I promised you a series on the purpose of education, and here's the second installment (better late than never).

Last time, I argued that education has no 'one true purpose:' that educational activities serve a variety of purposes for different people. Philosophers of education have spilled much ink...

I spent several years and thousands of dollars studying the philosophy of education. Historically, this niche field's core research question has been:

What is the purpose of education?

So I'm excited to kick off a series of posts regarding the purpose of education (The Question, if...

Ivan Illich (1926-2002) has long been one of my favorite thinkers. His 1971 book, Deschooling Society, is a classic in the canon of "alternative" educational theory, and the source of one of my favorite quips on education:

"Equal educational opportunity is, indeed, both a desirable and...

"Unschooling," a particularly unstructured form of homeschooling, captures the attention of the media on a semi-regular basis. See for instance this CNN article from last summer: "Unschoolers learn what they want, when they want." Psychology Today blogger Peter Gray launched an inquiry into unschooling...

A debate regarding the moral status of homeschooling is once again upon us. I basically agree with Conor Freidersdorf's defense of homeschooling, which is itself a reply to Dana Goldstein's criticisms of homeschooling and, to a lesser extent, those of Freddie deBoer.

Goldstein...

One recent Friday afternoon, a third grader whom I regularly babysit -- let's call her Amy -- gleefully retrieved her recorder from her room and started playing for me. However, no sooner than she had begun did she tilt her head to one side thoughtfully, toss the recorder to the...