The Educated Mind – How Cognitive Tools Shape our Understanding - Hardcover

Egan, Kieran

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0226190366 ISBN 13: 9780226190365

Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 1997

Synopsis

The ills of education are caused, this text argues, by the fact that we have inherited three major educational ideas, each of which is incompatible with the other two. These mutual incompatibilities, it continues, bring about clashes at every level of the educational process, from curriculum decisions to teaching methods. The text presents an alternative. It concludes with practical proposals for how teaching and curriculum should be changed to reflect this new conception and fit in with how we actually learn.

About this title

From the Back Cover

The ills of education are caused, Kieran Egan argues, by the fact that we have inherited three major educational ideas, each of which is incompatible with the other two. Is the purpose of education to make good citizens and inculcate socially relevant skills and values? Or is it to master certain bodies of knowledge? Or is it the fulfillment of each student's unique potential? These conflicting goals bring about clashes at every level of the educational process, from curriculum decisions to teaching methods. Egan's analysis is cool, clear, and wholly original, and his diagnosis is as convincing as it is unexpected. Not content with a radical diagnosis, Egan presents us with a new and sophisticated alternative. Egan reconceives education as our learning to use particular "intellectual tools" - such as language or literacy - which shape how we make sense of the world. These mediating tools generate successive kinds of understanding: somatic, mythic, romantic, philosophical, and ironic. As practical as it is theoretically innovative, Egan's account concludes with practical proposals for how teaching and curriculum could be changed to reflect the ways we actually learn.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0226190366
• ISBN 13: 9780226190365
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 310