"Why is our Educational System Failing Our Students?"

In all probability, the topic of teaching and education elicits such an array of responses that we are sometimes at a loss to logically understand why the system very often contributes to apathetic and uninterested students.

Professor (Emeritus) Ira Jay Winn, author of The Education Mirage: How Teachers Succeed and Why the System Fails, deftly weaves together his thoughts, suggestions and solutions concerning the weaknesses that are prevalent within today's educational institutions.

Winn emphasizes that one of the primary objectives of teaching must be the fostering of creative thinking. In fact, he dedicates his book to his former students who, he states, "hopefully, learned the art of critical thinking and came to expect nothing less than a civilized dialogue."

The book divides itself into two parts, How Teachers Succeed and Why the System Fails. Readers are constantly reminded that just regurgitating of facts is useless. You must emphasize problem-centered and inquiry-based teaching and learning, in order to stimulate and maintain the interest of students.

Drawing on his personal teaching experiences, Winn presents several alternative pedagogic techniques in order to present material in a way that will fuel the discovery process. For example, what is the value of having students learn the names of Columbus' three ships? As Winn states, they are dead- ended insofar as discussion goes. Would it not be more beneficial if facts were associated with definitional problems and value questions? Instead of focusing on the names of Columbus' three ships, why not ask the question, "what did Columbus hope to prove by sailing to the New World?" Unfortunately, as pointed out, many teachers have not stopped to think about the important differences between questions of fact, definitional problems, and questions of value.

Winn displays a sharp eye in his analysis of what makes a good teacher, as he deals with the topics of lesson- strategy planning, discussion leading, when not to lecture, the use of case studies, testing and grading.

His solutions to fixing the problem are quite novel, particularly when he challenges the belief that high school must be an exclusively teen-age institution. According to Winn, "high school must be changed into adult common schools, common in the sense that they are open to all people regardless of age, so long as they have completed middle schooling." Other topics explored in the second half of the book deal with public policy, teacher training, the environment of reform, the school crisis as a crisis of culture, and a brief critique of Allan Bloom's book, The Closing Of The American Mind.

By the end of the book, readers will well understand Winn's preface to the opening chapters when he quotes a Chinese proverb, "I listen and I forget...I see and I remember... I do and I understand!" It is too bad many of my teachers did not heed this advice when I was a student, and why today teachers still do not get the message.

No doubt, Winn has written a splendid in-depth book in which every educator, and even non-educators will discover something novel. For those who wish to further explore the book's topics, a short bibliography is provided at the end of the book.

Reviewed by Norman Goldman
Courtesy Bookpleasures
Posted December 28, 2003

Summary

How can education be reformed to foster critical thinking? Why do our best educated so often lead us toward political and ethical bankruptcy? What can be done to supplant the current testing mania? In the EDUCATION MIRAGE, educator Ira Winn faces just such questions and more .Here you will learn creative teaching, not the piling of facts or memorizing what to think and the five reasons why (or is it seven reasons?) ---which leads to classroom stupor and an incredible forgetting rate. Today, teaching is often mechanical, a lost art, even as the ongoing shortage of good teachers is a national catastrophe. And computers are not the magic key to reform, although they are an important adjunct. True reform always deals with the way we think, with sharpening abilities to make judgments and to questions facts, definitions, and values. The road to school and college hell is littered with quick fixes. We can do better, much better. THE EDUCATION MIRAGE is subtitled: How Teachers Succeed and Why the System Fails, reflecting the division of the book into two distinct but inter-related parts. Part I presents a view of teaching that is unconventional and that challenges common assumptions and "common sense". It asks why so much effort is misspent and huge investment wasted on teaching and learning things that don't transfer into life patterns and that are soon forgotten? It probes the nature and value of teaching critical thinking and problem-orientation --the how and the why of developing skills that DO have continuing life value and are consistently the focus of highly imaginative and successful teachers. (It was Einstein who declared that "imagination is more important than knowledge.") In many ways this section is a powerful indictment of teaching practices and general education at both secondary schools and universities. Part II is a fascinating examination of the current state of American education and teaching, written for any educated reader. Here we will examine a wide variety of topics bearing on teaching and affecting the current political and environmental malaise: the effects of TV on education; high school reform; the mandated testing obsession; a student teacher's dilemma; the fuzzy environment of higher education; issues of teacher training; the education mirage as a crisis of culture etc., --and even a look back at "the closing of the American mind." The goal here is to view education as a reflection of society, and society as a reflection of the kind of education so generally purveyed. This penetrating book will propose, question, challenge, provoke, amuse, puzzle, and, above all, educate the reader. It offers the kind of fresh perspectives on training and learning that will make for better teaching and more effective reform. Teacher, professor, administrator, parent, student, and reformer will all benefit from engaging THE EDUCATION MIRAGE. It will cause you to rethink and revalue your own experience in the classroom as teacher or learner.