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Book Review everyone has been in school, for better or worse. Not enough basics; not enough culture; not academic enough; more vocational education; teachers too demanding; teachers too easy on the kids; children undisciplined; children not allowed to be creative, are just a few of the opinions. Further, if that litany is not enough, many people have an idea about what can be done to cure the ills, as long as it doesn't raise taxes. Education theories have a way of repeating themselves, every generation if not every decade. Egan looks at "three old ideas" about what schools should do: socialization, imparting our cultural heritage, and fulfilling the individual's potentiality. Because these all seem worthy objectives, and have powerful adherents, educators have tried to do all three, with the frequent result that none are accomplished, effectively. Kieran Egan is a professor of education at Simn Fraser University in Canada, and has researched and analyzed his material thoroughly. At the same time, he manages to be witty and clear. He offers a new way to look at the task of education in a clear and convincing argument. The Educated Mind is a readable, provocative book because his ideas are fresh and his presentation is engaging. He says that there are five kinds of understanding. The terms he uses to describe them are somewhat confusing because they are used in other areas, such as literature. However, he explains each and shows how they are developmental, both individually and culturally. He proposed that we design curriculums in the same way that the mind develops, building around the appropriate kinds of understanding. "Much of our failure in encouraging mathematical and scientific understanding in schools may stem from the general failure to distinguish romantic understanding and its distinctive ways of engaging and making rational sense of the world as prerequisite to theoretic thinking." After the Somatic and mythic understandings (which he says are genetically programmed), "our general learning capacity comes increasingly into play, enabling us, more laboriously, to develop romantic, philosophic, and ironic kinds of understanding." Because they are complex, it is difficult to summarize this writer's points. If the reader is not wholly persuaded that we have here a solution to education's problems, at least Egan analyzes the current situation cogently, and his theory is worth pursuing.
The Enchanting Mind, a gift of the Friends of the Library, is available in the Mary Willis Library.
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