A no-holds-barred assault on outdated teaching methods--with dramatic and practical proposals on how education can be made relevant to today's world.
Teaching As a Subversive Activity
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More About the Author
Neil Postman was chairman of the department of communication arts at New York University. He passed away in 2003.
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
91 of 101 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Quite simply one of the most thought-provoking books I have ever read. However hard it is to get a copy, it is MUST reading for anyone involved in educating people. Heavily influenced by McLuhan, this book is devastating in showing what classrooms REALLY teach - that there is one right answer, that the teacher has it, that memorising facts is important, that fellow students have nothing to contribute, etc etc - and how to construct an environment in which REAL learning takes place - where people learn how to learn themselves. This is one of those books that shakes one's previously-unexamined foundational assumptions of education. I cannot recommend it too highly.
97 of 114 people found the following review helpful
By stoic
VINE™ VOICE
Format:Paperback
Most reviewers seem to like Teaching as a Subversive Activity. I am not among the book's fans.
The book's authors, Neil Postman and Charles Weingartner, score a number of points. They manage to "nail" educators for relying too much on the lecture method in which students copy, then memorize, the teacher's opinions. This is a very valid criticism; teachers do little to teach students how to think; we settle for teaching them what to think. The authors make another good point about the tyranny of testing, which has become far worse since the early 1970s.
Beyond these points, I found the book to be lacking. I think that the authors meander too far from their original point - that teaching needs to be reformed. They discuss an incredible array of topics in just over 200 pages, but the discussions are superficial due to the book's excessive breadth. And their digressions are not engaging and are often only tangentially related to teaching. For instance, the long list of quotations at the end of Chapter 7 is mind numbing.
The authors' arguments remind me of the old saw that it is easier to tear down a system than it is to build a new one. Many of their suggestions are quixotic, or just laughable. Consider what the authors suggest administrators do if students write graffiti about their teachers in school bathrooms; in this case, Postman and Weingartner state that the administrators should chisel the students' words on the front of their schools. Are they joking? Did the authors ever actually attend high school?
Some of the other ideas have the sound of bad 60s hangovers. For instance, Yale University adopted the authors' idea about eliminating grades in the early 1970s - with disastrous results. The authors hold that there is no such thing as a shared reality - and that, therefore, the students should define the entire curriculum. (If there is no shared reality whatsoever, how did everyone interested in Teaching as a Subversive Activity end up on this page?). Student-directed learning might be interesting in some contexts, but it would be disastrous in others. For instance, I don't want to be a patient of the physician whose class decided that they weren't interested in learning about human anatomy. I don't want to drive across a bridge designed by the person whose civil engineering class decided that they didn't want to learn about bridges. Sometimes schools do have valuable content to teach students - whether they want to learn it or not.
Finally, since Postman and Weingartner published this book, there has been a wealth of research into the inquiry-based and active-learning methods the authors favored; the results have been mixed. We still have much to learn about exactly which methods produce superior student learning. These authors have some intriguing ideas, but they did not find the "Holy Grail" that will cure education of all its ills.
The book's authors, Neil Postman and Charles Weingartner, score a number of points. They manage to "nail" educators for relying too much on the lecture method in which students copy, then memorize, the teacher's opinions. This is a very valid criticism; teachers do little to teach students how to think; we settle for teaching them what to think. The authors make another good point about the tyranny of testing, which has become far worse since the early 1970s.
Beyond these points, I found the book to be lacking. I think that the authors meander too far from their original point - that teaching needs to be reformed. They discuss an incredible array of topics in just over 200 pages, but the discussions are superficial due to the book's excessive breadth. And their digressions are not engaging and are often only tangentially related to teaching. For instance, the long list of quotations at the end of Chapter 7 is mind numbing.
The authors' arguments remind me of the old saw that it is easier to tear down a system than it is to build a new one. Many of their suggestions are quixotic, or just laughable. Consider what the authors suggest administrators do if students write graffiti about their teachers in school bathrooms; in this case, Postman and Weingartner state that the administrators should chisel the students' words on the front of their schools. Are they joking? Did the authors ever actually attend high school?
Some of the other ideas have the sound of bad 60s hangovers. For instance, Yale University adopted the authors' idea about eliminating grades in the early 1970s - with disastrous results. The authors hold that there is no such thing as a shared reality - and that, therefore, the students should define the entire curriculum. (If there is no shared reality whatsoever, how did everyone interested in Teaching as a Subversive Activity end up on this page?). Student-directed learning might be interesting in some contexts, but it would be disastrous in others. For instance, I don't want to be a patient of the physician whose class decided that they weren't interested in learning about human anatomy. I don't want to drive across a bridge designed by the person whose civil engineering class decided that they didn't want to learn about bridges. Sometimes schools do have valuable content to teach students - whether they want to learn it or not.
Finally, since Postman and Weingartner published this book, there has been a wealth of research into the inquiry-based and active-learning methods the authors favored; the results have been mixed. We still have much to learn about exactly which methods produce superior student learning. These authors have some intriguing ideas, but they did not find the "Holy Grail" that will cure education of all its ills.
58 of 71 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
When the first chapter of a book on education is called 'Crap Detecting', you know you are on to a winner! Postman's provocative look at the nature of the classroom and how we educate our children is a must read by anyone who has a real interest in education being about more than tests and tick boxes. I have read this book many times and have never failed to be challenged, enthused and uplifted by it. My classroom and teaching style has been transformed by it - read it!!! Your teaching will never be the same again!
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Great Book for Teachers
A great book with wisdom for learning and teaching. I am a teacher who uses the principles in my classroom and they work.
Published 1 month ago by J. C. Morgan
5.0 out of 5 stars
early inquiry-based learning manifesto
This book is truly classic. It is an early manifesto of inquiry-based learning, a style of education that falls within the constructivist philosophy. Read more
Published 4 months ago by JB
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Powerful Critique on Modern Education's Problems
While this book was written 50 years ago, its advice and remarks
on the educational process is still very current. Read more
on the educational process is still very current. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Barry Baumgardner
5.0 out of 5 stars
Surprising!
I expected this to be a quick and perhaps interesting read, the title is sure catchy...I was NOT expecting this to be such an eye-opening book. Read more
Published 5 months ago by KTDidd
5.0 out of 5 stars
Real Teaching!
Read this book during my early teaching career and it helped shape -- or at least articulate my approach. I think and hope I changed lives as well as minds. Read more
Published 8 months ago by Lynn
4.0 out of 5 stars
Not as relevant as Amusing or End
Since I love several other books by Postman ("The End of Education" and "Amusing Ourselves to Death") I wanted to read this one as well. Read more
Published on October 20, 2010 by W. Jamison
5.0 out of 5 stars
Learning
An excellent critique of and solution for our industrialized educational institutions.
It takes the reader/"student" through rediscovering involvement and survival in... Read more
It takes the reader/"student" through rediscovering involvement and survival in... Read more
Published on May 19, 2010 by Eagles Soaring
5.0 out of 5 stars
Seminal Work on Teaching and Leadership
An important book for anyone involved in teaching, public speaking, or understanding the dynamics of group leadership.
Published on February 5, 2010 by Lone Reader
2.0 out of 5 stars
Not everything that glitters...
In Teaching as a Subversive Activity, Postman and Weingartner address some of the challenges posed by curriculum development. Read more
Published on December 10, 2009 by Maria I. Morales
5.0 out of 5 stars
Required Reading
Although it was published nearly forty years ago (1969), this book should be *mandatory* (I really want a stronger word) for everyone who is even considering a career in teaching,... Read more
Published on February 3, 2008 by Frederic C. Putnam
