Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 14
 Brilliant June 8, 2001
Neil Hinrichsen (Knysna South Africa)
76 out of 85 found this review helpful
Quite simply one of the most thought-provoking books I have ever read. However hard it is to get a copy, it is MUST reading for anyone involved in educating people. Heavily influenced by McLuhan, this book is devastating in showing what classrooms REALLY teach - that there is one right answer, that the teacher has it, that memorising facts is important, that fellow students have nothing to contribute, etc etc - and how to construct an environment in which REAL learning takes place - where people learn how to learn themselves. This is one of those books that shakes one's previously-unexamined foundational assumptions of education. I cannot recommend it too highly.
The most profound book on education I have ever read. March 25, 1999
Kerry Ponsford (ponsford_kerry@msmail.asd.k12.ak.us) (Anchorage, Alaska)
52 out of 63 found this review helpful
When the first chapter of a book on education is called 'Crap Detecting', you know you are on to a winner! Postman's provocative look at the nature of the classroom and how we educate our children is a must read by anyone who has a real interest in education being about more than tests and tick boxes. I have read this book many times and have never failed to be challenged, enthused and uplifted by it. My classroom and teaching style has been transformed by it - read it!!! Your teaching will never be the same again!
Excellent. Very stimulating intellectually. Provocative. July 13, 1997
25 out of 29 found this review helpful
This book is easily within the five best books I ever read. I read it through maybe 15 times. It helped explain to me my 12 years of school - what actually went on there. It has highly provocative ideas concerning what goes on in school. It still help guides me in my advanced and home studies. Highly recommended for all students, and teachers. A very good read for all who are not brain dead. I am not a teacher
What is wrong + What to do about it September 22, 2005
G. Carpintero (Madrid, Spain)
12 out of 16 found this review helpful
To the positive reviews given so far, I would like to add that the very virtue of the book is that it is not limited to point the failures of the education system. It goes on to propose a way out, reasonably argued and based on results of data evaluating the problem. That is one of the reasons it might be difficult to follow, the solution is not trivial and straighforward.
The beginning of Education Reform May 25, 2007
Justin P. Wood (Laguna Niguel, CA USA)
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
40 years since Postman declared the need for reformed education and our school systems still look the same today as it did then. A new age is still growing for the next age of education.
This is the most excellent book on the nature of teaching and educating I have yet read. Postman articulates the utmost need for asking questions, for children and adults to think critically, to formulate conclusions, discover what they feel is relevant and important to modern life, and that this kind of process should be the basis for our education system.
Kids are taught to submit to authorities in school. They learn to answer the teacher's "Guess what I'm thinking?" The student raises his or her hand to offer the "correct" answer. Yet Postman offers ways to challenge and change the K-12 and university systems.
Postman explains the way in which the coming age can address relevant problems of today. To encourage students to think and search for new problems we aren't solving, while also being aware of those who've come before us - where things come from, why were things invented, and for what need are certain things used.
This book is essential for anyone who is concerned about education, and the allowance for free thought, expression, and to build a society of intelligent citizens. It goes in depth and covers clearly the ways in which we can begin to reform education.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 14
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