The Skeptical Visionary: A Seymour Sarason Education Reader

Front Cover
Temple University Press, 2003 - Education - 296 pages
Seymour Sarason, in the words of Carl Glickman, is "one of America's seminal thinkers about public education." For over four decades his has been a voice of much-needed skepticism about our plans for school reform, teacher training, and educational psychology. Now, for the first time, Sarason's essential writings on these and other issues are collected together, offering student and researcher alike with the range, depth, and originality of Sarason's contributions to American thinking on schooling.
As we go from debate to debate on issues such as school choice, charter schools, inclusive education, national standards, and other problems that seem to drag on without solution, Sarason's critical stance on the folly of many of our attempts to fix schools has always had at the center a concern for the main players in our educational institutions: the students, the teachers and the parents. Any plans that cannot account for their well-being are doomed to failure. And in the face of such failure, the clarity of Sarason's vision for real educational success is a much-needed antidote to much of the rhetoric that currently passes for substantial debate.
A wide-ranging and comprehensive selection of Sarason's most significant writings,The Skeptical Visionaryshould find a prized space on any student's or teacher's bookshelf. Author note:Robert Friedis Associate Professor in the School of Education at Northeastern University, and is the author ofThe Passionate Teacher: A Practical GuideandThe Passionate Learner: How Teachers and Parents Can Help Children Reclaim the Joy of Discovery.Seymour Sarasonis Professor Emeritus in the Department of Psychology at Yale University. He is the author of over forty books and is considered to be one of the most significant researchers in education and educational psychology in the country.
 

Contents

Statement of the Problem
1
Why We Should Suspend Judgment ΙΟ
2
Some Underemphasized Ingredients of a Community Program 107
8
A Historical Perspective on Charter Schools
9
CHAPTER
14
Lessons from Past Reforms
16
The Past in the Present I
17
You Know More Than You Think
19
Some Observations on the Introduction and Teaching of the New Math
106
CHAPTER 12
117
An Emerging Paradigm Shift 13
119
The One LifeOne Career Imperative
123
The Overarching Purpose of Schooling
124
Initial Validity Studies
125
CHAPTER 13
130
An Autobiography 292
131

CHAPTER
20
Three Diagnostic Errors
21
Professionals and
22
Predictable Features and Problems
25
An Alternative Rationale for Implementation
27
Internal and External Perspectives on the System
33
The Plan of the Book I
35
Initial Observations
36
The Individual and the Theme of Liberation
37
Mergers as Creations of Settings
39
Teaching as a Lonely Profession
41
Altering Power Relationships
49
Charter Schools
51
Charter Schools Marriages and Mergers
54
The University as a Barometer of Social Change
55
The Aim and Plan of the Book I
56
The New Literature and New Values About Work
59
The School Culture and the Processes of Change
65
The Manhattan Project Charter Schools and the Creation of Settings
66
Personal Barometers
73
Columbine High School and Contexts of Productive Learning
78
The School Culture and Processes of Change
79
The Anxiety Scales
84
Jewishness Blackishness and the NatureNurture Controversy
85
A New High School
88
Underestimating Complexity
92
The Changing Ecology of Child Rearing
93
Concluding Emphases
96
Obstacles to Change
99
Contexts of Testing and Contexts of Learning
103
The Public Schools and the Private Sector
137
Writing
143
Schools and the Values and Culture of Higher Education
145
Letters to a Serious Education President
147
The Predictable Failure of Educational Reform
157
Interfering and Facilitating Effects of Anxiety
159
G Stanley Hall Lightner Witmer William James and John Dewey
164
Governance Power and the Definition of Resources
165
Working and Loving
171
The Societal Significance of Artistic Activity
173
An Imaginary Course in Religion
179
An Autobiographical Fragment
189
Experience In and Outside of School
190
An Example
209
Reflections
214
Artistic Expression
221
Personality Factors and Sex Differences
234
The Frequency of Career Change
235
Power Relationships in Our Schools
239
The Early Development of the Sense of Aging
253
Implications for Education
262
Cities and Schools
263
Solutions and the Psychological Sense of Community
269
Tables of Contents from
285
Preface References
287
Teaching as a Performing Art 1999
289
Letters to a Serious Education President
291
Scapegoat and Salvation
293
An Autobiography 1988
295
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About the author (2003)

Seymour Sarason is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Psychology at Yale University. He is the author of over forty books and is considered to be one of the most significant researchers in education and educational psychology in the country. Robert Fried is Associate Professor in the School of Education at Northeastern University, and is the author of The Passionate Teacher: A Practical Guide and The Passionate Learner: How Teachers and Parents Can Help Children Reclaim the Joy of Discovery.

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