Solway explains that the current generation of students, raised in a nonhistorical and iconic environment, do not live in time as an emergent, continuous medium in which the complexities of experience are parsed and organized. Their psychological world is largely devoid of syntax - of causal, differential, and temporal relations between events. The result is precisely what we see about us: a cultural world characterized by a vast subpopulation of young (and not so young) people for whom the past is an unsubstantiated rumour and the future an unacknowledged responsibility. Solway claims that contemporary educators have become cultural speculators who disregard a basic truth about how the mind develops: that it needs to be grounded in reality and time. In education, as in almost every other cultural institution, the sense of reality and the dynamic of time have "virtually" disappeared, leading to the deep disconnectedness we experience on every level of "human grammar," from the organization of the community to the organization of the sentence. Lying about the Wolf is not only an exploration of current pedagogical issues but also, and perhaps primarily, a cultural analysis for which the subject of education provides a focus. Solway argues that we cannot hope to solve the educational problem unless we are prepared to deal with the larger cultural predicament.

A dominant theme that pervades this collection is the status of "theory" in the educational system. Solway claims that nothing of genuine and productive import comes out of theories. The manifold problems that bedevil the academy cannot be solved, or even rectified, by the usual onslaught of dogmas, reforms, and pseudo-revolutionary postulates that are produced in the misguided attempt to find the single, perfect, pedagogical system. Instead, we must embark on a stringent re-examination of the principles and assumptions on which our culture itself is predicated as reflected in contemporary practice. To do this, we need to develop an accurate killer heuristic to identify and monitor threats to our vocational well-being and effectiveness. This requires courage, a horror of sentimental credulity, and a willingness to learn from those in the educational trenches: the reference librarian should be questioned about the fate of the book, not the academic dean who has seldom read one; the teacher who has weathered innumerable classes should be heard, not the personnel director who is rarely in the building; the department secretary who is about to lose her job should be heeded while a jaundiced eye is turned on the omnipresent school coordinator. In almost every case, Solway believes those who deal directly with students will tell you the truth about what is happening to education while administrators will shuffle and mislead. The essays here are based on information from the trenches as well as from a significant minority of writers on educational and cultural themes. The Turtle Hypodermic of Sickenpods will be must reading for anyone interested in the fate of students and the education system.