What Are Schools For?

Description

According to many futurists and cultural historians, a significant cultural shift has begun to occur: the decline of the modern, industrial era and the rise of a "postmodern" civilization that could usher in radical changes in politics, economics, and other social institutions, including education. One of the emerging strands of postmodern thought, known as holistic thinking, is an ecological worldview that is influenced by new scientific paradigms as well as ancient and indigenous spiritual traditions. As the founder of the journal Holistic Education Review, Ron Miller is among the best known and best informed interpreters of the holistic education movement. In What Are Schools For?, he describes this approach in a clear philosophical and historical perspective.

What Are Schools For? is a powerful analysis and critique of the historical context and forces that have shaped and still continue to influence contemporary mainstream American education. Miller explores the failure of our schools to educate and offers the alternative of a holistic approach that has deep roots in educational reform movements of the past two centuries. He argues that our schools will become effective only when they refocus on meeting the needs of students rather than the needs of the economy or the broader society.

Holistic education, as Miller explains it, has philosophical roots in the romantic and Transcendentalist movements of the nineteenth century, but it has developed into a sophisticated postmodern critique of contemporary schooling. What Are Schools For? defines the contributions that various dissident educators have made to the holistic critique, from Pestalozzi and Froebel, to Montessori and Steiner, to progressive and humanistic educators. This book is the only serious comparative study of these diverse alternative movements. It is a seminal text in the emerging literature of holistic education and has inspired teachers, administrators, and graduate students across the United States.

Ron Miller is internationally recognized as an historian of educational alternatives and an authority on holistic education. He has written or edited ten books, including Caring for New Life: Essays on Holistic Education; Free Schools, Free People: Education and Democracy After the 1960s, and The Self-Organizing Revolution: Common Principles of the Educational Alternatives Movement. Miller Established the Bellwether School in Williston, Vermont and he taught at Champlain College and Goddard College. Miller founded two journals, the Holistic Education Review (later renamed Encounter) and Paths of Learning.

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[su_quote cite=”David Ruenzel, Teacher Magazine”]This volume is an invaluable critique of an American school system that needs to recover its sense of purpose.[/su_quote]

[su_quote cite=”Mary Ann Gray, Educational Studies”]Miller’s knowledge and understanding of the field of education is exceptionally broad and insightful… [/su_quote]

[su_quote cite=”John R. Miller, Ontario Institute Studies In Education”]’What are Schools For?’ is the best historical treatment of holistic/humanistic education that I have read.[/su_quote]

[su_quote cite=”David W. Oliver, Holistic Education Review”]The book fills an important need in the educational literature having to do with the history of curriculum and the history of educational reform.[/su_quote]