THE EDUCATION MIRAGE: How Teachers Succeed and Why the System Fails [Paperback]

Ira Winn (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 12, 2003

How can education foster critical thinking? Why do our supposedly best-educated lead us toward political and ethical bankruptcy? What can be done to supplant the current testing mania? In The Education Mirage educator Ira Winn faces just such questions, and more.Here you will learn creative teaching, not the piling of facts or memorizing what to think and the five reasons why-which leads to classroom stupor. Today, teaching is often mechanical, a lost art, even as the shortage of good teachers is a catastrophe. Even computers are not the magic key to reform, although they are an important adjunct. True reform always deals with the way we think, with sharpening abilities to make judgments and to question facts, definitions, and values. The road to school hell is littered with quick fixes. We can do better, much better.

Editorial Reviews

From the Author

It has taken me over eight years of off and on writing to pull together the most important things I have learned over a thirty-seven year career in teaching. From my first week in the classroom, I was magnetically attracted to the great issues and problems found in all the many subjects I taught or researched both in high school and university and in the U.S. and abroad.

I began to take notes on all the successful things that my most creative colleagues implemented. Not only did they know their subject, they chose topics abreast of currents in their field; they were masters of questioning and leading discussion, for they knew the vital importance of motivating the learners and sharpening their judgment. Not just skill at choosing subject or teaching method, but both.

Having observed hundred of teachers and professors over the years, I can almost viscerally spot teaching success and error –my own as well as others. In some ways, THE EDUCATION MIRAGE is a compendium of observations and techniques displayed and shared with some of the most creative teachers with whom I have worked. At other times I bring my own focus and analysis into play, particularly with respect to the implications of educational sterility for the global environment and democratic functioning.

Also I hope to stimulate interest in greater and sharper dialogue with students, which inevitably has a long run sustaining value for the democratic process.

About the Author

Ira Winn is Professor (Emeritus) of education and urban studies at California State University, Northridge. He served as educational planner in Brazil, and as training specialist for Peace Corps, the German Fulbright Commission, the Environmental Protection Service (Jerusalem) and has written and taught in university and secondary education. He resides in San Luis Obispo, California, and writes on environmental and social issues.

Product Details

• Paperback: 190 pages
• Publisher: iUniverse, Inc. (October 12, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0595291422
• ISBN-13: 978-0595291427
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,268,756 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars CREATIVE TEACHING AND EDUCATION REFORM, December 15, 2003

By 

r. hansen (los angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: THE EDUCATION MIRAGE: How Teachers Succeed and Why the System Fails (Paperback)

I regret that Ira Winn's new book, "The Education Mirage," was not available several years ago when I first started teaching. The book is a great help to all who wish to make their teaching more effective and their workload easier. The first part of the book is a detailed manual on what the author calls "creative problem centered teaching." It includes the art of questioning and the avoidance of unconsciously motivating student apathy, and an analysis of teacher types, Winn shows us how to get more students interested in the subject matter and involved in class discussions. Above all, he shows how to encourage and develop critical thinking in our students. The book even offers planning exercises and a self-test to measure the reader's comprehension of the modern teaching concepts presented. Winn finds the current mania for state-mandated testing counterproductive, a fig leaf for politicians and a force driving creative teachers to distraction and exodus from the profession.

The second part of the book is a collection of essays, analyzing the faults and weaknesses of the American educational system and offering a variety of suggestions for improving the system. The suggestions are not the standard recommendations for change that appear periodically in political debate, however. Winn proposes a host of reforms in the system, in educational institutions including the universities, in teacher and professor training and in the curriculum that are all highly innovative, even radical. For example, he finds that the highly educated are more often a greater danger to society and democracy than the less educated, because the former sit at the seats of power and too often prove arrogant and swayed by a money ethic. The result is that the planet's environment and the world economy bear an intolerable burden. He also finds that TV and computers have made the traditional teacher role outmoded, and thus he calls for intensive retraining in problem-centered methodologies.

Professor Winn is an EDUCATOR. I recommend this book to all who have a strong interest in education in America.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Education Mirage, December 21, 2003

By 

ideale gambera (san rafael, ca United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: THE EDUCATION MIRAGE: How Teachers Succeed and Why the System Fails (Paperback)

Prof. Winn's "Education Mirage . . ." is a revelation in the compendium of educational literature. This is a writing free from cant and pedantry. It is an idealistic and inspirational vision of how to be a teacher who is motivated by the important social, ethical, and historical perspectives of the time. His use of examples and techniques is always pithy and relevant and the general reader shall grasp what excellence in teaching means. I would suggest that this is a "must" read for every aspiring student teacher who wants to teach secondary, college, and university level. This is a work which is uniquely refreshing and original.

Ideale Gambera, Emeritus
Department of English and American Studies
City College of San Francisco

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars 21st Century Education: A New Vision, January 9, 2004

By 

Marian Blanton (San Rafael, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: THE EDUCATION MIRAGE: How Teachers Succeed and Why the System Fails (Paperback)

Review: THE EDUCATION MIRAGE by Prof. Emeritus,Ira Winn
ISBN 0-595-29142-2

More than a primer, Prof. Winn's analysis of educational do's and don'ts, his shattering myths about some long-gone, golden age of public educational achievement, and the dissection of "senders and receivers" in the knowledge industry will make readers question previously held educational beliefs as well as current practices. Above all, the writer connects the nation's lack of success solving our most critical social and political problems with failed educational assumptions and methodology-"stuffing turkeys" rather than "lighting lamps." Also indicted are gross materialism, mindless TV offerings, video and computer games, as well as our near-total reliance upon science-technology education, solely to prepare students for money-making jobs, the end goal. Squeezing art and humanities out of curricula has deprived students of adequate preparation to function as informed citizens in a democracy. Rarely do problem-solving and creativity enhance the learning experience because of reliance upon rote learning, worship of objective testing norms, or celebrating adolescent rites of passage. Nor does the swollen educational bureaucracy of overpaid administrators and underpaid teachers escape Winn's scrutiny, claiming our society does not value excellence in public education, now morphed into another "bottom line" commodity. Prof. Winn envisions educated adults working together to attack poverty, reduce excesses of global capitalism and dependence upon finite resources. For him, these issues are inextricably linked to values of mind and heart deriving from inspirational education.

Marian Blanton, retired community college instructor