The key question which The End of Education seeks to answer is what are the reasons for schooling which can furnish purpose and clarity to learning?  For Postman, the "end of education" is to create a public, a public with a sense of purpose, confidence, tolerance, and a respect for learning.   Schooling which enables  the creation of a public depends on the existence of shared narratives which articulate the appropriate ends of education.  Postman

argues that our cultural landscape is characterized by a "crisis in a narrative" resulting in loss of meaning and confidence, a lack of perceived purpose, and a loss of respect for learning" (p. 23).   He suggests that   narratives such as the god of economic utility (school as career training), the god of consumerism (school as a vehicle for status-acquisition), the god of technology (school as a vehicle for helping students adapt to technological change) and separatism/tribalism (school as a vehicle for multi-culturalism as opposed to cultural pluralism) come from outside the walls of the classroom, and lack the "seriousness, richness, and durability" to sustain the idea of a public school.

     The principal aim of Postman’s The End of Education   is to propose some enduring cultural narratives which may furnish meaning and purpose in a rapidly changing information environment.  Postman suggests   narratives such as Spaceship Earth (responsibility for the planet), The Fallen Angel (education as a process of making mistakes and correcting errors in thinking), the American experiment (America as a hypothesis and source of continuous argument),   Word Weavers and World-Makers (education as a vehicle for understanding the relationship between language, thought, and culture), and the law of diversity (the school ecology shaped by diversity to furnish enriched standards of excellence).

     Engines For Education is also designed to raise consciousness about the need for change in our educational system. The key questions which this book seeks to answer are what changes are needed in our educational system and how can computers create a new paradigm for education?  Schank and Cleary make four fundamental claims  1) schooling should be organized in ways which facilitate natural learning;  2) revitalizing our schools will depend on adopting teaching methods which are consistent with what we know about the relationship between cognition, motivation, and learning; 3) the constraints of the traditional classroom create an instructional environment which cannot leverage natural learning; and 4) the ends of education can best be achieved by implementing interactive computer-mediated instruction.

Schank and Cleary argue that any plan to reform our schools should parallel the process by which individuals learn naturally.  Natural learning involves the processes of pursuing goals which the learner finds personally meaningful, generating questions through experimentation and reflection, and developing answers. The essence of natural learning is the acquisition of knowledge and skills which are closely linked the student’s personal interests and goals.  As the authors suggest, "without real inquiry that comes from student directed need to know, real learning can not take place" (p. 15).  Schank and Cleary argue that children and adults learn best when they learn by doing, are allowed to make mistakes, and have experts looking over their shoulder to share experiences  and engage in the process of error correction by furnishing information at the point when readiness to learn is high.

      Schank and Cleary contend that the learning environment in our schools is not consistent with the process of natural learning, nor with what we know about the relationship between cognition, motivation, and learning.  They suggest that our educational system is organized to furnish answers to students rather than having learners generate knowledge through question-asking.  Because students are not placed in learning situations which require self-generated questions, their capacity to process, index, and retain information is considerably diminished.   Instruction which is geared toward furnishing students answers in the form of generalizations (e.g formulas, theories and rules) does not foster question-asking, is largely divorced from the goals and interests of the student, and therefore, is unlikely to result in learning.

    Schank and Cleary assert that the constraints of the traditional classroom create an instructional environment which can not facilitate the power of natural learning.  Making learning the raison de `etre of our schools will depend on the development of computer-mediated learning environments.   The primary focus of the text centers on a discussion of the hyper-mediated learning architectures being developed at Northwestern Universities’ Institute of Learning Science 1) simulation-based learning by doing--the computer as master-craftsman enhancing the apprentice students’ level of skill development; 2) incidental learning--the use of hypermedia to create fun and interesting tasks which enable the student to learn information which is potentially dull or boring; 3) learning by reflection--the computer as sounding board which muses with the student to encourage learners to pose questions and   open their minds to new ways of thinking;  4) case-based teaching--the computer as expert sharing "war stories" which implicitly teach the student what questions to ask when confronted with a new learning task and facilitate the development of case-based reasoning;  and  5) learning by exploring--the computer as video database which enables students to engage in simulated question and answer conversations with experts.Although there are many points of convergence in the visions of the future of education presented in these two books, ultimately they offer different perspectives on the potential role of information technology in the process  of teaching and learning.

