A Passion for Learning: The Education of Seven Eminent Americans

In his engaging new book, Philip Cusick puts the personal back into education by examining the educational experiences of seven eminent Americans — Benjamin Franklin, Abraham Lincoln, Jane Addams, W. E. B. Du Bois, Eleanor Roosevelt, J. Robert Oppenheimer, and Dorothy Day. Devoting a chapter to each, Cusick describes what they learned, how they learned, what they called their education, and how they used education to establish their place in the world.

More than providing just a series of personal histories, Cusick argues that the discourse about education has turned into a discourse about educational institutions. But his descriptions show that one can talk about education without talking about schools, talk about learning without talking about the state curriculum, talk about achievement without talking about test scores, and talk about accountability without talking about teacher preparation.

Features:
* A cogent account of the ideas and events of each individual’s era—from colonial times, when schools were few, to the present, when institutionalized schooling plays a larger role.
* Chapters that illustrate how ethical learning stood between what these Americans knew and what they did, how they were influenced by their families, how much of their education came from formal schooling, and how they continued learning throughout their lives.
* An outline of the common pillars upon which these Americans constructed their education: early and serious reading, personal identification with large-scale ideals, autodidacticism, like-minded colleagues, making the most of schooling, guiding mentors, work that realized earlier ideals, the ability to articulate ideas, and emerging leadership.