He recognises the importance of both the traditionalist emphasis on the communication of important subject matter, and the progressivist emphasis on the unfoldment of the student’s already innate potential as being fundamental to that process.

Most people take so for granted the institutions they are born amongst that they find it almost impossible to reflect on them in any serious way. The book begins by trying to show that our schools are dysfunctional because they try to perform three incompatible tasks at the same timeâ€â€1. socializing children to the norms, conventions and values of their society; 2. shaping their minds to perceive the truth about the world, by engaging them in the academic enterprise that makes them skeptical of the norms, conventions, and values of their and other societies; 3. aiming to ensure the development of each child’s individual potential as far as possible. Having three distinct aims that constantly undermine each other makes for an institution that is ineffective at doing any of them.