After Michael Harrington's revelation that the poor had expeditiously increased in the 1950's, Lyndon B. Johnson took it upon himself to create a "war on poverty" and complete Kennedy's legacy. His following actions - he would term himself as the Great Society - would be a resurgence in economic and educational prowess. LBJ could kill multiple birds with one stone for his Great Society. He could fight back against the oppression of poverty, bridge the educational gap between minorities and social classes, and improve the economy all at once. (Frazer 308). As a poor farmer and teacher once in his life, LBJ directly understood poverty and how to fight it; and as president, he had the powers to fight it. A few reasons LBJ wanted to press for school reform were because classroom and college size would keep increasing, unemployment would continue to rise from dropouts, and he envisioned helping a disadvantaged youth.
I would support LBJ and his plan around 80%. I would support his acts signed in 64` and 65` because those undoubtedly advanced school referendum and brought needed change to American society. Those signed acts brought VISTA, the Job Corps, Head Start, and funding from ESEA into reality (Urban 296). All these programs benefitted various school programs and battled against poverty for inner city kids until their eventual demises. Urban communities discontinued the Job Corps and VISTA locations in their area, and LBJ chose funding for Vietnam war efforts over ESEA. It's a shame that his Great Society failed this way, and by the Nixonite and Reagan eras the War on Poverty was over. The 20% I disagree with is I would have sent more money to rural school districts. I first hand came from a rural school district that had a lack of funding. These problems still continue today and I feel like rural peoples like myself are forgotten sometimes.
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During the early 1950's, the NAACP used their political power to file lawsuits in four different states. Their goal was the end of segregation which was keeping black children from white public schools. Eventually, the lawsuits reached the Supreme Court and were titled under the court case Brown v. Board of Education. Before the court case reached its decision, Chief Justice Fred M. was killed from a heart attack and replaced by new Chief Justice Ed Warren. Chief Justice Warren led the other justices in voting unanimously on the landmark court case. The Supreme Court ruled that "Separate but equal" was unconstitutional because the segregated schools themselves were unequal. Despite the progression of education, there was heavy resistance among the South. The Court realized it would ultimately depend upon the "compliance of whites to comply" as they had no guarantee to enforce the new rulings at a local level (Urban 270).
The Supreme Court unanimously voted to end segregation for a few reasons. The justices saw the most important function of state and local governments to educate citizens. The justices cited the importance education holds in awakening cultural values and in developing children for professional training. The black schools would continue to lack proper academic resources to assist successful life training which the justices identified as unequal treatment. (Frazer 279) The Supreme Court also realized the psychological effect the segregation was holding on black children. To accept laws that enforced the placing of colored peoples in segregated schools based solely on the blackness of their skin denoted the inferiority of them as a race. To uphold a the past Plessy v Ferguson court case would keep in place this sense of inferiority. Inferiority of any kind is unequal. In 1957, The Soviet Union launched the Sputnik satellite which drove a drastic fear into Americans. For the first time in the Cold War, the nation realized it had lost technological and scientific advancements of the Soviet Union, and the realization caused fear of nuclear annihilation (Urban 260.) During this time, new thinkers developed ways upon how to motivate students for better results in the classroom - as education was now being seen as the way to win the space race. One thinker, however, did not believe reforming schools would not solve the nation's learning problem. This man was John Holt. Holt believed that the regular school curriculum should be ditched instead for a type of learning that peaked the curiosity and interests of the child. He beleived students would not retain knowledge if it was not interesting to them. Basically, he pushed for a more individualistic style for learning.
Holt first believed schools were a nervous place. He believed homeschooling or alternative schooling would be more likely to teach succesful students (Frazer 264.) While I do agree school can be a nerve-racking setting, I do believe alternative schooling is weaker to normal schooling. Fear of school may disrupt some studies, yet the curriculum at normal school will be relevant to most future learning. Learning about something individualisticly at home may not actually have a real world application, and alternative schooling lacks the real socialztion of public schools. Will homeschool children be able to carry themselves in a conversation once in the real world? Holt then goes on to state that schools should teach students what they want to be taught. I agree with this statement whole heartedly. Teaching students what they want will help them succeed, yet make sure classes are actually relevant to real world applications and learning. Margaret Haley, Ella Flagg Young, Grace Strachan, and Cora Bigelow were four of the most well known progressive female educators of the first 19th century. All of these women disliked the treatment of school teachers and believed there was ultimately a better way to win the school system. Each teacher had a different means to an end to accomplish her goals, but they all greatly benefited the working teachers. Some viewpoints shared by the different teachers were that the minimum wage for teachers should be raised, female teachers should ideally be treated the same as male teachers, and that teachers shouldn't have to work in an overcrowded classroom where teaching was more so hindered. However some of these educators would disagree with each other.
