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Wasted: Why Education Isn't Educating Paperback – 18 Nov. 2010

by Frank Furedi (Author)
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Never has so much attention been devoted to education. Everyone - government ministers, social commentators and parents obsess about its problems. Yet we rarely ask why? Why is education a source of such concern? Why do many of the solutions proposed actually make matters worse? Tony Blair's 'education, education, education' slogan placed education at the forefront of political agendas. But, perhaps the 'policisation' of education is part of the problem. Today, education is valued for its potential contribution to economic development, but it is no longer considered important for itself. Increasingly, the promotion of education has little to do with the value of learning per se or with the importance of 'being taught' about societies' achievements, so future generations have the intellectual ability to advance still further. Education has been emptied of its content. This book is a brilliant piece of analysis. It peers into the hollowness of the education debates and, drawing on thinkers from the ancient Greeks to modern critics, it sets out what we need from our schools.
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  1. ISBN-10
    1441122109
  2. ISBN-13
    978-1441122100
  3. Publisher
    Continuum
  4. Publication date
    18 Nov. 2010
  5. Language
    English
  6. Dimensions
    13.97 x 1.38 x 21.59 cm
  7. Print length
    256 pages
  8. See all details
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Product description

Review

Furedi build his case methodically and argues it carefully, if not elegantly. He supports it with quotes (shrewdly selected, sometimes repeated) from politicians and educationalists ... the analysis rings true, as does Furedi's defence of a subject-based curriculum and a philosophy of education that recognises the duty of one generation to impart a canon of knowledge to the next.--Sanford Lakoff

A thought provoking read.--Sanford Lakoff

Author article, February 2010.--Sanford Lakoff

Frank Furedi holds forth with passion and wit--Sanford Lakoff

Recommended by New Statesman--Sanford Lakoff

There is a lot of sense here, and anyone who teaches traditional subjects at A-level or lectures at a university will recognise the phenomenon of students who are exemplary in their work-related personal skills, conscientious in their environmentalism and tolerance of diversity, sensible in their eating, drinking and non-smoking - but also utterly uninterested in intellectual debate and incapable of seeing the point of simply knowing more. Furedi makes his case well.--Sanford Lakoff

Well researched ... Interesting content, persuasive arguments ... Good to get the cogs in the brain ticking over--Sanford Lakoff

A thought provoking read.--,

Author article, February 2010.--,

Frank Furedi holds forth with passion and wit--,

Recommended by New Statesman--,

A thought provoking read.--Morning Star

Author article and title mention, alive! February/March 2010

Author article in The Australian, January 2010 and Title Mention

Author article in Times Educational Supplement, November 2009.

Author article, February 2010.--The Australian

Frank Furedi holds forth with passion and wit--Times Higher Education

Recommended by New Statesman--New Statesman

Reviewed in Contemporary Review

Same mention in Herne Bay Gazette, Faversham News and Kentish Gazette, October 2009

Title mention from author article in The Australian, August 2009.

About the Author

Frank Furedi is Professor of Sociology at the University of Kent at Canterbury. He is the author of numerous books including Culture of Fear, Invitation to Terror and Paranoid Parenting, all published by Continuum.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Continuum (18 Nov. 2010)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 256 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1441122109
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1441122100
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 13.97 x 1.38 x 21.59 cm
  • Customer reviews:

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Customer reviews

4.1 out of 5 stars
25 global ratings

Top reviews from United Kingdom

Richard Jones-Nerzic
5.0 out of 5 stars Not well enough known
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 1 July 2021
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Not widely read by teachers it seems. Confronts the same issues as Daisy and Didau with wider a sociological focus and different set of conclusions.
One person found this helpful
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I, Roflbot
5.0 out of 5 stars Worth reading even if you don't have kids
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 8 January 2010
In a nutshell, Furedi argues that school reformers have abandoned their original agenda of making the academic, subject-based education previously only available to the offspring of a moneyed elite available to all, in favour of a blatant exercise in social engineering, accompanied by low expectations and philistinism. While this movement has intensified under the Labour government, Furedi is careful to point out that it's roots can be found in the 19th century, when universal education was first introduced. Furedi argues that education has become politicised, substituting the transmission of 'values' (i.e. whatever 'values' happen to be fashionable) for the transmission of knowledge; furthermore, that the vogue for 'child-centred learning' is more about a loss of adult authority than about engaging children in education.

Many of the themes in this book will be familiar to readers of Frank Furedi's other books, such as The Culture of Fear, Therapy Culture, or Where Have All The Intellectuals Gone - in particular the breakdown of authority in the West, or the infantilisation of adults. Admirers of Hannah Arendt's work will also find a lot to admire Furedi's books (he cites her frequently).

Yes, Furedi is a Marxist, however don't let that put you off. There *is* an implicit political impulse to his writing, but it is remarkably liberating (and libertarian). He points the way toward a political alternative that we *could* have, but currently don't - largely, in my opinion, because of the poor intellectual calibre and sheer moral cowardice of our political elites.
21 people found this helpful
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june
4.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 13 March 2017
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Very very good thankyou
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Paul Bowes
5.0 out of 5 stars A careful and powerful analysis of the failures of British education
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 28 May 2010
Furedi argues in Wasted that the primary function of education is the intergenerational transmission of information about the world in which our young will shortly have to make their way. In the light of this criterion, he judges that the British education system has been diverted from its true purpose by a well-meaning alliance of politicians from all parties and education specialists who have embraced a therapeutic model of education. For Furedi, this means that, paradoxically, at a time when education has never been more central to political discourse, and education commands a greater fraction of national expenditure than ever before, the purely educative function of education has never been so marginalised, nor has the authority of teachers per se ever been lower.

In the author's view, the British education system is now being used inappropriately as a vehicle for theories of child socialization and personal fulfilment that lack a convincing evidential base. At best, all that can be achieved by these means is some degree of mitigation of the harm caused by serious underlying social problems that are not being tackled directly. At worst, Furedi argues that this approach has had serious unintended results: purely academic educational outcomes are poorer; teachers find themselves unconfident and deprived of the authority rooted in subject knowledge that allows them to be effective educators; and even the acknowledged social-engineering agendas - such as a reduction in the degree of inequality of educational attainment between children of different classes - are not achieved.

The real value of this book seems to me to be twofold. The first is that it foregrounds the degree to which, far from being a battleground between opposing ideas espoused by the major political parties, British education has fallen victim over the last three decades to a cross-party, cross-professional consensus, in which the ideological element has been supplied by academic educationalists whose unexamined assumptions have hardly been submitted to critical scrutiny. The second is that the book is argued quietly and without evident animus - this is absolutely the opposite of an hysterical polemic.

Furedi argues for a recovery of faith in the power of education and, simultaneously, a return to a more modest and thus more effective conception of the role of education. Anyone with an interest in the future of the British education system might read this with profit.
28 people found this helpful
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Willem Van den Broeck
5.0 out of 5 stars magnificent
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 18 February 2010
This is a very well and persuasively written book that extensively spells out all the arguments against postmodern educational ideology. A must read for everyone who is concerned with the future of education and civilization.
8 people found this helpful
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Elmer6
4.0 out of 5 stars Remplit son office
Reviewed in France on 27 June 2019
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