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Postman, Media Ecology, and Education: From Teaching as a Subversive Activity through Amusing Ourselves to Death to Technopoly

This review essay traces the evolution of some of Postman's key claims about the media ecology of education from Teaching as a Subversive Activity (1969) through Amusing Ourselves to Death (1985) to Technopoly (1992). In the case of Teaching as a Subversive Activity, authorship of the claims is shared with Weingartner. Each of these books has played a challenging role in shaping my own approaches to teaching (and learning), first as a secondary school teacher and later as a college faculty member. As I see it, the importance of privileging human beings over our technological tools and authentic learning transactions among teachers and students over mediated information transfer is a central theme that Postman continued to explore throughout his life as a thinker, author, and teacher.