The end of the rainbow
Subtitle: how educating for happiness (not money) would transform our schools
By: Susan Engel
Publisher: The New Press
Published: 2015
Language: eng
Number of pages: 223
ISBN-13: 9781595589545; 9781620972502
Subjects: Education; Aims and objectives; Psychological aspects; Educational change; Philosophy; Education and state
Description: "Amid the hype of Race to the Top, online experiments such as Khan Academy, and bestselling books like The Sandbox Investment, we seem to have drawn a line that leads from nursery school along a purely economic route, with money as the final stop. But what price do we all pay for the increasingly singular focus on wage as the outcome of education? Susan Engel, a leading psychologist and educator, argues that this economic framework has had a profound impact not only on the way we think about education but also on what happens inside school buildings. The End of the Rainbow asks what would happen if we changed the implicit goal of education and imagines how different things would be if we made happiness, rather than money, the graduation prize. Drawing on psychology, education theory, and a broad range of classroom experiences across the country, Engel offers a fascinating alternative view of what education might become: teaching children to read books for pleasure and self-expansion and encouraging collaboration. All of these new skills, she argues, would not only cultivate future success in the world of work but also would make society as a whole a better, happier place. Accessible to parents and teachers alike, The End of the Rainbow will be the beginning of a new, more vibrant public conversation about what the future of American education should look like. "--
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (pages 201-207) and index.
Table of contents: title: The money trail; title: How money impoverishes education; title: Rich or poor, it's good to have money; title: How happiness enriches schools; title: A blueprint for well-being; title: What we should measure.