top it off, the curriculum is controlled via a political apparatus subject to all the corruption that accompanies politics. You can school, indoctrinate, and train people, but you can't force them to think critically and to really learn.
As an international Kindle-user, after looking through 106 (of 359) pages, I have found just 3 freebies.
Stupid Amazon doesn't understand how to sort the price by low to high.
But these three books I have found, that are actually free for me:
I give up looking through those pages now.
its been brewing like this for decades,
my friends dad used to be a principal and later a superintendent, he would tell me stories about how poor performing and neglectful teachers were nearly unfireable if they were protected by the union.
the political climate has pushed this beyond its extreme,
He wrote a book about it a few years back called
The Gated Society
>The public education system has the capacity to slowly and quietly resist all attempts at systemic change or reform; this resistance has become even more tangible and definable over the past fifteen years as reforms to bring schools up-to-date are attempted and blocked by Industrial Age understandings driven by corporate, political, and financial needs. Surgenor identifies the intellectual, emotional, and organizational factors that keep North American education locked within the Industrial Age paradigm. Exploring the differences between the Industrial Age and Information Age paradigms, The Gated Society demonstrates how those differences would impact the practice, form, and function of education systems
My apologies for taking some time to get back to you. I do have a few book recommendations about the history of the Bronx (growing up in Yonkers I spent a ton of time there, and it is actually my favorite outer borough, shh)! I highly recommend Lloyd Ultan’s The Northern Borough: A History of the Bronx, which provides an excellent look at the settlement and growth of the borough. I also enjoyed used Twomey’s The Bronx in Bits and Pieces. If you’re interested in the origin of street and place names (which I most certainly am), then consider checking out John McNamara’s History in Asphalt: The Origin of Bronx Street & Place Names Encyclopedia.
>How would you define a good vs bad school, or is it just about movement of students?
>How would you assess if a teacher is good or bad?
The parents decide, just like they do for everything else for their kids.
>Should private and/or charter schools be required to go through some sort of process to certify their merit before being allowed to enter the educational system
No.
>Presumably you would support private and/or charter schools, how would you make access to them affordable for poor students?
Every kid gets a voucher, to be used at any school they wish.
>being pointed to a good resource would be appreciated.
This book.
And this book.
But to be honest, imo, the best way to educate your own kids is this way.
If only ye' knew.
Love Gatto, but I found his complete lack of sources in 'Secret History of American Education' a bit off.
Edit: Here's a critical review. I read it after ordering the book, and while reading it. Can't say it didn't make me confident.
The adapted book excerpt in the NYT Magazine seems more legit than the tiny excerpt of an excerpt that Mother Jones posted:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/27/magazine/why-do-americans-stink-at-math.html
Actual book is here:
http://www.amazon.com/Building-Better-Teacher-Teaching-Everyone-ebook/dp/B00FPT5MSQ
My first thought was that is was a great idea, but then I thought about classifying students as slaves, it might be a bit of an issue.
One of my big things for student engagement was to design and build in game-like structures in class.
I hate, absolutely hated lecturing and if I needed to have a class lecture, I kept it to ten-fifteen minutes. Then students used the information from that to create a game, play a game, have a debate, something within the class. I found that games were the surefire way of holding student engagement.
Here is a good book about building in game structures into the classroom - http://www.amazon.com/The-Multiplayer-Classroom-Designing-Coursework/dp/1435458443. If you are a gamer, think about how games hold your attention, and your students' attention. Typically it's just a bit of work for a big payoff. You play for a while and you level up. If you can build your classroom along those lines. We learn/play for a bit, then we "level up" kids take pride in that.
Simulations are awesome for this as well:
http://www.amazon.com/Short-Role-playing-Simulations-History-Classrooms/dp/0983426732
Here is a good article on game-based classroom learning - http://www.edutopia.org/blog/short-happy-history-of-historia-rick-brennan
I had a lot of fun building and designing simulations and games for my students. Because I was having fun, they fed off of that energy and they had fun as well. Some games we built the rules together.
