A Review: PUTTING YOUNG PEOPLE AT THE CENTRE OF THE DISCUSSION

Abstract

Introduction:  Can you imagine studying something for twelve years and at the end you still haven’t mastered it? Imagine … students sitting through long school years, through thousands of hours [it is estimated that students spend some 16000 hours in school] of instruction in reading and writing, math and history. All the autumns, winters and springs of their youth are dominated by a schooling that refuses to sink in. At the end, they are on their way to college still needing more work in language, math and social studies; or else they are flung unceremoniously into the job-world that has little room for them. Whichever direction they go, their education has not permitted them to find out who they are and what’s happening to them, and what they need to be free and whole. A disorientation towards reality accompanies the student’s weak possession of literacy and conceptual skills. (Shor, 1980: 195)