Swartz / Ronald From Socrates to Summerhill and Beyond

1. Auflage 2016
ISBN: 978-1-68123-554-7
Verlag: Information Age Publishing
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 470 Seiten

In From Socrates to Summerhill and Beyond: Towards a Philosophy of Education for Personal Responsibility, Ronald Swartz offers an evolving development of fallible, liberal democratic, self?governing educational philosophies. He suggests that educators can benefit from having dialogues about questions such as these: 1). Are there some authorities that can be consistently relied upon to tell school members what they should do and learn while they are in school? 2.) How should the imagination of social theorists be both used and checked in the development and implementation of innovative educational reforms? 3.) How can teachers in personal responsibility schools help their students learn? These questions are representative of problems that Swartz raises in his bookSwartz identifies four educational programs as personal responsibility schools. These are Little Commonwealth (Homer Lane); Summerhill (A.S.Neill); Orphans Home (Janusz Korczak) and Sudbury Valley School (Daniel Greenberg). Swartz then suggests that these learning environments create social institutions that are liberal, democratic, and self?governing and therefore endorse the policy of personal responsibility. This policy states: All school members, students included, are fallible authorities who should be personally responsible for determining their own school activities and many policies that govern a school. Schools which incorporate this policy can interchangeably be referred to as personal responsibility, self?governing, or Summerhill style schools.

In providing an historical and philosophical understanding of Summerhill style schools, Swartz suggests that these educational alternatives have intellectual roots in the ideas associated with Socrates as portrayed in Plato’s Apology. Specifically, in personal responsibility schools teachers are not viewed as authorities who attempt to transmit wisdom to their students. Rather, self?governing schools follow the Socratic tradition which claims that teachers can be viewed as fallible authorities who attempt to engage students in dialogues about questions of interest to students. The interpretation of Plato’s works used by Swartz can be found in Karl Popper’s The Open Society and Its Enemies. Swartz has also been significantly influenced by the educational writings of Bertrand Russell and Paul Goodman. Goodman’s Compulsory Miseducation makes it clear that schools which follow in the tradition of Summerhill compete with the educational programs that are an outgrowth of John Dewey’s writings.

In summary, Swartz’s book aims to engage educators in dialogues that will lead to improved educational theories and practices.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Swartz, Ronald

Swartz,

Ronald,

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1;Cover;1
2;Series page;2
3;From Socrates to Summerhill and Beyond;4
4;Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data;5
5;Dedication;6
6;Contents;8
7;Series Foreword;12
8;Acknowledgment;18
9;PART I: Introduction;20
9.1;Chapter 1: Towards an Educational Philosophy of Personal Responsibility;22
10;PART II: Dewey Studies;28
10.1;Chapter 2: John Dewey and Homer Lane;30
10.2;Chapter 3: Dewey and Popper on Learning from Induction;44
10.3;Chapter 4: Some Possible Educational Implications From the Dewey, Russell, and Popper Dialogue on Learning from Induction;70
10.4;Chapter 5: Doing Dewey Again and Again;74
11;PART III: Socratic Studies;90
11.1;Chapter 6: Education for Freedom from Socrates to Einstein and Beyond;92
11.2;Chapter 7: Paul Goodman as a Twentieth Century Advocate of a Socratic Educational Philosophy;110
11.3;Chapter 8: Homer Lane as a Socratic Education Reformer;124
11.4;Chapter 9: Homer Lane and Paul Goodman;128
12;PART IV: Curriculum Studies;142
12.1;Chapter 10: Student Choices and a Standardized Curriculum Reconsidered;144
12.2;Chapter 11: On Granting Academic Freedom;154
12.3;Chapter 12: Responsibility, Reading, and Schooling;174
12.4;Chapter 13: Learning About AIDS;182
12.5;Chapter 14: Reconsidering the Prescribed Curriculum;188
13;PART V: Model Programs;198
13.1;Chapter 15: Education as Entertainment and Irresponsibility in the Classroom;200
13.2;Chapter 16: Schooling and Responsibility;208
13.3;Chapter 17: Summerhill Revisited;214
13.4;Chapter 18: A. S. Neill’s Quest for Autonomy;230
13.5;Chapter 19: Homer Lane’s Lost Influence on Western Thought;234
13.6;Chapter 20: Janusz Korczak and Self-Governing Schools in the Twentieth Century;244
13.7;Chapter 21: On Why Self-Government Failed at Bronson Alcott’s Temple School;260
14;PART VI: Learning Strategies;272
14.1;Chapter 22: Alternative Learning Strategies as Part of the Educational Process;274
14.2;Chapter 23: Mistakes as an Important Part of the Learning Process;288
14.3;Chapter 24: Problems and Their Possible Uses in Educational Programs;298
14.4;Chapter 25: Induction as an Obstacle for the Improvement of Human Knowledge;310
15;PART VII: Liberalism in Education;320
15.1;Chapter 26: Toward a Liberal View of Educational Authorities;322
15.2;Chapter 27: Liberalism, Radicalism and Self-Governing Schools;348
15.3;Chapter 28: Liberalism and Imaginative Education Reforms;362
16;PART VIII: Afterthoughts;374
16.1;Chapter 29: Three Women from Guizhou;376
16.2;Chapter 30: A Caveman’s Nightmare;378
16.3;Chapter 31: The Practitioner’s Dilemma—Bridging the Gap Between Theory and Practice;382
16.4;Chapter 32: Johnny Doody Rides Again;386
16.5;Chapter 33: Berkeley, Kent State, and Paul Goodman in Retrospect;388
16.6;Chapter 34: Educating Elites in Democratic Society;392
16.7;Chapter 35: A Dialogue on Education for Autonomy—An Interview;402
16.8;Chapter 36: A Postscript to Education for Autonomy;422
16.9;Chapter 37: Educating Teachers in Democratic Societies;428
16.10;Chapter 38: More on the Schools We Deserve;438
17;APPENDIX: Bibliography of Swartz’s Publications Included in This Book;452
18;References;456