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Begin Here: The Forgotten Conditions of Teaching and Learning
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Begin Here: The Forgotten Conditions of Teaching and Learning
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by Jacques Barzun
Sales Rank : 396187
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Hardcover: 229 pages
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press April 23, 1991
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0226038467
ISBN-13: 978-0226038469
Product Dimensions:
9.3 x 6.3 x 0.8 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
From Publishers Weekly
Mechanized classroom methods and gimmicks are no substitute for the hard work of learning and the art of teaching. That straightforward message shines through these 15 essays and articles (most of them previously published) by eminent cultural historian Barzun ( The American University ) and edited by Philipson, director of the Univeristy of Chicago Press. The Columbia emeritus professor gives a flunking grade to multiple-choice tests, a "game of choosing the ready-made." He views the modern textbook ("its closest analog . . . a travel brochure") as typical of the way students are "fed in small mouthfuls," and he dismisses numerous curriculum fads as a sop to pupils' restlessness and short attention spans. Trenchant and challenging, this primer holds valuable lessons for educators at all levels. While our public schools are breeding grounds for an army of functional illiterates our universities are becoming assembly lines, observes Barzun. He calls for the abolition of "slave labor" whereby poorly paid graduate students teach undergrads, and for the elimination of the "publish-or-perish" syndrome that has led to reams of "junk research."
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
This book gathers the various writings and comments of outspoken educator Barzun ( The American University , LJ 10/1/68), regarding the ailing American educational system. These freshly edited articles and essays offer a way out of a decaying system through teaching and learning in an old-fashioned way, rather than through the "radical innovations" of the so-called educational reformers. Some of the topics Barzun addresses include the inadequate ways in which reading is taught; the demeaning methods of teacher training; the counterfeit "social studies" programs which are the offshoot of combined geography and history curriculums; the benefits of reading the classics; and the effects of television on learning. In this collection one will find what schools and colleges should and could be if reforms are to "begin here." This is a practical, positive approach to developing better schools and colleges.
- Samuel T. Huang, Northern Illinois Univ. Libs., DeKalb
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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