Author Archives: klaudiag

This chapter emphasized the fact that education is being treated more like a marketplace and business rather than an entity that is in charge of our childrens’ lives and in that, our future. The government is focusing more on what makes ‘profit’ rather than what is most beneficial to our children. The thing that grabbed my attention most was that the chapter mentioned that teachers are basically being trained to prepare students for tests instead of actually teaching relevant, interesting material. In my opinion, this lacks a degree of creativity. Because of this, children are taught at an early age to take thing for what they are. This discourages them to argue and actually use their brains. With this early submission to conformity, what is our future going to look like? I can’t even imagine what our society will be like being run by like-minded robots (not much different than it’s being run today, I guess…)

Another thing that stood out to me was when students in NJ and NM received great scores on the standardized tests. Instead of being congratulated and celebrated, the tests were made to be more difficult. Doesn’t this defeat the purpose of it all? The students and our education system as a whole are basically destined for failure.

I think that using films as a means of getting points across in an academic setting is great to an extent. I had a teacher in high school who totally abused this. It was a history class and he just played totally irrelevant films every single class for us. Then he’d give us exams on the material we were supposed to know. Needless to say, he got fired after about 3 years because pretty much everyone failed. Also, nowadays, they start children on these educational programs very early. Children as young as a few months are being exposed to Baby Einstein videos and other shows that are supposed to higher their IQs. They say that it has no detrimental affect on the baby but I’m sure watching TV at that age has some negative affect on their eyes and brains. So when it comes to showing educational programs to children, how much is too much? Also, how do we know that the child is actually learning something? These programs are being created by adults so you can’t just assume that they’re effective.

I think it’d be interesting to see the Payne studies done again in our day and age. If it was found that movies had a detrimental affect on sleeping patterns, I’m curious to see how video games, cell phones, etc. affect children. For example, there are times when I’m laying in bed, about to sleep and I have the light on, TV on, my computer on my lap and I’m texting all at the same time. I’m sure all of these different stimulants right before going to sleep have a negative affect on my sleeping pattern as well as my brain.

The chapter doesn’t really specify what kind of movies these kids were seeing. If the movies were violent and sexual then it makes sense that they had a negative affect on their minds. I do agree that there should be a certain degree of censorship but sometimes this is taken to unnecessary levels. You can’t shelter these kids’ minds forever because once they go out on their own and are exposed to everything they’ve been protected from, they’ll lose their minds. How much censorship is too much and how does protecting children from sex and violence in media affect them in their adult lives?

This chapter goes back to how the education system can benefit the industry. By brainwashing children into thinking that a white-aproned wife looking at her clean-shaven, suit-clad husband who’s tossing his blond-haired daughter in the air is the “American way”, where do the minorities fit in? Are they not worthy of also living the American Dream? The book also says that it was argued that propaganda in school is fairly harmless because of the freedom to debate these ideas. However, children are like sponges and they will believe anything an adult tells them. They don’t really learn to question everything that they are told until they are older so how is this fair or safe to them? Aren’t most of them, being exposed to the “American way” advertisements pretty much doomed with lives of disappointment?

I also think that by criticizing Rugg’s textbooks as “un-American” and trying to ban them from the classroom, Americans were being hypocritical. Why is it okay to basically lie to everyone and teach them that certain things should be done the American/right way and if you want, you’re free to debate it but these books aren’t righteous and are evil. Technically, if you expect a child to argue with the pro-American propaganda, can’t you also say that they can debate Rugg’s textbooks and entrust in them the responsibility to make their own judgments?

More information on 1924 Immigration Act

Social Origins of Eugenics

Lernfreiheit and Lehrfreiheit

I thought it was interesting how all the extracurricular activities came to be. In the book it says that “what we wish the state should be the school must be.” Extracurricular activities were brought about as a sense of unity and to provide the students with leisure and socialization. It’s funny that now, extracurricular/after-school activities are the first ones to be cut. In high school, I played softball and our team was the best in our division and we took it all the way to the playoffs. However, after I graduated in 2006, our funds got cut and our team dwindled. Even when  I was on the team, my coach paid out of pocket to take us on trips to the batting cages and the team members did bake sales and also paid for their uniforms themselves. If this is how the school is, what does this say about our state?

