Chapter 10 showcased a lot of interesting points. One of them being something that we have spent a lot of time discussing in class and that being the organization of schools. This chapter brought about the idea of organizing a school as a business and an organization, it seems such a sterile concept but the fact of the matter is that schools are a business. Schools need to get kids to pass tests; they need students to do well so that the school doesn’t lose funding or grants. Something is wrong with the fact that we are not focusing schools on the idea of a greater good of learning. Yet when you take something as large as the New York City Public School system is there really a way to make it anything but a business with administrators and principles without making tax payers throw their arms in an uproar about the amount of money that it would take for such a giant change?
A concept that I thought was fascinating was the idea of intelligence testing. The test was used to weed out students and their findings were also used as backings for deciding that some immigrants were not as educated or smart as others. These findings also showed a large amount of anti- eastern European sentiments that were shared by Americans at that time.
The idea of sterilization “The Eugenical Sterilization of the Feebleminded” was very sad to see especially seeing that the guidelines that came for the sterilization was one borrowed from Nazi Germany. It also really paved the way for a lot of the fears and misconceptions that people have about people with mental retardations. It has taken a lot of social advocacy to try and erase those misconceptions but even in today’s day and age we still keep children with mental retardations is separate schools or classrooms giving them lunch in those classrooms and not really integrating them with their peers. There has been a lot of debate on this topic and it is very sad to see how harsh the lives of these people were in the 20th century.
