1st Edition
Prologue to Education (RLE Edu K) An Inquiry into Ends and Means
Many people have come to feel that the controversy on education in Britain has got bogged down in political polemics, and that common polarisations between ‘conventional’ and ‘progressive’, ‘selective’ and ‘comprehensive’, ‘elite’ and ‘democratic’ are both unrealistic and damaging. The author believes that a new educational ethic is needed now that former religious sanctions are no longer generally operative. He believes that it is possible to regard the concept of a Rational Good as a basis for educational theory and practice. The book discusses important practical issues in education: liberty and equality, use and abuse of convention, the ethical basis and occasion for coercion, the validity of co-education as an educational principle and the John Wales concludes that the correspondence between the popular extremes of educational views is much more significant than their differences.
Foreword. Preface. Part 1: Ends. 1. The Ethics of Education. 2. What Do We Mean by Good? 3. Theory and Practice. 4. The Common Ground of Values. 5. Validity and Truth. 6. Hypothesis and Belief. 7. The Concept of a Rational Good. Part 2 Means 8. The Assumptions of Education. 9. Liberty and Equality. 10. The Use and Abuse of Convention. 11. The Ethical Basis of Coercion. 12. Co-education. 13. The Concept of a Liberal Education. 14. Freedom and Growth.
Biography
John Wales