'This book opens new doors to the understanding of the learning process, shedding unexpected light on J. F. Herbart's influence on John Dewey's work. Dr English enables the reader to make new sense of the importance of uncertainty and struggle in the learning process. Revealing unexpected connections between J. F. Herbart and John Dewey's work, she enhances our understanding of transformation, tact, and perfectibility. Engaging with this text releases the reader's understanding of learning. This text holds great relevance for the active classroom.' Maxine Greene, William F. Russell Professor in the Foundations of Education Emerita, Columbia University 'Discontinuity in Learning will deepen scholarly understanding of two significant philosophers on education and clarify important concepts - negativity, transformation, active remembering, pedagogical tact, perfectibility, recognition of the other, and so on - with which parents, teachers, and educational leaders can help the young manage their educational experience. Andrea English writes about Herbart and Dewey with an unusually full command of both German and Anglo-American scholarship. The book presents a different, more authentic Herbart than the old Herbartian simulacra, and it renews the reading of Dewey by putting him in a context in which experience appears riskier and more discontinuous and emergent than it does in a bland progressive optimism. The book will be a valuable addition to scholarship in the philosophy of education.' Robert McClintock, Emeritus Professor in the Historical and Philosophical Foundations of Education, Columbia University 'Andrea English's well-crafted, sophisticated study accomplishes several valuable aims. It elucidates significant similarities between the influential work on education of John Dewey and of the nineteenth-century German educationist J. F. Herbart. In so doing, the book reminds us of the power and originality in the latter's pioneering work. At the same time, the author brings into productive dialogue contemporary theories of learning and teaching in English- and German-speaking philosophy of education. Last but hardly least, English's study contributes in multiple ways to our understanding of why difficulty, disorientation, doubt, and the like - what she calls the 'discontinuities' in learning - are indispensable in any meaningful process of human growth.' David T. Hansen, Columbia University
