Freedom to Learn (3rd Edition) [Paperback]

Carl R. Rogers (Author), H. Jerome Freiberg (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

This is the text that championed a revolutionary approach to education that changed the way we teach our children. Now, in the Third Edition, it's challenging the status quo with twenty years of evidence that defies current thinking. Five exciting new chapters focus on issues of importance now and in the future--learning from children who love school; researching person- centered issues in education; developing the administrator's role as a facilitator; building discipline and classroom management with the learner; and person-centered views of transforming schools. Freedom to Learn, Third Edition is written in the first person, with two goals in mind--to aid the development of the minds of children and young persons, and to encourage the kinds of adventurous enterprises being carried out daily by dedicated, caring teachers in creative classrooms and supportive schools throughout the nation.

Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Prentice Hall; 3 edition (January 31, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0024031216
• ISBN-13: 978-0024031211
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #385,781 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Carl Rogers(1902-1987) was one of the most influential psychologists in American history. He received many honors, including the first Distinguished Professsional Contributor Award and the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award of the American Psychological Association.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars humanistic education living and breathing, April 27, 1998

By 

Scott Beckett; [e-mail] (Alexandria, Alabama) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Freedom to Learn (3rd Edition) (Paperback)

Humanistic education alive and well!! Did John Dewey start this lineage, or does it go back farther still? This book is both an introduction and an advanced course in the heart and soul of relating to students as individuals, not classes. Following Carl Roger's death, H. Jerome Freiberg co-wrote this Third Edition at the invitation of Roger's daughter. Freiberg keeps the best of the old and supplements it with up-to-date research. His touch is so deft and his philosophy so congruent with Roger's that I had trouble telling one author's voice from the other's as they alternated first-person chapters. One chapter is a summary of Aspy and Roebuck's Kid's Don't Learn from People They Don't Like, a hard-to-find out-of-print book that provides some surprising (to me) statistical support for humanistic education. Freiberg also cites Arthur Combs, author of A Personal Approach to Teaching: Beliefs That Make a Difference, another out-of-print book that with Zen-like simplicity cuts through all the debate about teaching technique to reveal that it's how teacher's FEEL about students, not so much what they do, that creates healthy learning places for people to grow. I highly recommend FREEDOM TO LEARN, and it also contains a wealth of resources for teachers wishing to follow this "path with a heart."

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ideas Which Make One Think, March 7, 2005

By 

J. McAndrew "Jeffrey C. McAndrew" (USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Freedom to Learn (3rd Edition) (Paperback)

I was very impressed with the honest questions, the hard to ask questions that Rogers asks about education. In the beginning chapter, he admits that there are disturbing questions worthy of great debate, questions whose answers will form the foundation for students and learners. What will education do to take the edge off of racial tension? How will education help prevent civil and world wars? Back in 1969, Carl Rogers saw some disturbing trends. He talked about the possible student revolts against this conservative and rigid institution which could be very harmful to the entire process. Some of his worst nightmares are taking effect today. School violence in our inner cities is sky rocketing with no end in sight. Child are losing respect for their teachers at a very young age. There seems to be a lot less respect for educators than there was 25 years ago when I was in school. Rogers was also concerned with profit-making corporations getting too much of a hand in education. This is a big concern these days with the society taking on more and more of a corporate feel. If Dr. Rogers saw education at a crisis point in 1969, then where are we now??

In the book, CR also differentiates experiental (self-directed)learning from meaningless rote type learning, where there is no personal context for connection. To have freedom to learn, a person's self-confidence and curiousity grows along with intense curiousity to learn more, to have initial learning build on itself to create something brand new.

This book made me think of the unnecessary regimentation which still plagues much of public education. Students should be encouraged (like in the movie "Dead Poets Society") to do their own dance, to fill their own sails with self-directed discovery.

Rogers' concept of congruence has a lot to do with what he is talking about here. The ability to be real in a relationship is much like the teacher being real in accepting the true needs of the student. It is only with empathic listening, not regimentation, with honestly instead of false airs of playing the education game, with a person-centered approach to education and career related goals, not wishes imposed from the outside.....that, I believe, is what he is getting at. A teacher, he says, "must be a person to his students", not a faceless embodiment of a cirricular requirement nor a sterile tube through which knowledge is passed from one generation to the next."

He sums up his feelings about developing optimal climates for student learning, in a person-centered way:
"If we are to have citizens who can live constructively in this kaleidoscopically changing world, we can only have them if we are willing for them to become self-starting, self-initiating learners. Finally, it has been my purpose to show that this kind of learner develops best, so far as we now know, in a growth- promoting, facilitative, relationship with a person."

4 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A book for all who love teaching, March 25, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Freedom to Learn (3rd Edition) (Paperback)

I'm writing to you to tell you that the book is not out of print! At least my local bookseller quoted me £23 for it only yesterday!

I rate the book very highly, and the reason I want a copy is so that I can present it to my daughter on her graduation as a teacher. If you confirm to me that it is out of print I shall go back to my bookseller (who may, of course, be wrong!).

Best regards,Paul