Ready to buy? Click the button above and you will be transported to our Z-Store, where you can buy this item using PayPal or your Credit Card, for $ 1.95
At our Z-Store you select your books and ebooks, view your total in the shopping cart, and then pay with PayPal or your Credit Card. When we receive your order we will send you email with your ebook password and instructions how to download your ebook. If you've ordered paperback books or CDs, our email will tell you when you can expect to receive your shipment. For more information about the ordering process, including how to pay by check or money order, please click the button "How To Buy", above.
To read PDF ebooks — and to view and print PDF files — you will need the free Adobe Reader software. Most users already have this software installed on their computers. If you need the latest version of this software, click the link above.
For general questions or technical support, please contact Zorba by email at the address above.
by Bernard Shaw & Bertrand Russell
Ebook in PDF (download)
Price: $ 1.95
"I tell you, theres a wall ten feet thick and ten miles high
between parent and child."
—Bernard Shaw, Misalliance (1910)
Parents and Children, one of Bernard Shaw”s infamous prefaces (to the minor drama Misalliance), is a profoundly passionate argument for the child”s right to be free to develop in her or his own unique way. Shaw explains how and why small-minded pedagogical thinking has been failing us — children, parents, society as a whole, and even the poor educators themselves.
Parts of this 40,000-word essay are screamingly funny, as we would expect from Shaw, whose first play made the King of England laugh so hard that the King broke the chair he was sitting on. Yet woven between the woof of wit and the warp of sarcasm, Shaw has set himself the task of addressing one of the most complex and perennial problems that face the human race.
Also included in this volume is Bertrand Russell”s essay titled Education ( written in 1916), another plea for an educational revolution. Praising the methods of Maria Montessori, the essay pre-envisions ideals that Russell would put into practice when he operated his own school from 1927 to 1935. Russell writes: "If we respect the rights of children we should educate them so as to give them the knowledge and the mental habits required for forming independent opinions." ... Russell states that effective teachers need one quality above all: reverence. Reverence for others, and reverence for the children they teach.
The wall between parents and children — and the desert between teachers and children — still stands as solidly and barrenly as ever before. These two remarkable essays advocate the practice of freedom, sincerity, and kindness — our only hopes for tearing down the walls.
This Zorba Press Enhanced Classics Edition contains an original Preface to these essays by Michael Pastore. Our eBook, in the versatile PDF format (for PCs and Macs and most handheld PDAs), allows readers to print pages, search the entire document instantly, and view and read at different text sizes.
To buy the new ebook, visit our Z-Store by clicking the bright yellow button. Before your morning oatmeal gets cold and dry, your password and the download instructions will be sent to you by email.