Contrasting Arguments: The Culture War and the Clash in Education (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9781433151651)

Oscar Pemantle studied political science at Minnesota, Yale, and Berkeley with Mulford Sibley, Willmoore Kendall, and Sheldon Wolin, respectively. Students remember him as a "Magic Teacher" in his three years on the faculty of the University of California, Berkeley (Dept. of Rhetoric) and three more years in its adult Extension. Losing his eyesight, he could not finish his dissertation, Man and Movement: The Natural History of an Idea, despite encouragement and support from Sir Isaiah Berlin and E. H. Carr. He turned from textual analysis to the education of children, founding and for twenty years directing the very creative and thriving Black Pine Circle Day School in Berkeley, which he based on Socratic teaching. Pemantle went on to develop Socratic teacher training programs in California and Mexico. He is the founder and director of The Institute for Active Learning. He recently completed the first of a two-volume study, Who Killed Education?