ED301B
Theoretical Debates in the History of Education
Who Should Control Education: The Common School Era
Carl Kaestle, chapters 6 and 7 of Pillars of the Republic
Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, chapter 6 of Schooling in Capitalist America
Horace Mann, Twelfth Annual Report, 1848
Petitions of the Catholics of New York for a Portion of the Common School Fund, 1840”
Carl Kaestle and Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis represent two different camps when interpreting the Common School Era. Kaestle sees the expansion of schooling as a way to create citizens and homogenize the American populous. Bowles and Gintis, on the other hand, interpret the expansion of schooling as an imposition on the working class in an attempt to maintain the status quo. What do you think about the claims of these historians? Do you see problems with their analysis? By which secondary source are you persuaded?
As for the primary sources, Horace Mann was instrumental in the creation of the common school system in Massachusetts and, in turn, the expansion of common schools throughout the northeast. Catholics, however, registered loud complaints with the common schools pointing to the fact that the schools were not as “common” as Mann pretended. Mann’s reforms won out, but he/they did not go without major challenges. These same types of debates continue to exist in today’s schools. Who should control education? Should it be centralized or decentralized? What are the consequences of hyper-centralization or local control? What does the mean for the mission of the common school?
ED301B
Theoretical Debates in the History of Education
The Progressive Era I: Pedagogical Progressivism/Democratic Education
John Dewey, Experience and Education
George Counts, Dare Schools Build a New Social Order
The progressive era had several different strands in it. This week we will discuss pedagogical progressivism/the democratic education movement. John Dewey represents one of the most important theorists on these types of reforms. You will be able to glean from the reading how he defines the purpose of education and the role of schools in society. The George Counts reading includes three papers he gave to the Progressive Education Association. Counts says that we look to education to solve all of our problems but that education is not built to perform that duty. He has hope for the progressive education movement, but he critiques it as direction-less, says it does not elaborate on a theory of social welfare, and calls it upper class in its tone and aim. How would you position these two educational thinkers against one another? By whom are you persuaded? Have you seen evidence of the type of pedagogical progressivism advocated by Dewey? What do you think of Counts’ discussion of indoctrination? What kind of society do they envision? How do they justify their particular ideas on the purpose of education? The curriculum? What is the role of school in society? Are their aims admirable? Problematic? What might their critics say?
Next week we will discuss a second strand of the progressive education movement (social efficiency/administrative progressivism). It can be difficult to see how both sets of reformers fit under the progressive label. For both this week and next, the following is to give you an idea of how to make sense of the era as a whole.
More generally, progressive education assumes that:
- The traditional classical curriculum (including languages, high levels of mathematics, science, history) should be replaced with a varied curriculum based on the interests of the student (in other words, pick what is in the best interest of the child or let the child choose his/her own interests)
- Learning should be based on activities rather than rote (learning by doing)
- School aims, content, and processes should reflect social conditions
- Primary aim of schooling is to help solve society’s problems
New educational objectives included:
- Social stability: reformers worried about increasing labor strife and sought to provide an education that will mitigate class strife
- Employable skills: reformers wanted to instill in students specific skills and attitudes appropriate for the workplace
- Equal educational opportunity: reformers believed that all students should have the opportunity to receive the education appropriate to them (this is a different definition than the one we may think about today)
- Meritocracy: schools could contribute to a more democratic society; schools should identify student strengths early on so society can capitalize on them
ED301B
Theoretical Debates in the History of Education
The Progressive Era II: Administrative Progressivism/Social Efficiency
Diane Ravitch, chapters 2 and 3 in Left Back: A Century of Failed School Reform
Jane Addams, “Educational Methods”
Cardinal Principles of Secondary Education, 1918
Report of the Committee of Ten, 1892
The materials you will read for today are closely related to those you read last week. They are meant to be positioned against one another so that you can see the similarities and differences between them. Whereas we focused on pedagogical progressivism last week, today we will focus on a second brand of progressive education: social efficiency. Diane Ravitch’s chapters offer a general description of the progressive era. Parts of the chapters will fill out your understanding of our previous discussion of the progressive era while other sections offer a context in which to put the primary sources you will read for today’s class.
