Recommended reading: Teaching as a subversive activity

Recommended reading: Teaching as a subversive activity
by Karyn Romeis | Mon, 11/10/2008 - 07:28

This book, by Neil Postman and Charles Weingartner is the first in this series of reviews that specifically addresses the matter of teaching and learning. If you have no desire to rock your education boat, do not read this book. If, however, you are (or plan to become) a teacher/learner who will make a difference and equip learners (including yourself) for life-after-assessment, I strongly recommend you get your hands on a copy... then fasten your seatbelt! I first read it when embarking on a teaching qualification, and was appalled at the extent to which we were still being taught approaches and methodologies that the book sought to debunk.

Of course, the title includes the word 'teaching,' so one might be forgiven for thinking that this book was not aimed at learners. I would disagree.

The book was first published in the late 60's to address what it considered outdated teaching techniques. Sadly, some four decades later, many of these are still in evidence! The concern was then, and is now, that students are being taught in such a way that content becomes the end goal, which renders them unable to cope with change in a society where - if you'll pardon the cliche - change (at an accelarating rate) is the only constant. Depending on who you listen to, it seems that by the time an engineering student currently in his/her first year reaches the third year, half/three-quarters of what they have learned this year will be obsolete (this information has been anecdotally acquired - hence the lack of reference). This is becoming increasingly true of a wide range of fields as the our collective knowledge grows exponentially.

According to Postman and Weingartner, the skills that will stand a learner in good stead for keeping pace with the rate of change are often conspicuously absent from the curriculum. These are skills such as critical thinking, data validation techniques, questioning, sense making, learning skills and (to quote the book) 'crap detection'. The whole concept of the shift in the role of the teacher from 'sage on the stage' to 'guide on the side' might well have originated with this book.

The reason I recommend this book to other learners (because, yes, I am a learner) is that if, like me, you sometimes become frustrated with the methodologies and delivery platforms adopted by teaching staff, there is nothing to prevent you from moving into the driving seat of your own learning journey and engaging in some of the activities outlined by the book on a self-driven basis. In fact, I think such an approach would have met with Postman's heartiest approval. After all, it doesn't get much more subversive than that!

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