The idea of fragmentation has transformed the living, convivial pursuit of knowledge into something akin to an industrial assembly line. Schooling in North America is inherently based on this idea, working against the spirit of pedagogy and the very nature of knowledge itself. Fragmentation has lead to practices that are easily recognizable in schools such as surveillance, colonization, leveling, standardization, normalization and even oppression: the logic of fragmentation has lead to the breaking apart of the living disciplines of knowledge entrusted to teachers and students in the classroom.

In this profound and challenging book, David Jardine explores some of the historical and philosophical ancestries of the logic of fragmentation and then lays out how the logic of fragmentation is being interrupted by progressive contemporary thinking about the nature of knowledge and its pursuit. Jardine uses real classroom examples to show how inspiring teachers and students have stepped out from the normal rigidity of the school system to pursue a pedagogy left in peace.