Paradigm Lost: Leading America Beyond Its Fear of Educational Change

by William G. Spady

Book Overview

Spady explores the important changes in culture, instruction, school calendars, and school agenda that school leaders must make to prepare students for the next millennium despite the fact that the current system of schooling leads to institutional inertia that counters the very changes we most need to make.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0876522320
• ISBN13: 9780876522325
• Release Date: January 1998
• Publisher: Globe Pequot Publishing Group Inc/Bloomsbury
• Length: 158 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.1" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

So I am biased

I had the honor of spending a day and a half with this gentleman and wound up ordering 3 of his books. I read this one in a little under 5 hours. What infuriates me is that for decades we have had people showing us a better way of using our resources to help us develop engaged, reflective, compassionate, critical, and active citizens but special interest groups have dominated educational reform, leaving us with a public school system that, AT BEST, produces obedient worksheet completers.

Essential reading for everyone interested in OBE.

Throughout the world, outcome-based education has many supporters and many critics, most of whom will agree that Spady is the most significant contributer to this aspect of educational theory and practice. In the first part of his latest book, Spady traces the development of his ideas on OBE. He then very frankly discusses how everything went wrong as OBE came under attack in 1992 and 1993. He goes on to explain what the major objections to OBE were and presents logical, well-reasoned responses to those criticisms.In the second half of the book, Spady presents a "Future Empowerment Paradigm" that is designed to help school districts transform the way they approach teaching and learning. This approach is very much oriented to the "techno-information age", and presents a viable alternative to the "educentric" way in which most education systems operate currently.The book is compelling reading for anyone genuinely interested in provid! ing education that will equip students for the future.