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Turning Learning Right Side Up: Putting Education Back on Track (paperback)

  • By Russell Ackoff, Daniel Greenberg
  • Published Jun 3, 2008 by Pearson Prentice Hall.
    • Copyright 2008
    • Dimensions: 6" x 9"
    • Pages: 224
    • Edition: 1st
    • Book
    • ISBN-10: 0-13-288763-0
    • ISBN-13: 978-0-13-288763-2
    • eBook (Adobe DRM)
    • ISBN-10: 0-13-713552-1
    • ISBN-13: 978-0-13-713552-3

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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

 

Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Fabulous, insightful, and hopefully, far reaching, July 10, 2008
By 
C. Balderson "Cindy B." (Kalaheo, Kauai, HI) - See all my reviews
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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.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Education, September 2, 2008
By 
Julio R. Bartol (Montevideo, Uruguay) - See all my reviews
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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.
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Taking learning seriously, December 12, 2008
By 
Scott D. Gray (Marlborough, MA United States) - See all my reviews
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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
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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

 
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