The Education of a Survivor

Fülszöveg

Why is it that, almost universally, schools are accused of failure to fulfill their func-tion, however that may be defined? In search of answers, Arthur Goodfriend em-barked on a globe-girdling marathon to study educational systems in the Ameri-cas, Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. Auditing classes, examin-ing texts, interviewing administrators, teachers, students, parents, politicians, and others engaged in the teaching/learn-ing process, he wrote up his findings in a paper that earned him, at the age of 81, adoctoral degree.
The Education of a Survivoi is the inti-mate, unexpurgated account of Good-friend's adventures in education. Early in the century he experienced the "school wars" in New York City's public schools. A soldier, he fought in World War II. In the concentration camps of Germany he witnessed the depths to which kultur can descend, and vowed to seek somé under-standing of how education impinges upon war and peace. Post-war tours of duty as a... Tovább

Fülszöveg

Why is it that, almost universally, schools are accused of failure to fulfill their func-tion, however that may be defined? In search of answers, Arthur Goodfriend em-barked on a globe-girdling marathon to study educational systems in the Ameri-cas, Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. Auditing classes, examin-ing texts, interviewing administrators, teachers, students, parents, politicians, and others engaged in the teaching/learn-ing process, he wrote up his findings in a paper that earned him, at the age of 81, adoctoral degree.
The Education of a Survivoi is the inti-mate, unexpurgated account of Good-friend's adventures in education. Early in the century he experienced the "school wars" in New York City's public schools. A soldier, he fought in World War II. In the concentration camps of Germany he witnessed the depths to which kultur can descend, and vowed to seek somé under-standing of how education impinges upon war and peace. Post-war tours of duty as a foreign service officer in Africa and India, as a Rockefeller Fellow in Indonesia, and with the Peace Corps in the Philippines opened his eyes to the problems of the Third World in modernizing its peoples. Studies in the Soviet Union and China exposed him to Communist schooling. Shuttling between life's actualities and college coursework, Goodfriend concludes that education suffers from a long history of unsubstantiated, self-contradictory the-ories; that it serves the aims of nation-states obsessively drawn into military-industrial competition; and that univer-sities, added to the military-industrial complex, contribute to macrosystems of ignorance, ecocide, and war.
This autobiography is aimed at the generál public. Until parents, politicians, industrialists, teachers, and taxpayers the world over understand the difference between indoctrination, information, ad-ministration, and education, schools will continue to fuel the fires that threaten to incinerate us all. Vissza