Engaging Minds: Cultures of Education and Practices of Teaching

by Brent Davis

Engaging Cultures of Education and Practices of Teaching explores the diverse beliefs and practices that define the current landscape of formal education. The 3 rd edition of this introduction to interdisciplinary studies of teaching and learning to teach is restructured around four prominent historical moments in formal Standardized Education, Authentic Education, Democratic Citizenship Education, Systemic Sustainability Education. These moments serve as the foci of the four sections of the book, each with three chapters dealing respectively with history, epistemology, and pedagogy within the moment. This structure makes it possible to read the book in two ways – either "horizontally" through the four in-depth treatments of the moments or "vertically" through coherent threads of history, epistemology, and pedagogy. Pedagogical features include suggestions for delving deeper to get at subtleties that can’t be simply stated or appreciated through reading alone, several strategies to highlight and distinguish important vocabulary in the text, and more than 150 key theorists and researchers included among the search terms and in the Influences section rather than a formal reference list.

253 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 1, 2015

Reviews

[aniela · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5/5

I liked the first chapter a lot! And after that I liked each chapter less than the previous one. I definitely learned something though!

[Thomas Krause · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was required reading for one of my education graduate courses, and it is, by far, one of my favorites as far as textbooks for teaching are concerned. It offers a study on the evolution of education and learning and offers some conceptual answers to where teaching is headed. It's final "moment" offers some conclusions about containing the vast history of education and applying such history to the concept of teaching. This is not a book of specific teaching strategies, rather, the book is more of an orientation to thinking like a teacher of today.

[kayt]

in 4.5 years of post-secondary education (and an entire degree later) this is the first textbook i read all the way through so i’m ethically permitted to log it. good read tho i love learning

[Lauri Keogh Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book

[Karime · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book proposes good theories on how Standardized Education is so deeply interwoven with Institutionalized oppression in most countries of the American continent at least. Although it could be ground-breaking for those unfamiliar with Paulo Freire's work, it draws from different concepts: Standardized and Authentic Education but it does seem to push certain terms I suspect the authors came up with such as "Democratic Citizenship Education" and "Systemic Sustainability Education" which sound very much like Constructivism, Critical Pedagogy and Holistic Education. More over, some others seemed to have been completely left out. Like the Montessori methods. Why were they not discussed at all?
Despite my criticisms, I found the first 3 chapters really informative and interesting, the 4th I can do without.

[Marsha · Rating 3 out of 5]

A textbook for my degree but an interesting read about the history of formal education and some moments that define it.