CRISIS IN THE CLASSROOM

by Charles E. Silberman ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 12, 1970

A fluent, ardent, Carnegie-sponsored study by a Fortune editor and author of the prize-winning Crisis In Black and White (1964). Drawing solidly and sensitively on a range of thinkers from Comenius to Paul Goodman, Silberman addresses himself to an audience already primed by the critiques of Holt, Friedenberg, Kozol, et al. He corrects their overemphasis on teachers' responsibility for miseducation, reproves their snobbery toward lower-middle-class functionaries, and proceeds to a series of excellent overviews, synthesizing a sturdy range of scholarship: schools as upwardmobility vehicles (not always) and tutors of a docile work force; evaluations of the Coleman Report and the Jensen studies; testimony to the ""grim, joyless, oppressive, petty, intellectually sterile and aesthetically barren"" American schoolroom (the exposition efficiently gives examples with an ""Item:"" paragraph heading). A large section is then devoted to the English ""free day"" infant schools, with hedged rapture, and to comparable vanguard innovations in the U.S., notably the North Dakota primary school program, which is bound up with teacher education reform, Silberman's next topic. He holds all liberal-arts education responsible for teacher education defects, and presses his general themes--schools can educate teachers as well as children; shift the emphasis from teaching to learning; we need ""purpose and thought about purpose."" Purpose, however, opens a Pandora's box much wider than Silberman's classroom universe. Hard questions of decentralization, budgetary sclerosis, and multiversity control do not arise; administrative structures are lightly frowned over. Despite Iris use of the subtlest insights of Dewey, James and Whitehead, Silberman will thus be criticized for reviving the vulgar vision of the school as a social panacea. He will be blamed, and justly praised, and much read.

Pub Date: Oct. 12, 1970

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Random House

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1970

Categories: NONFICTION