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showell's review
4.0
I've long been a fan of Sayers' mysteries and have been wanting to read some of her critical essays as well. When I found this short paper on the failings of modern education, I couldn't resist. Especially since in the introduction, she vents some of the same frustrations I have about our society--namely that because people can't or won't think critically, all sorts of false information is passed off as true. People are falling prey to propaganda because they can't detect the intrinsic fallacy of certain arguments. Basically Sayers argues we could fix this by adopting some of the medieval curriculum--particularly the emphasis on gaining the basic tools of learning: language, logic, and debate, before you specialize in subjects like biology, math, history, literature, and science (although you do use bits of those subjects as part of the process of learning the tools). It's an interesting idea, although I suspect even less practical today than when she proposed it in 1947. Some aspects of it reminded me of my experience at Rice, so perhaps some of her ideas have been incorporated, even if we aren't all required to take Latin Grammar at age 9.
marinda460's review
5.0
This text was originally a speech that Dorothy Sayers delivered in 1947 at Oxford University. She bemoans the state of the current education system (ahem, well, the education system of the 1940s, which has essentially not changed much in the intervening 80 years). She mentions various examples to demonstrate how the current educational system has failed society, including people's apparent susceptibility to propaganda and the seemingly high prevalence of poor reasoning skills.
Her main argument is that children are taught many things but never really taught how to learn (or think properly, for that matter). As she says at the end of the speech: "For the sole true end of education is simply this: to teach men how to learn for themselves; and whatever instruction fails to do this is effort spent in vain." In a nutshell, she argues that the Medieval tradition of teaching children and adolescents first grammar, then dialectic/logic and then rhetoric, should be reintroduced.
I would recommend this book to teachers, anyone involved in education, parents and, especially, parents interested in homeschooling.
Her main argument is that children are taught many things but never really taught how to learn (or think properly, for that matter). As she says at the end of the speech: "For the sole true end of education is simply this: to teach men how to learn for themselves; and whatever instruction fails to do this is effort spent in vain." In a nutshell, she argues that the Medieval tradition of teaching children and adolescents first grammar, then dialectic/logic and then rhetoric, should be reintroduced.
I would recommend this book to teachers, anyone involved in education, parents and, especially, parents interested in homeschooling.
dwmclaurin3's review
5.0
Being a reference coordinator at a library, my chief job is to teach people how to do research. Oddly enough, I have met Ph.D. students who don't know how to begin research. For them, research is searching databases. They are left with a mound of works to read and understand, yet they are always left with feeling that they do not know their topic at all.
"The Lost Tools of Learning," an essay written by Dorothy Sayers, details how education has proffered little in the area of teaching students how to learn. It is a call back to medieval education, with a few modifications. The main goal is not the teaching of subjects per se, but rather teaching students how to learn a subject. Every person interested in education should read this essay.
"The Lost Tools of Learning," an essay written by Dorothy Sayers, details how education has proffered little in the area of teaching students how to learn. It is a call back to medieval education, with a few modifications. The main goal is not the teaching of subjects per se, but rather teaching students how to learn a subject. Every person interested in education should read this essay.
aleatha's review
5.0
Favorite quote: "For we let our young men and women go out unarmed, in a day when armor was never so necessary. By teaching them all to read, we have left them at the mercy of the printed word. By the invention of the film and the radio, we have made certain that no aversion to reading shall secure them from the incessant battery of words, words, words. They do not know what the words mean; they do not know how to ward them off or blunt their edge or fling them back; they are a prey to words in their emotions instead of being the masters of them in their intellects. We who were scandalized in 1940 when men were sent to fight armored tanks with rifles, are not scandalized when young men and women are sent into the world to fight massed propaganda with a smattering of "subjects"; and when whole classes and whole nations become hypnotized by the arts of the spell binder, we have the impudence to be astonished. "
ab_pye's review
3.0
The forward to the essay, by Dan Russ, is excellent. The essay made me think and consider my own education, but wasn’t my favorite read.
imaginaryturtle's review
4.0
A solid essay on redesigning education, written in the late '40s. It definitely holds water even now in 2020, when a lot of people need John Oliver and his motley crew to remind them to use their own brains when consuming news and other media. tl;dr: learn to think, and what you think *about* matters less in the long run.