What Is The Role Of Technology in Education?

     Schank and Cleary argue that they are not advocating the end of books or teachers, yet it seems clear that they believe that books and teachers have played a role in the "boring and irrelevant educational system" which they hope to revitalize with computer-mediated instruction.   Although each of the teaching architectures mentioned above are grounded in established teaching methods, the effective implementation of these methods is dependent on the computer and grounded in knowledge and applications in artificial intelligence.  As the authors suggest, "for massive educational change to take place in this country, the computer will have to be the medium of change" (p. 72).

     Postman claims that his intention is neither to bury or to praise gods, but clearly he believes that much of what needs to be accomplished in the schools does not require the "god of technology".  He believes that "any problems the schools cannot solve without computers, they cannot solve with them" (p. 45).  He is skeptical that the problems which hamper the schooling of our young people such as poverty, alienation, family disintegration, and the unequal learning opportunities for rich and poor, are likely to be altered by the introduction of information technology.

Rather than having students use technology to learn, Postman believes that technology itself should be an object of inquiry.  He suggests that schools often become "houses of detention rather than attention" not because teachers lack machinery and methods, but because students and teachers lack narratives which create a transcendent purpose for education.   He suggests that one narrative which has the power to give meaning and purpose to school is the story of America as a great experiment and a center of continuous argument.  One key question which Postman would have students argue about is, "is it possible to preserve the best of American traditions and social institutions while allowing uncontrolled technological development?"   Rather that getting answers from the computer, Postman would have students ask questions about the computer such as Does computer technology limit or expand opportunities for freedom of expression?;  Does computer-mediated communication create community or force people to revert to tribal identities?;  Is the pathway to a fulfilling life through continuous technological change (p. 189)?

Should Education Be Individually Or Socially-Centered?

     Each of these books offers a different perspective on the degree to which education should be individually or socially centered.   Schank and Cleary assert that the fundamental lessons of learning theory are that students must be in control of their own learning, and instruction should be adapted to the specific interests and needs of the student.   They suggest that the inability of schools to furnish instruction adapted to individual interests and goals destroys a child's natural love of learning.  Thus, the curriculum must be individualized in order to harness the natural learning process.  As the authors suggest, "many students may not be interested in the curriculum, but everybody is interested in the parts of the world they believe relate to their own existence" (p. 138).

     Engines for Education is essentially an argument for the   creation of hyper-mediated teaching systems which create the possibility for interactive individualized instruction.    As the authors suggest "since we cannot afford to have a full-time teacher dedicated to each student the solution rests with technology that allows students to learn naturally aided by one-on-one instruction" (p. 67).  For example, it is suggested that while a book encourages the linear and sequential processing of information, peoples' minds go in several directions at once.  Hypermedia will enable the development of mediums of instruction which accommodate to the learner, rather than the learner having to accommodate to the medium.   Engines in Education, in hypertext form, does give some indication of the extent to which information can be organized to accommodate to the needs of different learners (Schank, 1996).   From Postman's perspective, radically individualized instruction may work against the principal end of education which is to create a public.  He argues that one of the ends of schooling  is to bring individuals into the presence of others and to teach them how to work with others and the need to subordinate individual needs to the needs of the group.  "While the new technologies may be a solution to learning of `subjects’ they work against learning of what are called `social values’ including an understanding of democratic processes" (p. 46).

The Role of The Teacher Who Will Tell The Stories?

