First published in 1968 this is a world-famous work on pedagogy in the context of a struggle for liberation. The educational criticism and theory is developed in the context of a Marxist dialectic. Even outside of that political context the book still has huge value as a pointer to an approach to teaching which is based on solidarity and not manipulation and oppression.
Continue reading “Review of Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed”
Illich’s profound analysis of modern Western societies through the fulcrum of the ‘manipulative institution’ is as significant an analysis as that of Marx. This brief review summmarises his thought in Deschooling Society.
Original Publication Date: 2010
Continue reading “Review of Ivan Illich’s seminal Deschooling Society”
The book is about the trend in education, at all levels, from primary through secondary to
FE and University towards a new prioritisation of the emotions in learning. Overall a very good depiction of how the folksy, unscientific, notions of psychotherapy are being used to build a new and disturbing kind of ‘education’ in Britain’s state funded schools.
Original Publication Date: 2009
This paper details the extent of biometric surveillance technology in schools as the state was in 2009. Finger-printing devices for library systems, dinner queues and registration are wide-spread. The (now defunct) quango BECTA (concerned to promote technology in education) chillingly welcomed all this as being more ”efficient”.
Biometric Surveillance in Schools
Pub: March 2009 (original publication date)