As for the primary sources, most people have heard of Jane Addams and her work with immigrants in settlement houses in Chicago during the late 19th/early 20th century. Included is a piece she wrote in which she pondered the general purpose of education and the proper education of different groups of people. Also included are two reports written by educational professionals. One, the Cardinal Principles of Secondary Education, defended a traditional curriculum against the onslaught of “practical” courses that found their way into high schools across the country. The Report of the Committee of 10 took up the same issue but came up with a very different set of answers to the problems of education in high schools. Both reports reveal the authors’ beliefs in the purpose of education in a democracy. Be sure to read them as a set. How did this brand of progressive educators understand their reforms as “democratic?” What was the purpose of schooling as they saw it? How might this type of education work in the classroom or in a school building? What is their notion of the “good society?” Which types of progressive reforms (pedagogical progressivism or administrative progressivism) had the most lasting impact? Why?
As you do the reading, remember these key points from last week…
More generally, progressive education assumes that:
- The traditional classical curriculum (including languages, high levels of mathematics, science, history) should be replaced with a varied curriculum based on the interests of the student (in other words, pick what is in the best interest of the child or let the child choose his/her own interests)
- Learning should be based on activities rather than rote (learning by doing)
- School aims, content, and processes should reflect social conditions
- Primary aim of schooling is to help solve society’s problems
New educational objectives included:
- Social stability: reformers worried about increasing labor strife and sought to provide an education that will mitigate class strife
- Employable skills: reformers wanted to instill in students specific skills and attitudes appropriate for the workplace
- Equal educational opportunity: reformers believed that all students should have the opportunity to receive the education appropriate to them (this is a different definition than the one we may think about today)
- Meritocracy: schools could contribute to a more democratic society; schools should identify student strengths early on so society can capitalize on them
ED301B
Theoretical Debates in the History of Education
Language issues: Does an American have to speak English?
Various readings from Language Loyalties
St. Louis Schools report on the worth of German language instruction
Mary Antin, Reflections on Public Schooling
Nirej Sekhon, “A Birthright Rearticulated: The Politics of Bilingual Education”
This week’s readings are from a variety of time periods and include primary and secondary sources. Read them as a chronology of different eras and ideas on what language means to the American identity. You will move from the Revolutionary Era (Brice Heath and Webster), to the 1830s (German language instruction), to the 1880s (Antin, Atkins and Spanish language rights), to the early 20th century (Roosevelt), to the English Only and bilingual education debate in the 1990s (Hayakawa and Sekhon). You will be reading about attitudes toward different language communities by English speakers, how different language communities justified bilingual instruction, and different ideas on the worth of an official language. Read the pieces with an eye toward constancy and change.
Keep these issues in mind as well:
How has the justification for/against bilingual education changed/stayed the same?
How does immigrant status (or country of origin) influence bilingual policy?
Reflect on the purpose of education as we’ve defined it-how does bilingual education fit?
What are the author’s saying about language and American identity?
ED301B
Theoretical Debates in the History of Education
Religion and Education
Zimmerman, chapters 6 and 7 in Whose America: Culture Wars in the Public Schools
McCollum V. Board of Education, 1948
Zorach v. Clauson, 1952
This week’s readings examine the debate over the role of religion in public schooling.
Jonathan Zimmerman’s chapters examine the place of the Bible, religious celebrations, and prayer in public schools during the middle twentieth century. He examines the debate through the lens of different communities and different parts of the country. As issues shifted, so too did alliances. Zimmerman asks a provocative question: when should majority rule? Think about this as you do the reading and ask yourself, does your answer to this question depend on the construction or make-up of the majority? What does that mean for religion and education?
Both the primary sources are Supreme Court cases that take up the issues of religious meetings on school property and release time for religious instruction. The justices grapple with the role of the public school in a democracy and in the moral growth of pupils. What do you think? Is release time OK? How should we understand the division between church and state? Why might different groups have felt differently about the place of religion in schools? Should parental control/input dictate the role/place of religion in public schools (think of it as a centralization vs. decentralization issue)?
How do arguments in favor of separate religious schools compare with arguments for other types of separate schools? How did the issue of religion in schools reveal different immigrant attitudes toward assimilation or Americanization?
ED301B
Theoretical Debates in the History of Education
Education for Liberation
Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed
Mary Rothschild, “To See the Links: The Volunteers and the Freedom Schools”
This week’s readings fall easily under the title of education for liberation. Obviously, education for liberation can take a variety of forms. Paulo Freire and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee offer particular perspectives on what it should look like.
