Reviews for Education and the Cult of Efficiency

The average rating for Education and the Cult of Efficiency based on 2 reviews is 5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2010-10-05 00:00:00 Jean Paul Sieng I read this book after reading "The Underground History of American Education" by John Gatto. Gatto's book is really just his own musings -- the musings of a man who spent his life in the US education system and was disgusted by it. He uses no references, but at the end of the book provides a list of books that he recommends as his "references." This was one of them. Gatto's book had a powerful influence on me. I found out that I wasn't alone in believing that the US education system is critically flawed. It gave me the courage to want to change it. At the end of my life I may say that Gatto's book influenced my career path more than any other. So, I read Education and the Cult of Efficiency, and I loved it for the opposite reason that I loved Gatto. Callahan, in a dry, methodical, and scholarly way (nearly the opposite of Gatto, who was pure passion without the scholarly discipline) chronicles the dismantling of the US school system and its reassembly in in the image of "efficiency." The old educators, classically trained and scholarly, were kicked out and replaced with administrators whose purpose was not to educate, but to economize, to create "school factories" where raw material, children, were inputted at one end, and in a most efficient, cost effective manner, assembled piece by piece, each in the exact same manner, into an educated human being. The analogy of a brick was used by reformers of the day in referring to children. They wanted the production of educated children to be done like a brick factory would produce bricks on an assembly line. Unfortunately, children are not mindless raw material. They are human beings with minds, creativity, individual passions, abilities, with endless potential in myriad talents. Education should nourish and develop the human mind, body, and soul. It should involve great educators, who can connect with children on a human and personal level, loving, coaching, mentoring, teaching, and leading them to bring out all of the latent potential within themselves. And yet, unfortunately, our school system resembles a brick factory.

Review # 2 was written on 2017-06-29 00:00:00 Jamie Murillo Good book, albeit a bit (academically) dry at times.