I think one of the most fun lessons was when we were studying the American West and Populism - High School. Students had to research a particular aspect of that time period and teach it to their classmates by playing a board game. So I had four board games where kids were playing in my room. They had four stations and one person from each team stayed each turn to teach their games to the other group members. At the end, we had board game designer awards. One won for Best Game Design. One won for "I learned the Most". Another won for Best Game Artwork, etc. Each game design team won something and each team learned something. It took about three-four days from start to finish in a one hour - fifteen minute class. Day 1 - Quick mini-lecture on the basics of the time period. Students chose their topics, etc. Day 2 - Build day. Day 3 - Play/Awards day.
When I gave them my end of year evaluation. How did Mr. NameIdeas do this year? Did you learn something? What lesson/activity did you like best/least? How can Mr. NameIdeas improve his teaching, his relationships with students, his music choice, etc? They all remembered the games and, more importantly, the information from the games.
Though if we look at what concentration of the population buts what books we will see that these people can read but they are still dopes. During the civil war nearly everybody in the country minus black slaves bought books by Paine, while today rarely anybody buys books that in depth.
In fact Gatto's book Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling even goes as far as saying people during the civil war were more literate than today.
I have look for citations and have not been impressed with anything. Some say people are smarter today other say they are not and standards have just been lowered.
Great! I completely agree.
Another great book is http://www.amazon.com/Underground-History-American-Education-Investigation/dp/0945700040/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1260548679&sr=1-2
and anything by Bastiat.
let me see if I can explain. The public school system in America was not designed to help literacy for poor immigrants, although that would be noble. And it wasn't really designed to make us #1 in math or whatever (it would be failing at both of those goals).
It was designed to break children from their parent's culture and to help them integrate into the melting pot.
http://www.amazon.com/Dumbing-Down-Curriculum-Compulsory-Schooling/dp/086571231X
Any number of videos by John Grotto on this. He's kinda crazy on a lot of things, but his education experience is quite sound.
My wife firmly believes the school system is corrupt. I can see how the church, under David O. McKay (or at least when he was an apostle) incorporated Correlation and the public school system to revise how kids are taught in order to pull them away from previous religions and cultures in order to assimilate them into the new culture of the church.
We talk about it as brainwashing, but a lot of it is culture-washing. You're no longer a mexican/Brazillian/swede/russian. You're a Mormon, here is your jell-o salad and please bring funeral potatoes.
Your parents might pray to the previous God once in a while (such as the pentacostal who still speaks in tongues once in a while, even after having been to the temple) but the kids... they know better. They roll their eyes at their parents and try to be more righteous, more godly, like they're supposed to be.
Does that make sense?
My views of American school is that privatization hurts the current 'public' system. It further separates the classes, but that is what the public system was designed to do. It was scientifically designed to create malleable workers for the industrial revolution. The system strives to keep people dumb. But don't believe me, believe a teacher
I think the responsibility needs to get back into the home. I believe a better system would be to let parents decide when their children are schooled and where. More public like a library. Where I am from being dumb is almost a badge of honor.
Also, we should privatize sports programs. Take them out of the "public" institutions we call schools. They seem to be quite a distraction and lend more to being popular then becoming a self learner.
Louis Hartz: The Liberal Tradition in America
Karl Popper's The Open Society and Its Enemies (both volumes)
Eric Fromm's Escape from Freedom
Chalmers Johnson: The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic
Hanah Arendt: Origins of Totalitarianism and On Violence
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West
Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers
Capitalism and Slavery
American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America
INSIDE THE COMPANY: CIA DIARY
Empire's Workshop: Latin America, the United States, and the Rise of the New Imperialism
The Underground History of American Education: A School Teacher's Intimate Investigation Into the Problem of Modern Schooling
Required watching/reading for all people interested in the Root Cause for why schools are soo fucked
Please read this book: http://www.amazon.com/Underground-History-American-Education-Investigation/dp/0945700040/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1303747880&sr=1-1
Here are all the local Amazon links I could find:
amazon.co.uk
amazon.ca
amazon.com.au
amazon.in
amazon.com.mx
amazon.de
amazon.it
amazon.es
amazon.com.br
amazon.nl
amazon.co.jp
amazon.fr
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Read this book, and then consider that it's been going on for generations. Also the culture of immediate gratification. And things...
