In Defense of a Liberal Education

In Defense of a Liberal Education PDF Author: Fareed Zakaria
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393247694
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 93

Get Book Here

Book Description
CNN host and best-selling author Fareed Zakaria argues for a renewed commitment to the world’s most valuable educational tradition. The liberal arts are under attack. The governors of Florida, Texas, and North Carolina have all pledged that they will not spend taxpayer money subsidizing the liberal arts, and they seem to have an unlikely ally in President Obama. While at a General Electric plant in early 2014, Obama remarked, "I promise you, folks can make a lot more, potentially, with skilled manufacturing or the trades than they might with an art history degree." These messages are hitting home: majors like English and history, once very popular and highly respected, are in steep decline. "I get it," writes Fareed Zakaria, recalling the atmosphere in India where he grew up, which was even more obsessed with getting a skills-based education. However, the CNN host and best-selling author explains why this widely held view is mistaken and shortsighted. Zakaria eloquently expounds on the virtues of a liberal arts education—how to write clearly, how to express yourself convincingly, and how to think analytically. He turns our leaders' vocational argument on its head. American routine manufacturing jobs continue to get automated or outsourced, and specific vocational knowledge is often outdated within a few years. Engineering is a great profession, but key value-added skills you will also need are creativity, lateral thinking, design, communication, storytelling, and, more than anything, the ability to continually learn and enjoy learning—precisely the gifts of a liberal education. Zakaria argues that technology is transforming education, opening up access to the best courses and classes in a vast variety of subjects for millions around the world. We are at the dawn of the greatest expansion of the idea of a liberal education in human history.

In Defense of a Liberal Education

In Defense of a Liberal Education PDF Author: Fareed Zakaria
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393247694
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 93

Get Book Here

Book Description
CNN host and best-selling author Fareed Zakaria argues for a renewed commitment to the world’s most valuable educational tradition. The liberal arts are under attack. The governors of Florida, Texas, and North Carolina have all pledged that they will not spend taxpayer money subsidizing the liberal arts, and they seem to have an unlikely ally in President Obama. While at a General Electric plant in early 2014, Obama remarked, "I promise you, folks can make a lot more, potentially, with skilled manufacturing or the trades than they might with an art history degree." These messages are hitting home: majors like English and history, once very popular and highly respected, are in steep decline. "I get it," writes Fareed Zakaria, recalling the atmosphere in India where he grew up, which was even more obsessed with getting a skills-based education. However, the CNN host and best-selling author explains why this widely held view is mistaken and shortsighted. Zakaria eloquently expounds on the virtues of a liberal arts education—how to write clearly, how to express yourself convincingly, and how to think analytically. He turns our leaders' vocational argument on its head. American routine manufacturing jobs continue to get automated or outsourced, and specific vocational knowledge is often outdated within a few years. Engineering is a great profession, but key value-added skills you will also need are creativity, lateral thinking, design, communication, storytelling, and, more than anything, the ability to continually learn and enjoy learning—precisely the gifts of a liberal education. Zakaria argues that technology is transforming education, opening up access to the best courses and classes in a vast variety of subjects for millions around the world. We are at the dawn of the greatest expansion of the idea of a liberal education in human history.

Why Teach?

Why Teach? PDF Author: Mark Edmundson
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 162040642X
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 241

Get Book Here

Book Description
Presents a collection of essays that explore a college education as a means through which serious-minded individuals broaden their minds and acquire life skills, arguing that higher learning is an essential remedy for today's problems.

The Lost Soul of Higher Education

The Lost Soul of Higher Education PDF Author: Ellen Schrecker
Publisher: The New Press
ISBN: 1595586032
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 305

Get Book Here

Book Description
The professor and historian delivers a major critique of how political and financial attacks on the academy are undermining our system of higher education. Making a provocative foray into the public debates over higher education, acclaimed historian Ellen Schrecker argues that the American university is under attack from two fronts. On the one hand, outside pressure groups have staged massive challenges to academic freedom, beginning in the 1960s with attacks on faculty who opposed the Vietnam War, and resurfacing more recently with well-funded campaigns against Middle Eastern Studies scholars. Connecting these dots, Schrecker reveals a distinct pattern of efforts to undermine the legitimacy of any scholarly study that threatens the status quo. At the same time, Schrecker deftly chronicles the erosion of university budgets and the encroachment of private-sector influence into academic life. From the dwindling numbers of full-time faculty to the collapse of library budgets, The Lost Soul of Higher Education depicts a system increasingly beholden to corporate America and starved of the resources it needs to educate the new generation of citizens. A sharp riposte to the conservative critics of the academy by the leading historian of the McCarthy-era witch hunts, The Lost Soul of Higher Education, reveals a system in peril—and defends the vital role of higher education in our democracy.

