The media is full of reference to failing schools, troublesome pupils, underperforming boys, disappearing childhood and a teaching profession in crisis as more and more teachers contemplate abandoning their careers. Key Questions in Education looks at the current and historical debates of each of these issues, examining how a multitude of stakeholders have viewed, and still view, childhood and schooling. In highlighting how these same or similar issues have persistently been debated throughout time, John T. Smith shows something of their complexity and the need to break apart these key enduring questions in education. Each chapter covers a key question such as: How far should the state interfere in education? Should schools feed their pupils? and Why do children misbehave? Analysing each key question, chapters discuss how such issues were viewed or defined in the past, what solutions and outcomes were envisaged and compare and contrast how this relates to where we are now. Clear links are made throughout between historical sources and current ideology, policy, practice and research. In opening up these debates through case studies and vignettes, students are encouraged to reflect on how these contentious issues might be resolved and how this affects them as future educators.

When it first appeared in the 1970s, The Little Red Schoolbook was banned by the UK authorities, which confiscated copies and prosecuted the publisher under the Obscene Publications Act. Why? Because this little book aimed to educate teenagers about democracy, sex and drugs - in frank, simple language - and encouraged them to view adults as "paper tigers". The Little Red Schoolbook has been unavailable for more than 40 years, but it remains surprisingly relevant for young people today. Reissued here in its original and uncensored format, with informative footnotes and a new foreword by the surviving author Soren Hansen, it encourages teenagers to have the confidence to seek information for themselves, challenge authority and question the status quo.

La otra historia... pedagogia y discurso, escrito con la intencion de contribuir a la promocion del PENSAMIENTO HISTORIOGRAFICO. A principios de noviembre del 2000, se publico el libro El Teacher. Ing. Salvador Herrera Tejeda. Inventor Queretano. Luego de su primera presentacion, la Dra. Margaret Lubbers, entonces Coordinadora de la Division de Investigacion y Posgrado de la Facultad de Lenguas y Letras de la UAQ, me comento que la lectura del libro la habia retado para rescatar del olvido a conocidos suyos quienes, por su trayectoria, valia la pena dar a conocer y reconocer. La lectura de La otra historia implica un reto: romper la inercia del acaecer vertiginoso del presente para hacer un espacio reflexivo para tiempos de creacion artistica o accion solidaria. Cuestionar lo inmutable del tiempo sistematico para dar entrada a tiempos alternativos: desde el tiempo del impulso vital, al tiempo psicologico, hasta el tiempo de la espera de un futuro incierto aunque sistematicamente proyectado. Asimismo, acceder a otros espacios, mas alla del domiciliar o laboral. Integrando los espacios de la herencia, la evolucion, el sensorio-motriz, el subjetivante, el objetivante, el historico, el social, el etico, el estetico, el espiritual, el virtual, el sideral... De tal manera que el pensamiento historiografico: amplie nuestra experiencia del espacio historico y el tiempo historico; derive del saber 'sabio' (historico) de los filosofos y literatos a un saber que posibilite la confrontacion de evidencias historicas y se asiente en narraciones orales y escritas para deleite compartido y/o transformacion de sistemas de razon; despierte la conciencia historica que sea capaz de movilizar voluntades a favor de mejores horizontes de vida personal y colectiva. Estaremos, entonces, hablando de la otra historia que depende de nuestra intervencion y que esta por narrarse.