Publication date:
16 December 2008Length of book:
160 pagesPublisher
R&L EducationDimensions:
232x154mm6x9"
ISBN-13: 9781578869329
The public education system has the capacity to slowly and quietly resist all attempts at systemic change or reform; this resistance has become even more tangible and definable over the past fifteen years as reforms to bring schools up-to-date are attempted and blocked by Industrial Age understandings driven by corporate, political, and financial needs. Surgenor identifies the intellectual, emotional, and organizational factors that keep North American education locked within the Industrial Age paradigm. Exploring the differences between the Industrial Age and Information Age paradigms, The Gated Society demonstrates how those differences would impact the practice, form, and function of education systems.
This is a must-read for educators and community leaders. In The Gated Society, Everette Surgenor has threaded the needle on what we must do as a society to improve our educational systems to ensure the survival of our standard of living and our set of community values threatened by an age of unrelenting rapid change and globalization. We need to educate our young people about the why and how of change to prepare them to meet global challenges. As our technological edge in the world has dwindled, so has our confidence in our ability to meet the challenges facing us as a society. While there is no road map that guarantees success, the elements of successful change outlined in The Gated Society provide a cogent basis for questioning the efficacy of the form and function of the existing paradigm.