In Defense of Good Teaching

In Defense of Good Teaching PDF Author: Kenneth S. Goodman
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 204

Get Book Here

Book Description
Is whole language the cause of the problems that beset our schools?Is the debate between whole language and phonics a cover-up for control of what and how students learn?Is it appropriate that legislators, lobbyists, textbook publishers, and private interest groups evaluate and promote research on teaching and learning?Is Christian fundamentalism being exploited by political and economic groups?Is the attack on whole language supported by research that is valid?Is the issue of teaching reading now so polarized that even a "balanced" approach is no longer acceptable in some schools?These questions have come out of the reading wars. And teachers now must be articulate and knowledgeable defendants of their own positions in the debate if they are to retain control of their profession. In Defense of Good Teaching is the whole language community's first concerted response to its attackers, reveals some disturbing truths in the reading wars: deliberate misrepresentation of ideas, about the role of the press, conflicting political agendas played out in our schools, teachers and administrators marginalized for their beliefs, and commercial interests dressed up as scientific research. This is an alarming and enlightening book and, as the dispute broadens to affect teaching of math and bilingual education, it is an important book. It will be invaluable to teachers who want the means and strategies to respond to criticism, to analyze arguments and to defend their position. More is at stake than whole language.

In Defense of Disciplines

In Defense of Disciplines PDF Author: Jerry A. Jacobs
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022606946X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 284

Get Book Here

Book Description
Calls for closer connections among disciplines can be heard throughout the world of scholarly research, from major universities to the National Institutes of Health. In Defense of Disciplines presents a fresh and daring analysis of the argument surrounding interdisciplinarity. Challenging the belief that blurring the boundaries between traditional academic fields promotes more integrated research and effective teaching, Jerry Jacobs contends that the promise of interdisciplinarity is illusory and that critiques of established disciplines are often overstated and misplaced. Drawing on diverse sources of data, Jacobs offers a new theory of liberal arts disciplines such as biology, economics, and history that identifies the organizational sources of their dynamism and breadth. Illustrating his thesis with a wide range of case studies including the diffusion of ideas between fields, the creation of interdisciplinary scholarly journals, and the rise of new fields that spin off from existing ones, Jacobs turns many of the criticisms of disciplines on their heads to mount a powerful defense of the enduring value of liberal arts disciplines. This will become one of the anchors of the case against interdisciplinarity for years to come.

In Defense of Reading

In Defense of Reading PDF Author: Daniel R. Schwarz
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1444304844
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 216

Get Book Here

Book Description
Written by influential scholar-critic and award-winning Daniel R. Schwarz, In Defense of Reading: Teaching Literature in the Twenty-First Century is a passionate and joyful defense of the pleasures of reading. This stimulating book provides valuable insights for teachers and students on why we read and how we read when we embark on "the odyssey of reading." Provides valuable insights into why and how we read Addresses issues and problems in the contemporary university and offers insights into the future Explores the life of the mind, the rewards and joys of committed teaching, and the relationship between teaching and scholarship in the contemporary university Draws on the author's forty years of teaching experience Following his long term commitment to close reading and historicism, Schwarz shows how the best literary criticism must both respect text and context Contains insightful and important readings of a broad range of texts, including those by Joyce, Woolf, Conrad, Forster, Gordimer, and Spiegelman's Maus

Teaching As Leadership

Teaching As Leadership PDF Author: Teach For America
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0470432861
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 358

Get Book Here

Book Description
A road map for teachers who strive to be highly effective leaders in our nation's classrooms Teach For America has fought the daunting battle of educational equity for the last twenty years. Based on evidence from classrooms across the country, they've discovered much about effective teaching practice, and distilled these findings into the six principles presented in this book. The Teaching As Leadership framework inspires teachers to: Set Big Goals; Invest Students and Their Families; Plan Purposefully; Execute Effectively; Continuously Increase Effectiveness; Work Relentlessly. The results are better educational outcomes for our nation's children, particularly those who live in low-income communities. Inspires educators to be leaders in their classrooms and schools Demystifies what it means to be an effective teacher, describes key elements of practice and provides a clear vision of success Addresses the challenges every teacher, in every classroom, faces on a daily basis An accompanying website includes a wealth of tools, videos, sample lessons, discussion boards, and case studies.

