School Syndrome

This post is a 2012 piece I published Journal of Curriculum Studies.  Here’s a link to a PDF of the original.  This piece is now a chapter in my new book, The Ironies of Schooling. Here's an overview of the story I’m telling: The USA is suffering from a school syndrome, which arises from Americans’ insistence … Continue reading School Syndrome

Karl Marx — The Fetishism of Commodities

This post is a classic piece by Karl Marx, “The Fetishism of Commodities and the Secret Thereof.”  It’s the last section of the first chapter in Capital, volume 1. This analysis had a big impact on me when I first read it in grad school, and it has shaped a lot of my own work.  At … Continue reading Karl Marx — The Fetishism of Commodities

Let’s Measure What No One Teaches

This post is a piece I published in Teachers College Record in 2014.  Here’s a link to the original.  It is now a chapter in my new book, The Ironies of Schooling. It’s an analysis of two major players in the world movement for educational accountability:  OECD’s Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), and the US No Child … Continue reading Let’s Measure What No One Teaches

Isaiah Berlin on Writing, Rhetoric, and Churchill

My blog post today is a fascinating essay by Isaiah about writing, rhetoric, and Winston Churchill, which was published in the Atlantic in 1949.  I find it a rich think piece that works, I think successfully, to rescue Churchill from his critics.   Here's a link to the original. He starts with a vicious attack on … Continue reading Isaiah Berlin on Writing, Rhetoric, and Churchill