The Future of Education: Reimagining Our Schools from the Ground Up »

Kieran Egan is professor of education, Simon Fraser University, and author of Getting It Wrong from the Beginning. He lives in Vancouver.

This engaging book presents a frontal attack on current forms of schooling and a radical rethinking of the whole education process. Kieran Egan, a prize-winning scholar and innovative thinker, does not rail against teachers, administrators, or politicians for the failures of the school. Instead he argues that education today is built on a set of mutually exclusive goals that are destined to defeat our best efforts.

Egan explores the three big ideas and aims of education—academic, social, and developmental growth—and exposes their flaws and fundamental incompatibility. He then proposes and describes a process called Imaginative Education that would dramatically change teaching and curriculum while delivering the skills and understanding that we all want our children to acquire. His speculative narrative of education from 2010 to 2060—executed with wit and verve—shows how we might very well get there from here.

Science

. . . a brilliant conceptual foundation for the future of education. . . . [T]here is greater need than ever to bring bright ideas to the table to deal with the challenges and opportunities for educating. . . . Egan's account . . . is an ingenious attempt to do this.(James V. Wertsch, Science

— James V. Wertsch)

Pt. I From a Major Problem Toward a Solution

1 Past, Present, and Future Schools 3

2 Why Education Is So Difficult and Contentious 9

3 Accumulating Cognitive Tools 38

Pt. II A Fifty-Year Program of Educational Reform: 2010-2060

4 2010-2020 89

5 2020-2030 117

6 2030-2040 133

7 2040-2050 152

8 2050-2060 170

References 183

Index 185