Corbett_MJE2004.pdf (7.16 MB)
I dreamed I saw Hilda Neatby last night: So little for the mind after 50 years
journal contribution
posted on 2023-05-18, 10:11 authored by Michael CorbettIt has been nearly fifty years since the publication of "So Little for the Mind," Hilda Neatby's controversial conservative attack on what she understood as "progressive education." This paper argues that Neatby's book remains important reading despite its limitations and its context. Neatby's work represents what I call a "big dream" in educational thought. It is an educational text that is passionately anti-scientific in its structure and argument; it represents a fundamental liberal humanist critique of educational theory and research. Neatby's work is important for the way in which it initiates contemporary conservative educational critique in Canada, but also because it anticipates post-structural arguments about the radical intrusiveness of a focus on the "whole child" in the context of the modern educational apparatus. Finally, I critique some of Neatby's key assumptions and relate these to an autobiographical account of the educational experience of one small-town Nova Scotian family from the 1920s.
History
Publication title
McGill journal of educationVolume
39Pagination
159-181ISSN
0024-9033Department/School
Faculty of EducationPublisher
McGill University, Faculty of EducationPlace of publication
CanadaRights statement
Copyright 2004 McGill Journal of EducationRepository Status
- Open