I believe if these women were to sit down, you would see some contrasting opinions. I believe that Ella Flagg Young and Cora Bigelow would not see eye to eye whenever it came down to the organization of teacher structure. Young believed teachers would work better in a small environment and that teachers should more so follow the curriculum (Urban 202.) However, Bigelow, who was the leader of a powerful union, believed teachers should help determine the curriculum and the teachers themselves have more power (Frazier 218.) Haley and Strachan would undoubtedly agree with each other on most topics. The most important issue they would agree on would be that female teachers should be paid the same as their male counterparts. Mary Antin has a very personal story which stands out to me in the Frazer book. Her story happens to be one of success and not much turmoil. Mary excelled and learned much in the classroom thanks to her teachers. Her teachers are the best example of someone in a schooling environment who helped immigrant children attempt to succeed. They did not demoralize their immigrant students and some like Miss Nixon in this story took the extra time to organize and help the immigrant children in groups. To help Mary Ann and the other Jewish students succeed I would follow the same patterns as Miss Nixon and the other teachers she had. Evidently from this source, they greatly impacted her life in a positive light, and she has much appreciation for them.
The first step to helping these students succeed is to have patience and recognize their needs. Miss Dillingham assisted Mary Antin until she successfully could pronounce "water" and "village" separately (Frazer 178). Beyond being patient, I would find comparable ways to relate the classroom lessons back to Jewish culture or at least make their culture reliable to the lessons somehow. However, admittingly for the teachers, Americanization would be much easier. Americanization was the process of socializing immigrants into American culture in the belief America was vastly superior to their past culture (Urban 177). Of course, teaching today the Jewish children would be able to pray however they want in school. However, then [the past] I would likely join the bandwagon into laying out American education on them which heavily included Christian principles. Perhaps doing so would be the best way to quickly adapt them to what America was back then. John Dewey was one of the greatest American educators during the early 1900's. He believed in the power of creative learning and wanted studetns to apply their education to any standard of life. This rationalization of "real world" education is what made him ahead of any educator in his time. Dewey specifically wanted to see a classroom that educated students about freedom to choose vocation - so he aggresively stood out against the ideas that schools should prepare students for industry specific jobs. According to Dewey, his necessary vision of an education was one, "whose chief purpose is to develop initiative and personal resources of intelligence (Frazer 148)". Dewey clearly believes a larger democratic society would be successful with the freedom of choice driving labor. The society would be ran off "real world applications" and "intelligence in all areas" instead of one industrial job experiences.
David Snedden was another highly regarded educator in the same day as Dewey. Unlike Dewey however, he favored the idea that schools should be driven to prepare students toward a specific industry. Snedden with his progressive views objected the more free-driven thoughts have Dewey and his "New Republic" views. To Dewey, it was clear industry controlling the school system would lead to the most prepared and skilled workers for vocational fields. If professions such as lawyers and engineers were going to be pursued than why not lawyers and engineers be the teachers? Snedden pictured experience as the best preparation for a job. Snedden and his views won the day as the WWI era saw boys put into vocational schools for particular efforts. However, eventually the emplacements sought by Snedden and the industrial advocates became a symbolism for social inequality. The vocational track became a dumping ground for lower class immigrant boys (Urban 187). Frederick Douglass was one of the most important historical figures during the Reconstruction Era. Originally a slave, Douglass became a freed man and one of the strongest abolitionists among black men at the time. To understand Douglass's championing of education, he will have to understand his backstory and the predicament he was in. Douglass was originally taught by his slave master's wife, but whenever the master found out about this he demanded his wife to stop (Frazer 97). Douglass, however, thirsty for knowledge; kept finding ways to read and write. Douglass learned how to further read by making friends with poor white boys. These boys very may have given him books or newspapers after befriending or doing them favors. Douglass learned to write from learning four letters in a the Durgin shipyard for crafting boats. From there Douglass would challenge his white boys to "who knew the most letters." This way he learned more letters in time. Eventually he read from a book known as the Columbian Orator changed his view entirely.
