Turning Learning Right Side Up: Putting Education Back on Track

In the age of the Internet, we educate people much as we did during the Industrial Revolution. We educate them for a world that no longer exists, instilling values antithetical to those of a free, 21st century democracy. Worst of all, too many schools extinguish the very creativity and joy they ought to nourish.   In Turning Learning Right Side Up, legendary systems scientist Dr. Russell Ackoff and “in-the-trenches” education innovator Daniel Greenberg offer a radically new path forward. In the year’s most provocative conversation, they take on the very deepest questions about education: What should be its true purpose? Do classrooms make sense anymore? What should individuals contribute to their own education? Are yesterday’s distinctions between subjects--and between the arts and sciences--still meaningful? What would the ideal lifelong education look like--at K-12, in universities, in the workplace, and beyond?   Ackoff and Greenberg each have experience making radical change work--successfully. Here, they combine deep idealism with a relentless focus on the real world--and arrive at solutions that are profoundly sensible and powerfully compelling.   Why today’s educational system fails--and why superficial reforms won’t help The questions politicians won’t ask--and the answers they don’t want to hear   How do people learn--and why do they choose to learn? Creating schools that reflect what we know about learning   In a 21st century democracy, what values must we nurture? ...and why aren’t we nurturing them?   How can tomorrow’s “ideal schools” be operated and funded? A plan that cuts through political gridlock and can actually work   Beyond schools: building a society of passionate lifelong learners Learning from childhood to college to workplace through retirement  

Table of Contents:
About the Authors ix Preface: Why, and How, This Book Was Written xii Introduction: What Education Is About xiii   Part 1: Where Today’s Educational System Fails 1 Chapter 1: Learning and Teaching 3 Chapter 2: The Classroom Environment 23 Chapter 3: Subjects and Disciplines 39 Chapter 4: The New World 49 Chapter 5: Antidemocratic Schooling 65 Chapter 6: Factors That Resist Change 71   Part 2: Factors That Contribute to Education 77 Chapter 7: The Environment a Developed Society Provides for Individual Realization 79 Chapter 8: The Special Demands the Environment of a Liberal Democracy Places on Individual Realization 91 Chapter 9: What Individuals Contribute to Their Own Education 99 Chapter 10: The Place of Arts 107   Part 3: Envisioning Ideal Lifelong Education 119 Chapter 11: Why, and How, We Should Be Envisioning an Ideal Educational Environment 121 Chapter 12: The Preschool Years 125 Chapter 13: A New Look at Schools K-12 135 Chapter 14: The College and University Experience 139 Chapter 15: Education and the Working Life 147 Chapter 16: Taking "Retire" Out of Retirement 151   Part 4: Excursus: Funding Ideal Schools 153 Appendix: Sudbury Valley School 159 Postscript 173 Endnotes 175 Index 187

About the Author :
Russell L. Ackoff is Anheuser Busch Professor Emeritus of management science at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He has authored over 20 books and 250 articles, and has conducted research for more than 300 corporations and government agencies. His most recent books include Idealized Design: Creating an Organization’s Future (Wharton School Publishing).   Daniel Greenberg is a founding member of the Sudbury Valley School in Framingham, Massachusetts. His books include Free at Last, Kingdom of Childhood, A Clearer View, The Pursuit of Happiness, Legacy of Trust, Words in Creation, A New Look at Schools, and Education in America.