-
Recent Posts
Recent Comments
Meta
Categories
Links
Author Archives: Anna Soboleva
Posts: 19 (archived below)
Comments: 0
Chapter 11
This chapter spoke about the creation of teachers unions and it is very interesting the way it spoke about the lack of power the unions had and how they were not as affective as they seemed it be. This really pertains to the modern day struggle teachers unions all over the United States have. In today’s educational system teachers are faced with the same battles of those 70 years before them and it is very sad to see that not much has changed.
Something else that was very déjà vu was when the book spoke about the youth of the 1920’s coming into the 1930’s this youth is plagued with similarities of the youth of today as well. The 1990’s were a time of economic prosperity and many children had an abundance of spending income because of their parents, when the market went bust in the past few years a lot of parents and their children really had to cut back and this really changed a lot of youth and the youth culture.
What kept striking me while reading the chapter was just how much history keeps repeating it and never really changing. The book spoke about issues with textbooks and trying to alter them to fit a stereotype ideal. Which is very similar to the idea that we looked at during the video in class about the schools in Texas.
Posted in Chapter 11 - Teach Unions..., Uncategorized
Comments Off on Chapter 11
Scientific School Management: Testing, Immigrants and Experts
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.
Posted in Meritocracy, Testing, and Special Education, Uncategorized
Comments Off on Scientific School Management: Testing, Immigrants and Experts
High Schools and Human Capital
This chapter mentioned very interesting things, the idea about the pressure on high schools to serve, as a place for job training is very different from what we consider a high school today. I found it very interesting that there was so much debate about what a high school should be and what the aim of it are.
Today high schools still offer different things and still use the idea presented in the book of a general curriculum such as the one presented by the Cardinal Principles of Secondary Education. Yet there are also vocational schools or in large high schools some students are geared towards a college bound track while others are geared towards a vocation. I wonder if this idea may be overly archaic or if there is a way to change modern day high schools and help prepare students better.
Something that this chapter prompted me to think about AP classes and that not all schools offer them. Should AP classes be offered in a stand-alone school where students from every high school can take the classes if their high school does not offer them? Or is it somehow fair and just that students in schools that are zoned to neighborhoods with a high SES just wind up more prepared for college.
This chapter also focused on was the need for schools to have extra curricular activities yet these are the first things that are cut from schools when there are budget cuts. It seems very strange that something that so many believe is very important for students is being cut.
It struck me as crazy that all the things we believe are just part of a normal school day were actually created to be a training ground for work and that classroom management was part of preparing students to take direction in a factory.
Public school education is something that might need to be changed and really altered for a new day and age. Most students are better at the Internet than their computer teachers and some schools still teach students a typing class. It might be time to change the curriculum as well as general classroom decorum and layout to provide modern day students with a modern day school.
Posted in The Classroom and the Workplace (role of education)
Comments Off on High Schools and Human Capital
Global Migration and the Growth of the Welfare Function of Schools
This was one of the chapters that I really enjoyed reading and found that it included some very interesting facts.
The reasoning behind kindergarten was something that I was never aware of, I was struck to find out that it was created purely for a social reform especially reforms that were supposed to extend beyond children and into the home. I wonder if kindergarten should be the time to teach morals and good habits instead of rushing children into education. Many scientists think that we are teaching children too young and that it would be better if we didn’t push children in education so hard.
This idea of home economics and the American cuisine was something that struck me as rather comical considering that those who were a part of this movement where pushing to feed everyone the same food that could be produced with the help of new technology. The same technology that now has an intense backlash. Most parents sending their children to public school would prefer that the children eat food that was home grown or at least cooked in the cafeteria or at least have meals that were cooked.
I found it very interesting that very basic things that we take for granted like having parks that children can play in attached to elementary schools or school nurses were parts of movements that made schools feel like social agencies.
I think this is also where we can begging to see the school having so much power and being an authoritarian figure instead of just a being a place to gain knowledge.
Posted in Immigration and the Challenge of “School for All”
Comments Off on Global Migration and the Growth of the Welfare Function of Schools
Chapter 7
Part of this chapter spoke about neither people living in the united states that were not white, nor where they what we traditionally believe as colored. The chapter did an excellent job explain how hard it was for people of Mexican American, Chinese American, African American, etc. to assimilate into the United States culture. Most people in the United States held very xenophobic view to foreigners yet employers were drawn to foreigners for their cheap labor.
The book went into great detail describing the different stereotypes that were associated with each nationality and something that I am wondering if some of these stereotypes do still exist. Or have some of them faded away?
Some thing else that I found interesting was the focus given to Asian American and Mexican Americans , in school we are not really taught about how segregation effected these people and that they also had to go to separate schools. I am wondering why this is glossed over in public education today?
