THE EDUCATION MIRAGE

About the Book

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.

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.