Description
Book SynopsisThis country's most challenging writer on education presents here a distillation, for the general reader, of half a decade's research and reflection. His theme is dual: how children learn, and how they can best be helped to learnhow they can be brought to the fullest realization of their capacities. Jerome Bruner, Harper's reports, has stirred up more excitement than any educator since John Dewey. His explorations into the nature of intellectual growth and its relation to theories of learning and methods of teaching have had a catalytic effect upon educational theory. In this new volume the subjects dealt with in The Process of Education are pursued further, probed more deeply, given concrete illustration and a broader context. One is struck by the absence of a theory of instruction as a guide to pedagogy, Mr. Bruner observes; in its place there is principally a body of maxims. The eight essays in this volume, as varied in topic as they are unified in theme, are contributions towar
Trade ReviewThough good sense on the subject of education is not quite in the man-bites-dog category, it is sufficiently rare to be newsworthy. When it appears in conjunction with cogency, insight, wisdom and style, as it does in Jerome Bruner’s book, the result is a heady mixture… What makes this book particularly rewarding is the quality of [Bruner’s] insights—for example, he speaks of language as a calculus of thought. What makes his book important is the heightened spirit of ferment that it is bound to bring education. -- Banesh Hoffmann * New York Times Book Review *
This eminent scholar has proven again that the scientific understanding of education is not a replacement of the art but an addition to it. It is clear that he himself is both a creative scientist and a brilliant teacher. * Washington Post *
Gracefully written, lucid, and, uniquely among contemporary commentaries on education, never shrill. Bruner sketches out a theory of human development and a theory of instruction, he writes of education as a product of cultural evolution and of cultural evolution as a course of study for children, he rehearses strong opinions about the relation between English style and thinking and about the nature of ‘the will to learn,’ he presents some beguiling observations on children with learning blocks, and, despite the range that he covers, he manages a certain thematic unity… Bruner raises issues of great consequence. -- William Kessen * Science *
[Bruner] has contributed with such wise ingenuity to the improvement of American education…[His] book is a mosaic of essays arranged with compassionate skill, speaking out of the great tradition of William James. No teacher of any child at any age can afford not to know this book well. -- Frank G. Jennings * The Progressive *
Stimulating and provoking. -- John Nisbet
Table of Contents1. Patterns of Growth 2. Education as Social Invention 3. Notes on a Theory of Instruction 4. Man: A Course of Study 5. Teaching a Native Language 6. The Will to Learn 7. On Coping and Defending 8. A Retrospect on Making and Judging Index
