Education Now: How Rethinking America's Past Can Change Its Future

Abstract

Now: How Rethinking America's Past Can Change Its Future Citation: Hogg, C. (2009). Book review Education now: How rethinking America's past can change its future. Journal of Research in Rural Education, 24(14). Retrieved [date] from http://jrre.psu.edu/articles/24-14.pdf The slim size of Paul Theobald's new book belies its ambitious vision for transforming not only educational system in United States, but structure of political and systems as well. In last century, Theobald argues, education has become merely about students' future roles in country rather than their roles as citizens more broadly account for being participants in economy, democracy, and community. The purpose of Theobald's book is to examine how education has become this way, and how we can change it. He argues many ideas forwarded as school reform are not viable solutions to nation's educational problems, and an overhaul of the purposes for which [schools] exist is needed (2). The central assumption undergirding Now is governance, schooling, and economics are deeply intertwined, and therefore meaningful transformations in our educational system cannot occur as long as our political and spheres remain unchanged. Thus, Theobald's book is spent demonstrating how U.S. society, like most modern democracies, has made economics its primary concern, delineating consequences of this choice, and proposing possibilities for how nation must change its political and institutions to save its system of education. The first half of book is devoted to a complex overview of why and how particular seventeenth-, eighteenth-, and nineteenth-century European political and theories emerged as hegemonic forces, and consequences for our current political, economic, and educational systems. Theobald begins in 1640s, a historical moment in which England was faced with starting a new government or recycling old; political theories from this time continue to shape course of history in virtually all of Western democracies(11). Thus, he describes in detail political and philosophical contexts and choices of this era, examining ramifications of both major and all-but-forgotten theories. In tandem, he discusses how theories became dominant or buried at critical junctures throughout history. The importance of this discussion is not just to reveal junctures at which what are now considered foundational theories were in fact contested, or uncover how alternative theories lost footing. It also provides a reminder massive cultural shifts are still possible and in so doing argues moment is ripe for such change. In clearly delineating dense histories in Now, Theobald, drawing upon Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor, demonstrates how a tension between two philosophical strands created United States as we know it. The predominant strand is L-stream, referring to philosophical lineage of John Locke, and subordinate strand is M-stream, referring to Charles de Secondat Montesquieu. Theobald argues L-stream (which Hamilton and Madison championed) embodies a view of freedom that enables material accumulation (37). The M-stream (consistent with Jeffersonian thought) suggests man is essentially a social and political being, and an being only secondarily (31). Chapter 2 follows with histories paralleled or followed thinkers from previous chapter, beginning with Adam Smith's foundational The Wealth of Nations, published in 1776. Theobald devotes much of chapter to demonstrating profound influence of Smith's ideas on modern Western theory. Specifically, assumption by Smith economic activity would proceed in a self-correcting fashion in an ever upward mode has led to capitalist ideals dominate politics, economics, education, and culture in United States (46). …