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.
