This chapter gives a good foundation on how common schools were developed. After reading this chapter i think of how far we’ve come from a society full of discrimination. Majority of the time when we think of discrimination we think of African Americans with regards to slavery and the segregation in the school system. Reading this chapter, it was interesting to see how Protestant Anglo-Saxons viewed the Irish. They feared that the “drunken Irish” might destroy the American Dream. I had no previous knowledge on this hostility between Catholics and Protestants. This hostility shows the irony of the name of the common school because it wasn’t really common to all children as Protestant religious values were dominated.
Another aspect of this chapter i can relate to is the opening of catholic schools. I was actually in public school until i entered into high school where it was a catholic school. To read and learn how catholic schools emerged is intriguing because it was developed due to the struggle between Irish and Anglo-Saxon cultures.
The first question i would like to ask is, Are Anglo-Saxon cultures still evident or somewhat dominated in American school systems today ? Secondly, without the conflict between Anglo-Saxon and Catholics, do you think Catholic Schools today would have emerged the way they did ?