     For Schank and Cleary the important stories will be told by the "really good" teachers available inside the computer.  The computer is given a rather heroic persona in Engines.  The computer can offer access to information that is much greater than can be furnished by non-automated teachers.   The computer can adapt to individual differences by providing learning tasks tailored to each student’s unique interests. The computer can foster inquisitiveness and a sense of exploration.  The computer is a patient listener, capable of creating a solitary learning environment where students can make errors in their thinking and recover from failure with no threat to self-esteem.

    The vision of the future of education presented in Engines does expand the role of the teacher. Part of the teacher's role would become monitoring individual learning and determining which type of computer simulation is most needed by the student.  Perhaps more importantly, harnessing the "engines for education" creates the possibility of separating the roles of "teacher as expert" and "teacher as motivator."  Liberated from the transfer model of education in which the teacher's primary roles are information conduit and evaluator, the teacher is free to assume the role of motivator by assisting students in formulating goals and generating questions.

Both Postman and Schank and Cleary believe the learning process must be characterized by a process of asking and answering questions, and correcting the errors in student's thinking in order to foster critical reflection.  Postman suggests that teachers should be "error detectors" rather than "truth tellers" whose goal is to "extend the intelligence of students by helping them reduce the mistakes in their knowledge and skills" (p. 120).    Schank and Cleary argue that the use of computers as teachers can create a classroom environment which is more tolerant of error and free from the fear of failure which impedes learning in the traditional classroom. Postman suggests that computer-mediated instruction marginalizes the role of the teacher and wonders if it is only through the introduction of technology that the classroom can become a place where trial and error is an appropriate mode of learning. In a culture which often un-reflectively embraces technology, Postman believes that the key to learning remains the social interaction between student and teacher.

Should Technology Be The Primary Vehicle For Fostering Student Attention?

      A principal argument expressed in Engines is that many students find school dull and uninteresting and that student interest and attention can be captured through the use of video. For example, it is argued that at a certain point many elementary education students lose interest in reading.  Schank and Cleary claim that students lose interest because they are exposed to instruction which emphasizes the mechanics of reading rather than the ability to understand.  They propose to teach understanding by using the Movie Reader which involves having students watch a movie on a computer monitor.  At selected times the movie is stopped and students complete exercises which are designed to get at important cognitive abilities underlying reading (e.g. inference-making, prediction, and the ability to understand scripts and story structure, and the utilization of world knowledge in understanding).

       The End of Education reminds us that technology is often offered as a solution to problems which technology has helped to create.  Raised in a culture inundated with visual imagery it probably should come as no surprise that "Johnny is bored with reading".  One of the primary motivations for developing teaching systems such as The Movie Reader is that students get bored with traditional modes of instruction. Student interest is assumed to be enhanced through the use of hypermediated virtual learning environments.  For example, when asserting the value of computer-mediated learning, Schank and Cleary argue that learning interest and attention is enhanced because "users of learning-by-doing simulations live inside the simulated world" (p. 93).  Postman wonders about instructional innovations which are justified primarily by the need to keep students interested and involved. He invites us to ask ourselves why our young people are so bored with the real world, and questions the wisdom of creating virtual worlds in order to motivate our children to learn.

Does Technology Motivate And Heighten Readiness To Learn? 

      Schank and Cleary are optimistic about the power of the computer to enhance motivation to learn. They visualize a future in which "children will never want to get off these new full-video-connected computers, and their parents will be happy to see them so intellectually involved" (p. 216).

     This optimism does not surprise Postman who has suggested that embracing computer technology is often done with considerable "technological immodesty" (Postman. 1992).  Postman wonders about the sense of unreality embedded in the hope that interactive home learning stations and lessons resembling video games will create children who are highly motivated, autonomous learners.  He questions the tacit assumption that "the technology is here or will be; we must use it because it is here; we will become the kind of people technology requires us to be; and, whether we like it or not, we will remake our institutions to accommodate the technology" (p. 39).  For Postman, the key question should be not how can we use technology to motivate learners by making school more  fun, but rather how can we furnish students with a compelling rationale for doing the hard word that learning demands even when one may lack intrinsic motivation.

