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Neil Postman | |
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| Born | (1931-03-08)March 8, 1931 New York City, U.S. |
| Died | October 5, 2003(2003-10-05) (aged 72) New York City, U.S. |
| Occupation | Writer, professor |
| Education | State University of New York at Fredonia Columbia University |
| Period | 1959–2003 |
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| Spouse | Shelley Ross |
| Children | 3, includingMarc |
Neil Postman (March 8, 1931 – October 5, 2003) was an American author, educator,media theorist, andcultural critic who eschewed digital technology, includingpersonal computers andmobile devices, and was critical of the use of personal computers in schools.[1] He is best known for 20 books about technology and education, includingTeaching as a Subversive Activity (1970),The Disappearance of Childhood (1982),Amusing Ourselves to Death (1985),Conscientious Objections (1988),Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology (1992) andThe End of Education: Redefining the Value of School (1995).
Postman was born to aJewish family[2] inNew York City, where he spent most of his life.[3] In 1953, he graduated from theState University of New York at Fredonia and enlisted in the military but was released less than five months later.[4] AtTeachers College, Columbia University, he was awarded a master's degree in 1955 and anEd.D. (Doctor of Education) in 1958.[5]
Postman took a position withSan Francisco State University's English Department in 1958.[4] In 1959, he began teaching atNew York University (NYU).[5]
In 1971, at NYU'sSteinhardt School of Education, Postman founded a graduate program inmedia ecology. He became the School of Education's only University Professor in 1993, and chaired the Department of Culture and Communication until 2002.[5]
Postman received an honorary doctorate fromBrigham Young University in 2000.[6]
On October 5, 2003, Postman died of lung cancer at a hospital inFlushing, Queens. He was 72. He had been married to Shelley Ross Postman for 48 years. They had three children and were longtime residents of Flushing.[5]
| External videos | |
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 "Life and Career of Neil Postman", January 14, 1988,C-SPAN |
Postman wrote 20 books and more than 200 articles in academic and popular publications, includingThe New York Times Magazine,The Atlantic Monthly,Harper's Magazine,Time,Saturday Review,Harvard Educational Review,The Washington Post, theLos Angeles Times,Stern, andLe Monde. He was the editor of the quarterly journalETC: A Review of General Semantics from 1976 to 1986. In 1976, Postman taught a course at NYU onCBS-TV'sSunrise Semester called "Communication: the Invisible Environment".[7] He was also a contributing editor atThe Nation. Several[citation needed] of his articles were reprinted after his death inETC: A Review of General Semantics as part of a 75th anniversary edition in October 2013.[8]
In 1969 and 1970, Postman collaborated with theNew Rochelle educatorAlan Shapiro on developing a model school based on the principles expressed inTeaching as a Subversive Activity.[9] In that book, Postman and co-author Charles Weingartner suggest that many schools have curricula that are trivial and irrelevant to students' lives.[10] The result of their critique was the "Program for Inquiry, Involvement, and Independent Study" atNew Rochelle High School.[9] This "open school" experiment lasted 15 years, and many programs following these principles were developed at U.S. high schools, such as Walter Koral's language class at theVillage School[11] inGreat Neck, New York.
In his 1973 address "The Ecology of Learning" at the Conference on English Education, Postman proposed seven changes for schools that build on the critique expressed inTeaching as a Subversive Activity.[12] First, he proposed that schools be "convivial communities" for learning rather than places that try to control students through judgment and punishment. Second, he suggested that schools should either discard or dramatically change grading practices that lead to competition in school rather than an attitude of learning. He also proposed getting rid of homogeneous groupings of students that reinforce social and economic inequalities,standardized tests that promote competition and permanent records used to punish and control students. Proactively, he suggested that industries and professional schools, rather than K-12 schools, develop criteria for selecting students and that schools should focus oncivic education that teaches students their rights as citizens.[13]
Later in his career, Postman moved away from his work inTeaching as a Subversive Activity with the publication ofTeaching as a Conserving Activity. In it, he calls for schools to act as a counter to popular culture dominated by television and highlights the need for literacy education.[14] Postman also argues that teachers must separate themselves from students in dress and speech, offering children an alternative role model. He was concerned with the degradation of the culture caused by technology and saw education as a means of conserving important cultural ideas.
In a 1995 interview onPBS'sMacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, Postman spoke about his opposition to personal computers in schools. He felt that school was a place to learn together as a cohesive group and that it should not be used for individualized learning. Postman also worried that the personal computer would diminish socializing as citizens and human beings.[15]
One of Postman's most influential works isAmusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. In it, he argues that by expressing ideas through visual imagery, television reduces politics, news, history and other serious topics to entertainment.[4] He worried that culture would decline if people became an audience and their public business a "vaudeville act". He also argued that television was destroying the "serious and rational public conversation" sustained for centuries by theprinting press and before that by our oral culture. Rather than the restricted information inGeorge Orwell's1984, he said the flow of distraction we experience is akin toAldous Huxley'sBrave New World.
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| Booknotes interview with Postman onTechnopoly, August 30, 1992,C-SPAN |
In his 1992 bookTechnopoly: the Surrender of Culture to Technology, Postman defines "technopoly" as a society that believes "the primary, if not the only, goal of human labor and thought is efficiency, that technical calculation is in all respects superior to human judgment ... and that the affairs of citizens are best guided and conducted by experts".[16]
In aC-SPAN interview, Postman called technopoly "the tendency in American culture to turn over to technology sovereignty, command, control over all of our social institutions".[17]: 51
Postman argued that the U.S. is the only country to have become a technopoly. He said it has been inundated bytechnophiles who do not see technology's downside. Technophiles want more technology and thus more information. But according to Postman, it is impossible for a technological innovation to have only a one-sided effect. With the amount of information available, Postman writes, "Information has become a form of garbage, not only incapable of answering the most fundamental human questions but barely useful in providing coherent direction to the solution of even mundane problems."[16]: 80
Postman did not oppose all forms of technology. InTechnopoly, he agrees that technological advancements, specifically "the telephone, ocean liners, and especially the reign of hygiene", have lengthened and improved life.[16]: 7 In his words, this shows he is not a "one-eyed technophobe".[16]: 7
InTechnopoly, Postman writes thatLuddism is often associated with naive opposition to technology but that the historical Luddites simply wanted to preserve their rights and way of life before the advancement of new technologies.
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| Presentation by Postman onBuilding a Bridge to the 18th Century, December 1, 1999 |
