Name: The end of education
ISBN: 9780679750314

The end of education

In this brilliantly challenging response to the education crisis, Neil Postman returns to the subject that established his reputation as one of our most insightful social critics. Starting from his belief that schooling is now too often a trivial pursuit, a mechanical exercise, he argues with stunning clarity that we have lost sight of the inherent value and substance of learning, and sets out to restore it for our time. Postman begins by portraying the American education of an earlier part of this century, when we knew what schools were for - to create a coherent, stable, unified culture out of a people of diverse traditions, languages, and religions. Shifting his focus to contemporary education, Postman outlines the markedly different narratives, or "gods," that underlie our present conception of school, and shows how poorly they serve us. The new gods are economic utility (education only as a means to a good-paying job), consumership (the belief that you are what you accumulate), technology (a reliance on mechanical solutions, not critical judgment), and separatism ("multicultural" instincts that split groups off from a unifying cultural pluralism). In describing how education may reasonably and creatively respond to - or redefine - these problems of modernity, the author presents useful narratives to help schools recover a sense of purpose, tolerance, and respect for learning.

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oldsklgdfthOct 2026

I'm a big Neil Postman fanboy and he wrote two books. This conversation is in the intersection of the two.

Technopoly[0] on how society is now organized with technology as the end as well as the means. Technology giveth and taketh. There are winners and losers. Winners are those make use of the new technology. Losers are those that cannot. The more technology permeates our lives, the more this disparity will permeate society.

The End of Education[1] discusses the purpose of education and ways to pursue that end. The end of public education, in his view, is to create a public. A society with common goals and a common narrative.

What I appreciate about Postman's writing is his restraint in calling something "good" or "bad", but rather looking at tradeoffs. Posing the question of if the tradeoffs are acceptable for our ends. I walk away optimistic from his readings. Haidt is more gloomy and likes romanticizing his "past". He contrasts pressing images on glass in texting to the feeling of picking up the phone to call a friend, but ignores that the telephone itself had profound impacts on society.

Shout out to Amusing Ourselves to Death[2] which develops ideas around how visual mediums, ie video, carry different messages than say text. Dovetails nicely into the social media conversation. But it broadens your view of TV and its impact.

One day I'll get around to writing "Prompting Ourselves to Death" as an hommage.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technopoly

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_Education

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amusing_Ourselves_to_Death

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oldsklgdfthDec 2025

The writings of Neil Postman. Specifically,

* "Amusing ourselves to death": visual media is fundamentally different from writing and that impacts society. As a medium it supports certain messages better than other, ex. emotion.

* "Technopoly": defines the difference between tool-using and technocratic societies and impacts it has on society.

* "The End of Education": what is the purpose of an education system.

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larodiMar 2024

In the ways that

* still the classroom is what it looked like in 1878

* still a lot of learning is about remembering useless facts

* still there are many places where the curriculum is a static thing which does not reflect the needs of youngsters but their grannies

* still the exams are solo even though later in life one works in a group and it was shown that in a group one manifesta better

* many places still don’t teach topics such as personal finance, digital hygiene, business management, soft skills, etc as universal mandatory classes even though the world we live in requires these skills on a daily basis

Neil Postman makes in depth analysis in his books, and particularly The End of Education.

I can also go for ages with examples from my practice and what I see, and you can downvote me as much as U like. It doesn’t chang the fact that organised schooling is a byproduct of Industrial Revolution and it was designed to cater to its needs. Not the needs of the ages we live in… like so many things tbh which absolutely do not make sense to a teenager at this day.

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lbarrowOct 2012

I had the enormous privilege of having a teacher who assigned both The End of Education and Amusing Ourselves To Death by Neil Postman my junior year of high school. I can't recommend them enough; reading them was one of the formative political experiences of my life.

We live in dangerous times; civic engagement and an educated, vibrant population is more important than ever. But our political and cultural discourse has fallen to its lowest point in as long as anyone can remember. If I were not already politically engaged, I might become so if I watched Edward Murrow at night -- but watching CNN these days seems to be no different from watching the Jersey Shore.

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RyanMcGrealOct 2009

In his wonderful book The End of Education, Neil Postman recommended error-detection as a powerful teaching/learning method.

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evmarDec 2011

I found "The End of Education" (http://www.amazon.com/End-Education-Redefining-Value-School/...) an interesting (if not completely persuasive) argument that earlier education should be more about teaching values (for example, consider the "American dream" vs how elementary schoolers learn to ask "will this be on the test?") than facts.

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