I'm middle school teacher in Helsinki and I'm really happy doing my work as most of my colleagues.
Teachers are respected and trusted like doctors and other professionals. We have a lot of autonomy and freedom in our jobs and there's no need to talk about accountability, because the teachers are motivated to do the job as well as possible. Also we don't overwork the teachers. It's really important for teachers to have time off from work to be able to think, improve our skills and teach in a creative and effective way.
There are no standardised tests apart from the matriculation examination at the end of high school. This way we can focus on the important things like creativity, thinking, collaboration, problem solving, emotional intelligence and other skills needed in the future. We don't have to teach for the tests.
Yes, PISA scores of high performing Asian countries are better, but they spend way more time studying. We don't think that's healthy. Instead it's important for the students to have hobbies, social lives, passions and unstructued time.
I'd recommend two books, if you want to know more about education in Finland. Most of the methods and insights could be applied anywhere.
Teach Like Finland by Tim Walker: https://www.amazon.com/Teach-Like-Finland-Strategies-Classrooms-ebook/dp/B071CPJ9LP/ref=mt_kindle?_encoding=UTF8&me=
Finnish Lessons 2.0 by Pasi Sahlberg: https://www.amazon.com/Finnish-Lessons-2-0-Educational-Finland-ebook/dp/B00SZ7L8M4/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1520342678&sr=1-1&keywords=finnish+lessons+2.0
I'm sorry, but the one time I'll agree with a public school teacher when they complain is when they are complaining about teaching to the test.
Are you familiar with the Prussian education model? If you want to research what went wrong with our system, I would recommend reading The Underground History of American Education or, for a quicker version, read an article by the author, called Six-Lesson Schoolteacher.
The problem with our system is almost entirely due to the basis for the system itself, not the teachers. Please let me know if this helps.
>How much of the increase in overall pricing is due to the sharp jump in oil and housing?
Likely not much since fuel and housing are not regularly included in the CPI measure. If they were the fed could not maintain their 2-4% inflation illusion.
>Sources, Please
http://www.forbes.com/sites/nathanlewis/2013/01/03/the-1870-1914-gold-standard-the-most-perfect-one-ever-created/
http://www.amazon.com/Money-Gold-History-Lewis-Lehrman-ebook/dp/B00DQG5QL8/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1410015930&sr=1-2&keywords=lehrman
http://www.amazon.com/Money-Destruction-Dollar-Threatens-Economy-ebook/dp/B00JFG7080/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1410016056&sr=1-1&keywords=money
http://www.amazon.com/Creature-Jekyll-Island-Edward-Griffin-ebook/dp/B00ARFNQ54/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1410016087&sr=1-1&keywords=creature+from+jekyll+island
I also recommend John Taylor Gatto's The Underground History of American Education in which he argues that the apparent failures of modern education are in fact successes: the system was deliberately set up to prevent learning.
Availble online here: mhkeehn.tripod.com/ughoae.pdf but I also recommend the hard copy available from Amazo here: http://www.amazon.com/Underground-History-American-Education-Investigation/dp/0945700040
I published it here on Amazon. Have a good day :)
​
https://www.amazon.com/Voynich-Morse-Code-Steganography-Cipher/dp/169014629X/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
It's a good question, and the honest answer is I don't entirely know. I've only been alive for about thirty years, and most of this occurred long before I was born.
I think I can tell you why, though, and I think the same answer would apply to the question of why leftists dominate other arenas like education.
The power of politics is not who occupies the office. Not in a democracy or in a republic. Every person in power is one election away from losing that power. The only way to build enduring power is to control the culture.
There's a wonderful book I would recommend anybody to read, called The Underground History of American Education which discusses the strategy which I believe is in play: if you control the levers of public consciousness, you passively control that populace.
It would be a bit difficult to believe that our diverse media climate could be coordinated, except that just six corporations collectively control 90% of the American media market. We have the illusion of diverse opinion, but not the reality of it.
