Doomed to Fail: The Built-In Defects of American Education

Rating:
Summary: Great insight into the problems with American Education
Review: As any good doctor knows you don't rush to a prescription until you have a good diagnosis of a problem. In trying to solve the problems of education in America it helps to understand just what are the root causes of poor performance over the last fifty years. Paul Zoch creditably claims that current efforts are doomed to fail.

While reading "Doomed to Fail" often I would think about the joke of a man who comes out into a parking lot and finds a second man under a lamppost hunched over looking at the ground. The first man asks "What are you doing?" The second man says "I've lost my keys." So the first man comes over and starts to help. After a few minutes he says "I don't see them, are you sure you lost them here?" The second man says "No, I think I lost them over there where it is dark, but the light is so much better here."

Paul Zoch argues very persuasively that in trying to fix problems in education by focusing on teachers, we're missing the more important issue of having the students take ownership for what they learn. He points out that when anyone learns, there is the individual learning, and the subject material being learned, there doesn't have to be a teacher. A teacher can help a student save time, but the main effort of learning has to be done by the student. The main point of this book is that by focusing on the role of teachers, we are looking in the wrong place, and we'll never find good solutions.

The author explores some history of education in America and shows that a hundred years ago it was expected that students would take initiative and spend the effort to master the material. Then over the last hundred years education theories have evolved to the point where the teacher has become responsible for the students mastering subjects. So now most students sit back and expect to be entertained and somehow learn, without the students having to put forth much, if any effort.

The conclusion was a bit rushed, and a bit forced. Since it appears that some of problems in American education are the result of government interference in education, it wasn't clear to me how having more government involvement would really make things better. I would have given the book five stars if the conclusion was stronger. The first six chapters provide great insight. The seventh chapter was interesting and thought provoking. The success of schools in Japan does emphasis the author's point that education is primarily the responsibility of the student. The eighth chapter's arguments for more government programs in America seemed weak.

For anyone interested in why students are coming out of school with a poor, poor education, this book shines great light and is very worth reading. The book is well written and is very informative. It provides compelling arguments that efforts to improve education by focusing on teachers are doomed to fail.