This chapter also brings up equal opportunity. Nowadays, we see the term used in everything we need to apply for: schools, jobs, even credit cards. However, are opportunities ever really equal? No matter what, someone out there is going to be either better or worse than you, resulting in everyone having different chances of being hired or picked. Why is this term still used today if we know it’s nonexistent?

I kind of found the story of “A Lily’s Mission” disturbing. The story is about two slum children who bring flower from school to their dingy apartment.. “The mother has failed to keep the house clean; the father is out drinking. Overjoyed at seeing the flower, the mother places it on a windowsill, only to discover that dirt prevents any sunlight from shining through the window to the flower. With the window clean, the sunlight reveals the filth of the apartment, which is then quickly cleaned. The mother washes and dresses, and the father, overcome by his new environment upon his return home, vows to give up the bottle.” Being of Central/Eastern European decent, this story offends me. It basically says that the normal European immigrant family is dirty, uneducated, lazy and drunk and they need to be “blessed” (a lily in the Bible is a symbol for purity but I don’t know if it’s used in the same context in this story) by Americans and saved from their filth. Was anyone else offended by this?

In one of the sections of this chapter it is mentioned that immigrants were forced to Americanize their names and go by names that were easier to pronounce. This reminded me of something that happened in the 4th grade. One of my close friends at the time, Zbigniew (a common Polish name), was called for attendance. Our teacher didn’t know how to pronounce it so she nicknamed him “Ziggy”. He went by the weekend all the way through college and actually from the 4th grade on, resented his name. It was almost like he was embarrassed by his name and culture. I also remember that during elementary school, a lot of the students were Hispanic and often spoke Spanish amongst each other. At some point during lunchtime, a teacher walked by their table and overheard them speaking Spanish and scolded them for speaking Spanish in America. It’s things like this, especially at a young age, that teaches children that being different or foreign is not okay. It’s also sad that this section of the book reflects back to the early 20th century and when I was in school it was the 90’s yet the same ideals were present. However, how do you teach a children how to assimilate to American culture without having them totally dismiss their foreign identities?

I like the fact that this chapter exposed the struggles of the different ethnicities throughout history. I feel like a lot of emphasis is placed on the struggles of African and Native Americans in academic settings but the struggles of Mexican and Asian Americans are overseen.  I also think it’s interesting that by sending immigrant children to school they’re trying to “Americanize” them yet even if they are “Americanized”, they still wouldn’t be accepted into the ‘white’ inner circle. Even if they deculturize them, they’d just be categorized as foreigners who are trying to mimic American culture. Did they do this because they were threatened by foreign culture and they felt that if they assimilated them, they’d be easier to control/manipulate?

I also respected the fact that African Americans revolted and started their own education system. But, did the other immigrants also have some sort of secret schools that the white population didn’t know about like the African American community did? I’m sure that some of them were teachers or held academic positions in their home countries, so did they continue teaching in their communities when they got to America?

I always knew that teacher’ were more of a woman’s career but never really thought about why. It’s unfortunate that the reason that it’s such a low-paying job is deep-rooted in history. I also think it’s interesting that teachers play such a large role in developing and raising children. They’re supposed to play the role of the mother, counselor and even in a sense, minister. However, if a teacher is supposed to be nurturing and mother-like, where do we draw the line? Can a teacher be TOO motherly? For example, I remember in the 3rd grade, one of my classmates called our teacher “mom”. How big of an issue is this?

McGuffey’s Readers were the most popular collections of literatures sold at the time. What I found interesting were the stories of “The Rich Boy” and “The Poor Boy”. One of the main points of the creation of common schools was to create a sense of unity between the classes yet the students were taught how a proper rich and poor boy are to act. They were taught that God made them that way and that the rich boy should be charitable and the poor boy should not be jealous. Doesn’t that still teach children that their social status is immobile and that they should just accept life the way it is?