There Are No Shortcuts to The End of Education
Students in my Foundations of Education class are assigned three books during the semester. Each of these readers challenges the students to think about education in ways they previously had not considered. The discussions raised by these authors and many of the primary sources we read (i.e. Plato, Luther, Locke, Kant, Adams, Mann, Dewey, Montessori, Adler, Hirsh, Holt) have extended the interest in this class to students beyond the School of Education as several non-education majors have joined the class the last several semesters.
The books include: The End of Education by Neil Postman, The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery, and There Are No Shortcuts by Rafe Esquith
It is very refreshing to dialogue with them on the questions that these books raise. We wrestle with the purpose of education, intrinsic motivation v. extrinsic motivation for learning, the nature of children, the impact of nurture and nature, the power of language, the influence of metaphor, the life of an effective teacher, how to motivate students to love reading, and many, many, more.
I am looking forward to the fall semester and a new group of students to take this voyage into education.
If you want to build a ship, don't herd people together to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea. ~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery
