The Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today's Students

Taylor, Maureen P.; Bloom, Allan

doi:10.2307/1289159

Cited by 171 publications

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“…This work paved the way for the writings of Alan Bloom, E.D. Hirsch, and others concerned about ''the closing of the American mind'' (Bloom, 1987)Fwhat they suggest is the intellectual atrophy and decay of the collective U.S. brain. Schools are shopping malls.…”

Section: Appendix I: a Sampling Of Metaphors For Educational Institut...mentioning

confidence: 87%

Movements of Mind: The Matrix, Metaphors, and Re-imagining Education

Cook-Sather

2003

Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education

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Free your mind." This exhortation becomes a refrain in the Wachowski brothers' film, The Matrix (Silver, 1999), a visual study of movements of mind. Set sometime around the year 2199, the movie follows Morpheus, the leader of an underground resistance movement, as he guides the young hero, Neo, to a startling recognition: that what he believes to be reality at the end of the 20 th century is in fact a computer-generated dream-world called the Matrix. This "prison for [the] mind," as Morpheus describes it, was created not only to contain and control human beings but also to turn them into a source of energy to power the very construct that contains and controls them. Conceptualized and built by a singular artificial intelligence, the Matrix renders a particular version of reality both indiscernible as a construct and ineluctable as an experience for those who "live" unconsciously within it. The majority never learn that, although they believe they are living in the modern world, they in fact exist only in fields of pods, their minds engaged in a neural-interactive simulation, their bodies used as batteries to power the machines that masterminded the construct. Through its use of two interrelated metaphors-reality is a computer program, and this specific computer program, the Matrix, is a system of social control-the film The Matrix paints a particularly nightmarish picture of human existence. The people who live within the Matrix are deluded, exploited, kept under control by an oppressive system, used as fuel to support someone else's notion of life. Critics of the dominant models of formal education in the United States have characterized schools and schooling in similar terms-as forms of social control that keep students captive to dominant interests, notions, and practices (see Berman, 1984; Burbules, 1986;

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Section: Appendix I: a Sampling Of Metaphors For Educational Institut...mentioning

confidence: 87%

Movements of Mind: The Matrix, Metaphors, and Re-imagining Education

Cook-Sather

2003

Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education

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“…Over recent years, the English HE system has also been caught up in the so-called 'culture wars'. Influenced by ideas from the US (Bloom, 1987;Lukianoff and Haidt, 2018), various politicians and journalists have expressed concern that free speech is being compromised on campus and students' learning is being adversely affected by an emphasis on 'safetyism' (for example, protecting students from potentially challenging ideas). Nevertheless, these accusations are strongly contested by many within the HE sector, and studies have suggested that students themselves are broadly supportive of how their HEI promotes freedom of expression (Grant et al, 2019).…”

Section: Denmarkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Constructing the Higher Education Student

Brooks

Gupta²,

Jayadeva

et al. 2022

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“…74-83). 43 See, e.g., Grant, 1988;Bellah et al, 1985;Bloom, 1987;Glenn, 2001aGlenn, . 2007 Family Choice and the Common School 21 Supporters of both vouchers and charters propose that families should be able to choose the educational program they want for their children without having to move to a different school district or pay private-school tuition.…”

Section: The Challengementioning

confidence: 99%

Rhetoric versus Reality: What We Know and What We Need To Know About Vouchers and Charter Schools

2001

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Education vouchers and charter schools are two of the most prominent and far-reaching forms of family-choice policies currently in evidence in the nation's elementary and secondary schools. As such, they present important challenges to the traditional provision of public education in schools that are created, governed, funded, and operated by state and local authorities. This book reviews the theoretical foundations for vouchers and charter schools and the empirical evidence of their effectiveness as set forth in hundreds of recent reports and studies. The literature analyzed includes studies that directly examine voucher and charter schools, in the United States and abroad, and, where relevant, comparisons between existing public and private schools. The book also examines the ways in which multiple dimensions of policy design-such as targeting, funding levels and limitations, admissions policies, academic standards and assessments, and accountability-will determine the nature and extent of any specific program's impact. The findings will be of interest to policymakers, researchers, and educators at every level of the education system who must assess numerous proposals for vouchers, charter schools, and other forms of family choice in education.This second edition of this book is being launched in the summer of 2007 with updates to the introductory chapter and the lengthy chapter on academic achievement-the area that has seen the largest number of new studies since the first edition was published in 2001. The revised chapters have a date of 2007 in the headers. The original iv Rhetoric versus Reality 2007 chapters, which have a date of 2001 in the headers, may be updated in the future if resources are available. This book is part of a larger body of research conducted by RAND Education on school reform, assessment and accountability, and teachers and teaching. It was supported by the Gund Foundation, Spencer Foundation, Annie E. Casey Foundation, and Carnegie Corporation of New York.The debate over vouchers and charter schools lends itself well to RAND Education's mission-to bring accurate data and careful objective analysis to the national debate on education policy. RAND Education identifies new trends, problems, and opportunities and strives to give the policy community and the American public a clear picture of the choices they face in educating America's citizens.

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The Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today's Students

Cited by 171 publications

References 0 publications

Movements of Mind: The Matrix, Metaphors, and Re-imagining Education

Movements of Mind: The Matrix, Metaphors, and Re-imagining Education

Constructing the Higher Education Student

Rhetoric versus Reality: What We Know and What We Need To Know About Vouchers and Charter Schools

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