In Defense of American Higher Education

In Defense of American Higher Education PDF Author: Philip G. Altbach
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 0801874564
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 378

Get Book Here

Book Description
The current era in higher education is characterized by increased need for accountability and fiscal constraint coupled with demands for increased productivity. Higher education is expected to meet the demand of changing student demographics, as well as requests for research and service from government and industry. To preserve the academy's ability to meet these demands, the editors and contributors to this volume argue that, while change is inevitable and desirable, any radical alterations to the practices that have established and upheld the excellence of higher education in the United States must be carefully considered.The editors and contributors cherish the best ideals of higher education: academic freedom, commitment to both inquiry and teaching, and preservation of an independence of mind and spirit in the face of external pressures. At the same time, the authors of these essays also reflect upon the failings of higher education, including problematic historical legacies such as racism, sexism, and anti-semitism. In Defense of American Higher Education is a careful analysis of what we have inherited, undertaken with a critical eye for constructive reform. It will be of interest to anyone concerned about the future of American higher education.

A Sea of Troubles

A Sea of Troubles PDF Author: Elizabeth James
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1475857527
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 197

Get Book Here

Book Description
Sea of Troubles has been designed for classroom teachers struggling to address the overwhelming issues facing our world today. By embracing the Common Core’s emphasis on the inclusion of more nonfiction, informational texts, the authors have demonstrated how to incorporate meaningful informational texts into their favorite units of literature. Sea of Troubles shows teachers how literature and informational texts can work together, to enhance each other, and, by extension, enhance student’s abilities to critically think and respond to the sea of troubles that pervades society.

Teaching Self-Defense in Secondary Physical Education

Teaching Self-Defense in Secondary Physical Education PDF Author: Joan L. Neide
Publisher: Human Kinetics
ISBN: 9780736074865
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 156

Get Book Here

Book Description
Most people have no clue how to defend themselves against a physical attack; they just hope it never happens to them. With Teaching Self-Defense in Secondary Physical Education, you can equip your students with the knowledge and skills to minimize their chances of being the victims of violence and handle an attacker with minimal confrontation. Even if you have no knowledge of self-defense strategies, with this book you can teach your students personal safety, conflict-resolution techniques, and self-defense tactics. Joan Neide, a physical education teacher with a seventh-degree black belt in Uechi-ryu karate, has created an easy-to-use resource that will help you increase your students' awareness and avoidance abilities and learn the basic physical skills they need in order to defend themselves. Teaching Self-Defense in Secondary Physical Education is an ideal match for California physical education content standards, but it's equally effective for use in any state. With it you can help students - think critically and make sound decisions about their homes and personal safety, - learn the motor skills and movement patterns they need in order to defend themselves, - develop poise and confidence to react effectively in dangerous situations, and - define their own limitations as they apply to self-defense. Neide supplies 19 detailed lesson plans that cover up to 20 days for a two- or four-week unit. These plans are designed for coed classes in 50- to 60-minute periods, but Neide provides practical strategies to adapt the plans for any class size and setting. This flexibility makes it easy for you to use these plans within your own curriculum. The book also offers in-depth safety guidelines and suggestions that will enable you to create a safe and nonthreatening learning environment. Further, the plans are well illustrated and easy to follow, and they include all the handouts, overheads, and assessments you need for teaching a self-defense unit. Neide includes a detailed description of each self-defense skill and release in a simple, structured format. You are shown step by step how to perform each stance, step, technique, and release. Teaching cues and class organization are also included. Finally, Neide includes activities that focus on home and personal safety. Teaching Self-Defense in Secondary Physical Education contains clear-cut, well-organized, and flexible lesson plans that allow you to teach self-defense and leave your students prepared and poised to defend themselves.