One of the last things that I found interesting was this idea that to educate is to make subordinate and to erase previous culture, does education make us better at following? Does education brain wash us into taking directions better and erase our free will?
Posted in Uncategorized
Comments Off on Chapter 7
Chapter 6
This chapter was a very interesting one talking about the inequalities between male teachers and female teachers in the common school system. It really shows how long ago the inequality began and when the field became a female dominated one. I found it really interesting that one of the reasons there was such a want for female teachers was because they were seen as being more moral and motherly.
I wonder if that is why you see more female teachers in younger grades and more male teachers in high school.
The Pestalozzi method was very interesting, and from remembering back about my education I do remember seeing some parts of the method used by some teachers. I wonder if some parts of the method have been adopted and kept up by teachers now days.
I am curious if the idea of “pedagogical harem” still holds true in the majority of schools meaning statistically are there still more female teachers being lead by a male principle or have the times really changed?
Posted in Role and Perception of Teachers, Teacher-student relationship, Teachers and Pedagogy
Comments Off on Chapter 6
Common School and Power, Native American Education
Personally I found this chapter very interesting since the first half of it related to the issues some people in the class had during chapter three’s presentation and Noah Webster’s push for Anglo-Saxon views in the classroom.
While reading about the conflict between the Catholics and the school system I was left wondering what would have happened if the common school would have let way to allowing a fully non-religious school, would we still have parochial schools today? Or would the need to create separate schooling based on religion be something that people would find outdated and feel that religion was something to be done after school?
Something that really struck me in the reading was how easily or through Spring’s interpretation of the facts Boston made way for integrated school systems. Something that I did notice was the conflicting details of Abiel Smith and his funds and the Abiel Smith School in general, since upon further research I learned that the Abiel Smith School was one of the best schools in Boston pre-integration whereas according to the Spring reading I did not get that impression.
The section on Native American education was fascinating since this is something that tends to be sugar coated in American history classes in education at least in mine. I found it very interesting to see how Thomas Jefferson had no problem pushing ideals onto Native Americans but did not want the same for white children (chapter 3). The civilization act while not working out as planned really showed the mentality of the country’s leaders and how even learned men from the North who opposed slavery wanted to impose their own language and culture onto Native Americans. The civilization act’s biggest failure could be seen as the imposition of the “Trail of Tears”.
Some questions that came to mind while reading this chapter was just about how things could have been different if originally schools weren’t segregated, or if there was no religion in school?
Also do we still believe that we are ruled by an Anglo Saxon power or mentality?
Posted in Common School and Power, Native American Education
Comments Off on Common School and Power, Native American Education
Chapter 4
After reading this chapter I realized that Horace Mann left a very sour taste in my mouth. Maybe it was simply my interpretation of him, or the way the book made him seem but he just seemed to be scared, he had this unreasonable fear of people and social disorder. His idea that educating children on what is right and wrong at an early age will keep them from committing crimes and in general become law abiding moral citizens, in a way I can see his point but I also think that placing such pressure and power on the schools can lead to brainwashing children.
The ideology of the common school was very interesting since it dealt with the same issues that are still being dealt with in schools. I can imagine it was even harder at that time to separate church and state since religion played a larger factor in people’s lives.
While reading this chapter a few questions arose in my mind. The first being do you that schools nowadays if they do teach values still do it in a biblical or Judeo-Christian way?
The latter goes off topic a little bit but there was this idea in the chapter about textbooks in the high school and how everything in the high schools was taught only from textbooks to create a general curriculum, do you believe that is something we can implement in the US teaching every grade and school from the same textbook? Would this lead to less inequality both socially and religious or would it lead to public outcry in more conservative states?
Posted in Religion, Values, Separation Church & State
Comments Off on Chapter 4
Additional Links for Multiculturalism, Nationalism and the Role(s) of Education
An example of the blue back speller
http://www.merrycoz.org/books/spelling/pages/amer100.jpg
Another example
http://www.christianbook.com/Christian/Books/product_slideshow/1184689241?sku=94691&actual_sku=94691
http://www.merrycoz.org/books/spelling/SPELLING.HTM
http://books.google.com/books?id=o6MSAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=A+Grammatical+Institute+of+the+English+Language.&source=bl&ots=UweJAY1H-s&sig=8KiSmApatZx29bjmG6Ge_L3LgOI&hl=en&ei=9IdmTfjgB4LcgQeRjvDFDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CDEQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q&f=false
Noah Webster, On the Education of Youth in America
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch18s26.html
Jedidiah Morse’s Geography Made Easy
http://usm.maine.edu/maps/sites/default/files/OsherAdmin/exhibition/exhibition-image/12-5b-5.jpg
Mercy Otis Warren’s History of the Rise, Progress, and Termination of the American Revolution
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/26/History_of_the_Rise%2C_Progress%2C_and_Termination_of_the_American_Revolution.jpg
