Turning Learning Right Side Up: Putting Education Back on Track

In the age of the Internet, we educate people much as we did during the Industrial Revolution. We educate them for a world that no longer exists, instilling values antithetical to those of a free, 21st century democracy. Worst of all, too many schools extinguish the very creativity and joy they ought to nourish.

 

In Turning Learning Right Side Up , legendary systems scientist Dr. Russell Ackoff and “in-the-trenches” education innovator Daniel Greenberg offer a radically new path forward. In the year’s most provocative conversation, they take on the very deepest questions about education: What should be its true purpose? Do classrooms make sense anymore? What should individuals contribute to their own education? Are yesterday’s distinctions between subjects--and between the arts and sciences--still meaningful? What would the ideal lifelong education look like--at K-12, in universities, in the workplace, and beyond?

 

Ackoff and Greenberg each have experience making radical change work--successfully. Here, they combine deep idealism with a relentless focus on the real world--and arrive at solutions that are profoundly sensible and powerfully compelling.

 

Why today’s educational system fails--and why superficial reforms won’t help
The questions politicians won’t ask--and the answers they don’t want to hear

 

How do people learn--and why do they choose to learn?
Creating schools that reflect what we know about learning

 

In a 21st century democracy, what values must we nurture?
...and why aren’t we nurturing them?

 

How can tomorrow’s “ideal schools” be operated and funded?
A plan that cuts through political gridlock and can actually work

 

Beyond schools: building a society of passionate lifelong learners
Learning from childhood to college to workplace through retirement