In this chapter the concepts that really stood out to me were sterilization and the intelligence testing. These concepts would eventually affect the nature of the evolving educational system especially for those “mongolian groups,” also known as the immigrant populations who were perceived as unintelligent. These populations became those subjected to army influenced intelligence testing used to preserve the purity of the Anglo-Protestant culture. It was believed immigration allowed the entrance of unproductive immigrant populations to America who would eventually create crime and increase violence in the population. The concept of sterilization was important to me as well because I did not realize that the concept of integrated Special Education in contemporary times is still a new concept, according to the book from its initiation it’s only about 41 years old. The discrimination exhibited towards the mentally challenged students was horrible in my opinion. These students and people in general were ostracized by the larger Anglo-Protestant population for fear of the growth of mentally challeged people. The society wanted the school out of politics which in my understanding localized power into the socially elite and those termed more intelligent. The concept of meritocracy and people being trained to believe that their societal status was a result of self worth was the epitome of the negative conditioning the American society imposed on foreigners and even those within their own population who seemed different from the norm. The concept of scientific management to create more “structure” in the schools in my opinion gave the local elite the ability to excercise their corrupted power. The problem in my opinion was that they wanted the schools to be run like a business and the plan was to make everyone conform to the expectations of the “experts” who in actuality had no knowledge of the differences between the education/business environments and how they were in no ways related and needed to be ran differently with different approaches.
What do you think of the concept of sterilization and the discrimination of the mentally challenged within both society and schools/ Do you think the elites were justified in some sense of thinking mental retardation like intelligence could be inherited? What could be some benefits to the concepts of scientific management and meritocracy in contemporary times? Has the concept of the university held true to its original values for creation and is there still a sense of meritocracy exhibited in our current higher educational system?
