Home > Store > Finance & Investing > Economics
Turning Learning Right Side Up: Putting Education Back on Track
- By Russell L. Ackoff, Daniel Greenberg
- Published Jun 3, 2008 by Pearson Prentice Hall.
- Copyright 2008
- Dimensions: 6x9
- Pages: 224
- Edition: 1st
- Book
- ISBN-10: 0-13-234649-4
- ISBN-13: 978-0-13-234649-8
- eBook (Adobe DRM)
- ISBN-10: 0-13-713552-1
- ISBN-13: 978-0-13-713552-3
Register your product to gain access to bonus material or receive a coupon.
Product Author Bios
Russell L. Ackoff is Anheuser Busch Professor Emeritus of management science at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He has authored over 20 books and 250 articles, and has conducted research for more than 300 corporations and government agencies. His most recent books include Idealized Design: Creating an Organization’s Future (Wharton School Publishing).
Daniel Greenberg is a founding member of the Sudbury Valley School in Framingham, Massachusetts. His books include Free at Last, Kingdom of Childhood, A Clearer View, The Pursuit of Happiness, Legacy of Trust, Words in Creation, A New Look at Schools, and Education in America.
In the age of the Internet, we educate people much as we did during the Industrial Revolution. We educate them for a world that no longer exists, instilling values antithetical to those of a free, 21st century democracy. Worst of all, too many schools extinguish the very creativity and joy they ought to nourish.
In Turning Learning Right Side Up, legendary systems scientist Dr. Russell Ackoff and “in-the-trenches” education innovator Daniel Greenberg offer a radically new path forward. In the year’s most provocative conversation, they take on the very deepest questions about education: What should be its true purpose? Do classrooms make sense anymore? What should individuals contribute to their own education? Are yesterday’s distinctions between subjects--and between the arts and sciences--still meaningful? What would the ideal lifelong education look like--at K-12, in universities, in the workplace, and beyond?
Ackoff and Greenberg each have experience making radical change work--successfully. Here, they combine deep idealism with a relentless focus on the real world--and arrive at solutions that are profoundly sensible and powerfully compelling.
Why today’s educational system fails--and why superficial reforms won’t help
The questions politicians won’t ask--and the answers they don’t want to hear
How do people learn--and why do they choose to learn?
Creating schools that reflect what we know about learning
In a 21st century democracy, what values must we nurture?
...and why aren’t we nurturing them?
How can tomorrow’s “ideal schools” be operated and funded?
A plan that cuts through political gridlock and can actually work
Beyond schools: building a society of passionate lifelong learners
Learning from childhood to college to workplace through retirement
Reinventing Learning for the Next Century: How We Can, and Why We Must
An extraordinary conversation about the very deepest questions...
Today, what is education for?
Where should it take place? How? When?
What is the ideal school?
The ideal lifelong learning experience?
Who should be in charge of education?
And who pays for it all?
Over the past 150 years, virtually everything has changed...except education. Schools were designed as factories, to train factory workers. The factories are gone, but the schools haven’t changed. It’s time for us to return to first principles...or formulate new first principles...and reimagine education from the ground up.
In Turning Learning Right Side Up, two of this generation’s most provocative thinkers--and practical doers--have done just that. They draw on the latest scientific research, the most enduring human wisdom, and their unique lifelong personal experiences transforming institutions that resist change. And, along the way, they offer a powerful blueprint for a thriving society of passionate lifelong learners.
|
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Fabulous, insightful, and hopefully, far reaching, By
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Turning Learning Right Side Up: Putting Education Back on Track (Hardcover)
This is the best book I've read in years. If our candidates for elected office would articulate their ideals so thoroughly and concisely, we might actually have something to consider.Dr. Ackoff and Mr. Greenberg helped me to understand why I have yet to obtain a bachelor's degree; and more importantly, why my children rebelled so mightily against the educational system in which they were corralled. I'm envious of those fortunate enough to have a Sudbury model school in their vicinity and hope for expansion of this model as we move toward the future.
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Taking learning seriously, By Scott D. Gray (Marlborough, MA United States) - See all my reviews
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Turning Learning Right Side Up: Putting Education Back on Track (Hardcover)
In modern America, everyone and his brother believes that the educational system is broken. But most people suggest responding with more of the same, rather than rethinking what learning is actually about.When the economy does well, people claim that it must be because of the education system and propose spending more money. When it does poorly, people say that it must be because we don't spend enough on education and propose spending more. Ackoff and Greenberg go back to first principals, and to daily experiences, to consider how people learn, and how education might be restructured. What they propose really does turn the modern vision of school on its head. Why do schools in the US -- the land of the free and the home of the brave -- condition children to be passive and to wait on authority? There is only one suggestion or conclusion that I question. There is an argument posited by one of the authors (Ackoff, I think) for an elaborate voucher... Read more
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Education, By
This review is from: Turning Learning Right Side Up: Putting Education Back on Track (Hardcover)
Outstanding and revolutionary insights that must be considered by policy makers around the world. The emphasis is on the learner and not on the teacher, as it should be. Although not explicit, these concepts are in the back of our mind as we search for explanations to our own most rewarding learning experiences.
|
Online Sample Chapter
Table of Contents
About the Authors ix
Preface: Why, and How, This Book Was Written xii
Introduction: What Education Is About xiii
Part 1: Where Today’s Educational System Fails 1
Chapter 1: Learning and Teaching 3
Chapter 2: The Classroom Environment 23
Chapter 3: Subjects and Disciplines 39
Chapter 4: The New World 49
Chapter 5: Antidemocratic Schooling 65
Chapter 6: Factors That Resist Change 71
Part 2: Factors That Contribute to Education 77
Chapter 7: The Environment a Developed Society Provides for Individual Realization 79
Chapter 8: The Special Demands the Environment of a Liberal Democracy Places on Individual Realization 91
Chapter 9: What Individuals Contribute to Their Own Education 99
Chapter 10: The Place of Arts 107
Part 3: Envisioning Ideal Lifelong Education 119
Chapter 11: Why, and How, We Should Be Envisioning an Ideal Educational Environment 121
Chapter 12: The Preschool Years 125
Chapter 13: A New Look at Schools K-12 135
Chapter 14: The College and University Experience 139
Chapter 15: Education and the Working Life 147
Chapter 16: Taking "Retire" Out of Retirement 151
Part 4: Excursus: Funding Ideal Schools 153
Appendix: Sudbury Valley School 159
Postscript 173
Endnotes 175
Index 187
Sample Pages
Book
This product currently is not for sale.
eBook (Adobe DRM)
$34.99
$27.99
This eBook requires the free Adobe® Digital Editions software.
Before downloading this DRM-encrypted PDF, be sure to:
- Install the free Adobe Digital Editions software on your machine. Adobe Digital Editions only works on Macintosh and Windows, and requires the Adobe Flash Player. Please see the official system requirements.
- Authorize your copy of Adobe Digital Editions using your Adobe ID. If you don't already have an Adobe ID, you can create one here.
Get access to thousands of books and training videos about technology, professional development and digital media from more than 40 leading publishers, including Addison-Wesley, Prentice Hall, Cisco Press, IBM Press, O'Reilly Media, Wrox, Apress, and many more. If you continue your subscription after your 30-day trial, you can receive 30% off a monthly subscription to the Safari Library for up to 12 months. That's a total savings of $199.
