Monthly Archives: March 2011

This chapter explains the relationship between the nation and the development of the common school system that educating all citizens is the way of common allegiance to the nation and unified them to create a common culture and language, even though, the United States is multicultural society and also the education helps to keep political stability and economic growth. Two American educational leaders explained the different method of political education; Noah Webster emphasized the political value through his method of teaching to create a dominant national culture with the form of patriotism through some activities such as studying national literature and language, honoring the flag and singing nationalistic songs, etc. Otherwise, Thomas Jefferson believed the method of education should provide with the tool of reading and writing and that political value formed through the exercise of reason, therefore, the most important means of political education was the reading of history and newspapers.

In my opinion, I agree the method of Jefferson on education because through the history, we obtain the knowledge of ancestors base on the fact of their lives and experiences, therefore, we can freely analyze the reason what was wrong and right in similar situation to escape same mistakes, otherwise, we can apply and improve the knowledge for the political stability and economic development. Also the history teaches the national value and the importance of all citizens’ unity to become a strong nation and reading newspapers is the way to get the new and large information to follow more rapidly than others. However, I did not completely disagree of Webster’s idea because his legacy such as a standardized American dictionary of the English proved that his effort to standardize the English as the American language helps to find the identity as American citizens to make common and unity. Is the method of Jefferson or Webster completely different application from our modern education in U.S.? Which method should we take more importance for the development of our education system?

Chapter 6 emphasizes the domination of women in the area of professional teaching and the revolution of teaching methods. This chapter mentioned that there is a relationship between the domestic role of women and their role in the public sphere. As women are born with more ability and responsibility to raise and educate their children than men so they worked the major part of time to shape the character of their son as future republicans. So by the nineteenth century, women were favored to hire in the area of education because of their natural child-rearing talents, they were proper to teach the pupils better than men. Therefore, the demand of women for educational teaching increased and the teacher education centered on the education of women. However, women received very low salaries than men, even though, men were not well qualified to teach because of their short experience of teaching that a lot of men tried to find other area of job because of the higher salaries compared being teachers. My question is that does it still exist this kind of discrimination between men and women any area of American education?

 This chapter also mentioned about the ideal characteristic of teachers for the common school by the nineteenth century such as high qualification and aptitude for teaching, morality and social conformity because the students learn from the behavior of teachers so it was important to require these qualifications.

This chapter also discusses the development of teaching methods during the nineteenth century. The early method of teaching was memorization and punished failures in assignments but later, Pestalozzi’s concept of maternal instruction in the home became very popular in common school. By the late twentieth century, the bureaucratic organization of the typical American school system was required the disciplinary for the students values for functioning in an industrial society. Which method do we have to apply for the proper education to the students? Or is there any other alternative for the better education in multicultural society as U.S.?   

I want to emphasize that we should take consideration also the major importance of schooling system should be formed base on the concepts of maternal love and the morality between the teachers and the students like nineteenth century and not merely focus the class teaching. Because the lock of communication, lock of affection and lock of respect between them, decreases the quality of education and increase more violence and the students’ roving lives. Therefore, the teachers should manage the students as the role of motherhood with love and more attention to listen and to give proper advices for the students’ problems, interest and the activity through the communication. Moreover, development of society, women participate more the social activity than take caring their children so the children live less attention from their parents thus the role of schools is very important for the students’ future. On the other hand, the students must behave with more respect to the teachers that the teachers are not same level to disobey their instruction. Adding more my opinion, the schooling system should be also focus to find out the student’s talent to explore their capacity so the students can find easier their career in the future.

This chapter explains the relationship between the nation and the development of the common school system that educating all citizens is the way of common allegiance to the nation and unified them to create a common culture and language, even though, the United States is multicultural society and also the education helps to keep political stability and economic growth. Two American educational leaders explained the different method of political education; Noah Webster emphasized the political value through his method of teaching to create a dominant national culture with the form of patriotism through some activities such as studying national literature and language, honoring the flag and singing nationalistic songs, etc. Otherwise, Thomas Jefferson believed the method of education should provide with the tool of reading and writing and that political value formed through the exercise of reason, therefore, the most important means of political education was the reading of history and newspapers.

In my opinion, I agree the method of Jefferson on education because through the history, we obtain the knowledge of ancestors base on the fact of their lives and experiences, therefore, we can freely analyze the reason what was wrong and right in similar situation to escape same mistakes, otherwise, we can apply and improve the knowledge for the political stability and economic development. Also the history teaches the national value and the importance of all citizens’ unity to become a strong nation and reading newspapers is the way to get the new and large information to follow more rapidly than others. However, I did not completely disagree of Webster’s idea because his legacy such as a standardized American dictionary of the English proved that his effort to standardize the English as the American language helps to find the identity as American citizens to make common and unity. Is the method of Jefferson or Webster completely different application from our modern education in U.S.? Which method should we take more importance for the development of our education system?