I know just what you need. This entire book takes place during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The main characters are the perfect age, middle school, and there is a great companion guide for teachers to go along with it. There are historical writeups and assignments to accompany them, including one about President Kennedy. The companion guide has pieces about school life during the 1960s, music of the era, and activities for students, etc.
http://www.amazon.com/Ryans-Crossing-Jake-A-Henderson/dp/1479195901/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1348992709&sr=8-3&keywords=ryan%27s+crossing
http://www.amazon.com/Ryans-Crossing-Historical-Companion-Guide/dp/1479239704/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1348992779&sr=1-1&keywords=ryan%27s+crossing+companion
My first point comes from this book- which describes the purposes of educating the public. The education system wasn't created to help people get jobs or prepare them for the workplace. It was created based on an idea that if everyone can read and write then they can participate in governance and politics. That is the major difference between a democracy and a republic. But yes the better educated the public is the more benefits our society as a whole will reap.
On your second paragraph, you are completely on point. There are a few exceptions, like Elizabeth Warren in MA, but overall many states are misusing their education funding. I also meant that many people that are researching things like brain-based learning have better ways to educate but we can't implement them because we don't have the funding. I'm a teacher- as you might have been able to guess- and I matriculated from a great university for teaching. While I was in school I learned about a ton of great ways to create curriculum but now that I'm actually in the thick of it teaching it's really difficult to get supplies and school boards can be difficult to deal with. So the main problems facing education are politics and money- the ideas about education are there but people are unable to embrace and fund them.
Since you can't be bothered to listen for eleven minuets, I will sum up his points for you. The speaker is Charles Glenn. He says that religion is not just private, that it gets expressed in communities. There is a social aspect to religion, and religious liberty, must respect this. Religious liberty must also respect the right of the family to raise their children with their values. This is all important as religious liberty protects other freedoms because it means that the state's own power is less than ultimate.
He says that these rights can be protected through what he calls "structural pluralism." There is a diversity of values, so there can be no lowest common denominator. He mentions this book. He also mentions how some Islamic schools enable a place where Muslim students can discuss issues that matter to them in ways that they feel they can't do in a public school environment. The U.S. lags support for parent choice in faith-based schools. The freedom to schools a school for a child is meaningless if all schools are the same.
I think what he said was good. It makes sense to me if a society is to have religious freedom, then the freedom for parents to have school choice is very important as well.
I'm not a mythicist and I don't think it aids any particular conclusion. I'm talking about the paper's conclusion, which more or less basically states that the debate needs to happen and needs to be waged professionally.
Lataster's book was trash. Absolute garbage. But Ehrman has actually been a bit fiery in some of his statements (I suggest you see his Huffington post blog he made before his book was out, where he compares Mythicists to Creationists and such). And if you listen carefully, Ehrman wasn't the most respectful in the Ehrman v. Price debate either (becoming exacerbated by Price's positions and being rather unreasonable with him). Price did pretty poorly, but he isn't a great debater in general. While the man has amazing encyclopedic knowledge of NT studies, he isn't a good debater (and I'm saying that as a person who thinks the world of Dr. Price and has live streamed with him before). His arguments have a number of problems imo.
And I've made numerous posts and have publicly debated on the historicity of Jesus and the supposed pagan parallels and such in the past. I'm not always the nicest person in the world, but when I write academically I treat those I oppose with respect. I've also got an article in submission which responds to many of Carrier's claims in Price's Journal of Higher Criticism.
Here are some links:
https://biblicalhistoryskep.wixsite.com/biblicalhistoryskep/post/dying-and-rising-gods-a-resurrected-archetype
https://www.amazon.com/Foundational-Falsehoods-AronRa-Misinformed-Thousands-ebook/dp/B07X8QDRTL/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=foundational+falsehoods+of&qid=1570671953&rnid=2941120011&s=books&sr=1-2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8G12zEMiMKA&t=5819s
https://amateurexegete.com/2019/08/21/inanna-the-not-so-parallel-goddess-guest-post-by-chris-h/
Oh, it's so much worse than you libs imagine.