Freire (1921-1997) lived in Brazil and worked in adult literacy in rural areas. In 1946, he began working with a social service agency responsible for educational programs for rural poor and industrial workers. In 1954, he resigned his position and began teaching history and philosophy of education at the University of Recife (where he got his doctorate). He later began working with the Movement for Popular Culture, an adult education program financed by the government, and supported the active exercise of democracy. In 1962, he became the head of the cultural extension service established for popular education in the region of Recife, and the following year he became the head of the National Literacy Program of the Brazilian Ministry of Education and Culture. In June 1964, a military coup toppled the Brazilian government. Freire was imprisoned for 70 days as a traitor and then forced into exile. In 1979, after fifteen years of exile, Freire was allowed to return to Brazil and did so in 1980. He joined the Workers’ Party in São Paulo and, from 1980 to 1986, supervised its adult literacy project.
In February 1960, four students from North Carolina A&T conducted a sit-in at a Woolworth’s lunch counter. Students from other historically Black colleges and universities followed their example and the “sit-in movement” spread across the Southern states. In April 1960, students sponsored a conference to help organize the sit-ins, and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) was born. SNCC became an autonomous organization with a racially mixed group of participants working toward the desegregation of public facilities. When facilities began to acquiesce, SNCC changed its focus to voter registration efforts in the South and Mississippi in particular. Summer 1964 became known as Freedom Summer because SNCC spearheaded a campaign to bring college students from all over the nation to Mississippi for voter registration and to staff freedom schools (an organization called COFO-Coalition of Federated Organizations-also participated; it was made up of volunteers from SNCC and the Congress of Racial Equality, and other interested individuals). The freedom schools were supplement summer schools in which SNCC tried to scaffold Black youth with the tools necessary to critique and change society.
The readings are paired since they marry theory and practice. Freire’s book offers a critique of traditional educational practices and offers a description of what a liberatory education may look like. The SNCC reading examines how one group sought to provide a liberatory education for a particular population and the obstacles they encountered along the way. Remember, SNCC was not instituting a Freirian educational prescription. Their schools developed out of an organic understanding of how best to educate students and an analysis of what the students needed to become full participants in American society. Read the pieces as a set, but be careful about using one to measure the success of the other.
One point to keep in mind: Freire worked within the system (he worked for the government) while SNCC worked outside the system (in supplemental summer schools). What does this mean for the possibilities of education for liberation (assuming that Freirian/SNCC ideas on education are liberatory)?
ED301B
Theoretical Debates in the History of Education
Who Should Control Education Revisited: the 1960s and 1970s
Daniel Perlstein, Justice, Justice
We have discussed the debate over control of education since our readings on the Common School Era. The issue of centralization and decentralization continues to plague educational reformers and community members alike. This week we will use the teacher’s strike in Ocean Hill-Brownsville (New York) to investigate tensions surrounding control of teacher hiring/firings, pedagogy, and curriculum.
Think back to other arguments in favor of centralization/decentralization (in particular, think about Horace Mann and Catholics). Are the 1960s arguments more or less provocative or convincing? Who is more qualified to make decisions about what happens in schools: educational professionals or parents? How has the debate changed over time? Where would you place yourself on the continuum between centralization and decentralization? Why?
ED301B
Theoretical Debates in the History of Education
Contemporary Debates over the Curriculum in a Multicultural Society
Sleeter, “The Curriculum is Multicultural, Isn’t it?”
Schlesinger, “E Pluribus Unum?”
Giroux, “Teachers, Public Life, and Curriculum Reform”
On the heels of the Black Power Movement in higher education, primary and secondary schools also began to change. Implementation of educational reform necessarily looked different in these schools since their mission remained different from the mission of higher education. But, educational reformers began to look at the curriculum, teacher pedagogy, and the purpose of education more closely. Multicultural education (and Afrocentric education) efforts grew out of these concerns and encountered intense resistance.
These readings include work by some of the most important people on the subject. Christine Sleeter is considered one of the foremost authorities on multicultural education. Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. is a reputable historian who would most likely label himself as liberal though he heavily critiques multicultural education (and Afrocentric education). Henry Giroux has written extensively on the role of the school in society and the position of the curriculum and the teacher in the educative process.
Think about these questions as you do the readings:
What is the purpose of education? What does this mean for the curriculum? For the role of the teacher? What is equal educational opportunity?