《flickering mind, the》是2004年12月Random House US出版的圖書，作者是Todd Oppenheimer。
基本介紹
- 中文名：flickering mind, the
- 作者：Todd Oppenheimer
- 出版社：Random House US
- ISBN：9780812968439
內容簡介,作者簡介,
內容簡介
The Flickering Mind, by National Magazine Award winner ToddOppenheimer, is a landmark account of the failure of technology toimprove our schools and a call for renewed emphasis on what reallyworks.
American education faces an unusual moment of crisis. For decades,our schools have been beaten down by a series of curriculum fads,empty crusades for reform, and stingy funding. Now education andpolitical leaders have offered their biggest and most expensivepromise ever—the miracle of computers and the Internet—at a cost ofapproximately $70 billion just during the decade of the 1990s.Computer technology has become so prevalent that it is transformingnearly every corner of the academic world, from our efforts toclose the gap between rich and poor, to our hopes for schoolreform, to our basic methods of developing the human imagination.Technology is also recasting the relationships that schools strikewith the business community, changing public beliefs about thedemands of tomorrow’s working world, and reframing the nation’ssystems for researching, testing, and evaluating achievement.
All this change has led to a culture of the flickering mind, and ageneration teetering between two possible futures. In one,youngsters have a chance to become confident masters of the toolsof their day, to better address the problems of tomorrow.Alternatively, they can become victims of commercial novelties andnarrow measures of ability, underscored by misplaced faith instandardized testing.
At this point, America’s students can’t even make a fair choice.They are an increasingly distracted lot. Their ability to reason,to listen, to feel empathy, is quite literally flickering.Computers and their attendant technologies did not cause all theseproblems, but they are quietly accelerating them. In thisauthoritative and impassioned account of the state of education inAmerica, Todd Oppenheimer shows why it does not have to be thisway.
Oppenheimer visited dozens of schools nationwide—public andprivate, urban and rural—to present the compelling tales that framethis book. He consulted with experts, read volumes of studies, andcame to strong and persuasive conclusions: that the essentials oflearning have been gradually forgotten and that they matter muchmore than the novelties of technology. He argues that every time wecomputerize a science class or shut down a music program to pay fornew hardware, we lose sight of what our priority should be:“enlightened basics.” Broad in scope and investigative intreatment, The Flickering Mind will not only contribute to a vitalpublic conversation about what our schools can and should be—itwill define the debate.
From the Hardcover edition.
作者簡介
Todd Oppenheimer won the 1998 National Magazine Award for his Atlantic Monthly story on this subject and has received numerous other awards during roughly twenty-five years in journalism, for both his writing and his investigative reporting. His articles have appeared in various local and national publications, including Newsweek, The Washington Post, Columbia Journalism Review, and National Journal. He lives with his wife, Anh, and his son, A.J., in San Francisco.
From the Hardcover edition.