      Schank and Cleary argue that learners must be allowed to follow their own mental path in an idiosyncratic way in order to unleash the power of natural learning.  Postman speculates that allowing students to follow their own mental path might be just as likely to unleash the students’natural impulse to be entertained through the myriad possibilities created by interactive multi-media. He invites us to ask ourselves not only what is gained by embracing information technology, but also what  may be lost when computers become students' "chief source of motivation, authority, and apparently psychological sustenance" (p. 41).

What We Need Is More Information, or Do We?

     According to Postman,  one of the biases implicit in computer technology is that learning is facilitated by more rapid access to information.   For example, Schank and Cleary invite us to "imagine if all the video material that exists were available to any student who wished to view it" (p. 141).  From Postman's point of view the computer as a medium of communication is essentially an answer to the question how can I get access to information faster and in more usable form.   He argues that the type of information made accessible by computers  may have little to do with resolving enduring problems such as hunger and divorce.  He invites us to ask questions such as Does racism exist because of lack of information?  Do we have the highest rate of teenage pregnancy in the world because of lack of information?

     Although Schank and Cleary  do believe that one of the major advantages of computers is the power to access expert information, it is clear that the possibility of interactivity between the learner and the computer is the technological development which unlocks the power of natural learning.  They contend that "computers provide a key opportunity that manual methods cannot offer one-on-one instruction on an as needed basis, specifically tailored to each student who is in control of his own learning process" (p. 73). It is the interactivty created by computer simulation which enables learning to become a constant dialogue between the teacher and the student.

Where Is The Heart Of The Educational Enterprise?

    For Postman the heart of education is the free human dialogue between teacher and student "wandering wherever the ability of the mind allows."   He offers the words of Theodore Roszak in his book The Cult of Information The Folklore of Computers and The True Art of Thinking in making the argument that the changes necessary to preserve this dialogue are found not in technology, but in ourselves "if teachers do not have the time, the incentive, or the wit to provide that; if students are too demoralized, bored or distracted to muster the attention their teachers need of them, then that is the educational problem which has to be solved--and solved from inside the experience of the teachers and the students" (p. 26-27).

     For Schank and Cleary the heart of education lies in the natural curiosity of children unleashed in the school system by the power of interactive multi-media. They argue that once "people see the world of information is really at their fingertips in a way that is easy to access and simple and fun to explore, people will realize that school is no longer the real provider of education" (p. 216).

     Are these visions of the future mutually exclusive?  Can the "ends of education" be realized in a learning environments which is   pulled by the "engines of education?"  Each of these books has the reader wrestle with questions such as  Are schools nineteenth century inventions that have outlived their usefulness?   Is it possible to preserve the defining elements of the American experience while embracing uncontrolled technological development?  Do new technologies make schools obsolete and create new conceptions of education?  Do young people find in their education fundamental reasons for continuing to educate themselves?   It has been argued  that technology itself is neither good nor bad, but neither is it neutral (Kranzberg, 1972).   Decisions about the role of computers in education need to consider how we might fuse humanistic and technocentric perspectives.  As McCluhan remarked, "we shape our tools, and they shape us."  The computer is a tool; as we construct hypermediated learning systems, we ought to think carefully about the ends or purposes they are to serve. Each of these books should be read by anyone interested in shaping the information ecology in which our students will live and learn.

References

Kranzberg, M. (1972). Technology and culture An anthology. New York Shocken Books.

Papert, S. (1993).  The children’s machine Rethinking school in the age of the computer.  New York Basic Books.

Postman, N. 1992). Technopoly The surrender of culture to technology. New York Alfred  A. Knopf.

Postman, N. (1995) The end of education Redefining the value of school.   New York  Alfred A. Knopf.

Roszak, T. (1986). The cult of information The folklore of computers and the true art of  thinking. New York Pantheon.

Schank, R. C. & Cleary, C. (1995). Engines For Education.    Hillsdale, NJ Lawrence  Erlbaum Associates.