Reviews for Compulsory miseducation

The average rating for Compulsory miseducation based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2014-11-22 00:00:00 Terry Chase 6 stars. I thought this was an incredible book about education written in 1962. Goodman similar to his book "growing up absurd" which is incredible also, challenges our conventional assumption about education model (schools, high schools, universities etc) His key belief is that we should create different educational models which allow individuals to aspire towards the creation of a better society rather than the aspirations most graduates have to "do" college, "make" Harvard, MIT, or Oxbridge and then go chain themselves to the McKinseys, Goldmans or GE's of the world. In this book he looks at education as the universal trap, what progressive education looked like, programmed education, science in education, getting a job and in the letter part of the book he offers potential alternative solutions. Some of the points are so mind-blowingly different it's unreal. Would recommend anyone with children to 100% read this.

Review # 2 was written on 2020-03-12 00:00:00 William Hubbard I feel like not that many people know about Paul Goodman, and he's a voice worth checking out if you're interested in how to improve the American education system. He argues for a strictly voluntary education as Jefferson imagined it, and decries the influence of administration and the "administrative mentality" on teaching and learning. "It is impossible to consider our universities in America," he writes, "without being powerfully persuaded of the principle of anarchy, that the most useful arrangement is free association and federation rather than top-down management and administration" (163). Throughout, he refers to the medieval university (studium generale) as a model for postsecondary education, suggesting that small "bands of scholars. . . secede [from large universities] and set up where they can teach and learn on their own simple conditions" (324). Good stuff.