Customer Reviews

Back to Basics: Fundamental Educational Questions Reexamined (Jossey Bass Education Series)

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Francis Schrag re-examines the important questions of education within a framework of three key aspirations of education. His basic premise is that education should teach students to value evidence and be open to convincing arguments as well as being able to argue convincingly, and that schools whould create people with the desire and tools to be lifelong learners. Schrag challenges many of the basic assumptions of the American educational system, and makes compelling suggestions of how his ideas might be implemented within our current system. Realistic and visionary. Schrag's work is very readable, although somewhat too indirect at times.

This is a fine piece of philosophy of education accessible to the layman yet important for experts in the field. Although I often found myself wanting Schrag to more carefully stake out some of his claims, this would have deterred from the wider audience he seeks to reach as well as gotten in the way of his treatment of a variety of basic questions. Schrag asks the right questions and his positions are always thought provoking. It got me thinking about what I believe the aims of education should be and the reasons for thinking these are legitimate. If Schrag's view that one of the central aims of education is attending to the arguments and evidence for a view, then his book should be judged a success by its own standards. Highly recommended.