Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Reading Postman: An End Unto Itself, 31 Mar 1997
By A Customer
So there's a lot to worry about these days. With so much that overwhelms us, it's good we have such an insightful and enjoyable commentator to articulate our anomie.
I learned a long time ago to disregard any considerations of subject matter before reading any of Postman's work. I didn't consider myself particularly interested in education, but Postman never fails to turn me into a raving zealot, far more rabid and unreasonable than even Postman himself, whether it be about how we speak and write, television, childhood, or technology. (This latter viewpoint puts me in a rather difficult position because I work in computers)
And here, Postman doesn't disappoint either. In the field of education, there are more ardent reformers than you could fit in a football stadium. But what do we want to reform, and how to go about it. Everybody has a different idea about it. (Compare Sizer to Hirsch to A. Bloom, for example)
Postman I think makes a good case for what has been wrong with education (too much emphasis on facts rather than narrative or epistemology, creeping cultural sensitivity, and inculcating consumerism).
Still, this books ends up, for me, becoming more a defense of the status quo rather than a polemic for radical change. We risk, in our dissatisfaction with the current system, throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
Education is best when it socializes children into the obligations of a citizen, and immunizes us against the snake-oil seductions of consumerism. Postman believes the seeds to our salvation, to harnessing the prodigious energies and good will of the young, are in finding powerful narratives that give meaning and direction to their lives. And I wholeheartedly agree that teaching this has nothing at all to do with whether our children learn that via multimedia Pentium machines, traditional pencil and paper, or even clay slates, for that matter.
The book's title, Postman tells us, is a deliberately ambiguous prophecy, meant to make us question why we have public education, as well as warn us that it may be on its way out. But along the way, Postman always lays out his arguments with entertaining examples, and an irrestistably dry wit which almost, I hope he pardons my using the term, amuses me to death.
I think our culture is richer because of Postman; I just wish more people paid attention to him. As for me, I can't wait for what else he has in store.
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting perspective!, 7 Mar 1999
By A Customer
Postman uses an ambiguous title that reflects the meaning of his book. The "end" may be construed as the purpose or reason for education or the end may represent his concern over the future of public education. For Postman, the survival of public education rests upon its purpose. He suggests that early purposes of education such as democracy, the melting-pot concepts, and Protestant work ethic have been lost. In addition, the "gods" of consumerism and technology have also failed. He suggests that the reader consider his five purposes for education as a means for its survival. These include his belief that education should exist so individuals become responsible for the planet earth. Another is that educators must enable their students to view knowledge in terms of a past and a future. Students must learn that mistakes are a source of learning rather than a fatality. Another is to extend the notion of the "American experiment." A love of country must be taught, and the foundation and arguments upon which this country were built should continue. Schools should teach and respect diversity; diversity should be a point of unification, not division. An understanding of language and its creation of a worldview is another purpose of education. While I found his purposes interesting, I question their being embraced and actually upheld by educators across the country. Nevertheless, Postman presents an interesting perspective!
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7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
enlightening, 23 Jul 1999
By A Customer
Mr.Postman did it again with his keen insight and antennas always up and working. America is a first rate country that should have a first rate school system (elementary & high school) but we don't. America's school children rank 9th in mathmatics and somewhere in science. Mr.Postman has a way of telling us wakeup before it's to late. Once again,thank you Mr.Postman
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