Upon reading the Columbian Orator, Douglass learned of the troubled past of black slaves and how they originated from Africa. Douglass later blamed himself for reading this as he grew angered by what he had read. He blamed the white men for robbing his black ancestors from a peaceful heritage into captivity. After all this and while still enslaved, he would have hold a secret night school to teach fellow slaves how to read and write (Urban 121). Douglass saw a multitude of reasons why literacy was important to the slave culture. He primarily say education as a way to fight back against his white oppressors. Slave masters had long feared slaves with knowledge, and it's not hard to see why. If a slave was educated he would have more likely found his way to freedom or fought back against the slave master. Douglass believed education was the primal way to find a way to freedom and best preserve the black slaves. Another side reason why he valued literacy was cultural transmission. With this cultural learning it would be much easier to integrate into white society in the future. Both these ideas hold true today. Consider immigrants - they are taught English and take necessary classes to prepare themselves for life in America. This is the most basic form of cultural transmission and really a class like ETE 115 is a way of cultural learning by learning about these past events. The other idea that education will lead to freedom and defeat tyranny still holds true today. There are many historical examples leading up to today, and this truth will never change. The end goal of Catherine Beecher's Board of National Public Education and Calvin Stowe were to advance a society in the newly forming American Midwest that would advocate a school reform like the Eastern United States had been seeing. Stowe and Beecher had different visions for how they wanted to accomplish schooling, but they shared a common interest in further developing the school kids in order, propriety, and education. Beecher and the Board of Public National Public Education encouraged to send women westward to teach in the developing midwestern schools. Although against social standards, there were a lack of teachers, and the women would be those chosen to reap the benefits. The women would gain an occupation and individaul freedom to move west while the school kids were taught by teachers with "motherly instincts." This is still similar in modern schooling in the way that many teachers in the classroom are women.
On the other hand, Calvin Stowe was a Whig from Ohio (Urban 90.) After traveling to Prussia to study their schooling systems, he desired to work a similar schooling system into Ohio. The Prussian schools he visited were very border-like in manner. The students were taught a multitude of subjects and focused on areas that taught order, discipline, and religion. At these schools housing expenses were cut by nearly one-third and materials were not as hardly wasted compared to the standard American household. Stowe visited a school for common kids and another school particularly for poor children. The settings resembled those of a religious, private college. What Stowe liked the most was the religious teachings, great faculty, and exercises for opportunity. However, what truly stood out to Stowe and what he would like to have seen in Ohio society was the element of removed sectarian bigotry (Frazer 83.) Although his goal did not pass, he still was a powerful force in Ohio. The Prussian school system I would say is somewhat relateble to the private schools in America. There is the focus on religion and develpoing the characters of the students. Horace Mann was an early school reformer in Massachusetts who strived to better the common school system. He wished to see the common school grow toward working for the wealthy, common folk, nonsectarian peoples, and object teaching. Mann was a Protestant Republican who held very nonsectarian moral views. He believed that teaching Christian values should not be completely secular, and he thought that the assimilation of groups with different moral creeds and values into the common school system should not be enforced to a narrow, dogmatic Protestant view (Urban 93). This made him very unpopular with the Catholic minority in Massachusetts. However, their lack of organization and reperesentation resulted in little voicing for them. Furthermore, Mann stood out from his belief in object teaching to connect the leaner to the teacher. He was inspired by Heinrich Pestalozzi.
In his twelfth annual report, Mann contemplated how education was the ultimate protector of society and was the way of defeating the slavery, greed, violence, and hate that was invading America (Frazer 46). Mann believed the common school was the best way for the common folk and working class to find a balance of skill for success in life. Going to the common school would avoid class divisions like Europe. He called this a "balance wheel." As of the wealthy, Mann argued they would want intelligent employers who knew their jobs. He stressed if they did not support education then the economy would be overrun by idiots. Lastly, Mann supported the idea of taxation in which the entire commonwealth had a duty to support the growth of education. After reading the sources from Webster, Rush, and Jefferson; I would have to call the women's education opportunities severely lacking. Main schooling opportunities were first given to white males since they were property owners and functioning citizens. Everyone else was of less consideration including the women. There was talk of passing bills to educate the women but nothing was taken seriously. Jefferson wanted girls to attend school for free in his General Diffusion Bill (Frazier 21), but he also seldom considered women in his view of citizenship (Frazier 17). Rush wanted to fully educate woman in his plan known as "Republican Motherhood" (Frazier 18.) He saw that educating women would prepare them for in turn educating their sons for future citizenship and taking an active part in the husband's entertainment (Frazier 25).
From a woman's standpoint, not all accepted the unfair culture. They wanted fair opportunity and wanted a chance to learn for themselves. This time period saw it's share of early American feminism. Individuals such as Abigail Adams, Judith Sargent Murray, and Mercy Warren spoke out their opinions (Urban 76). They questioned the educational standards at the time and the male gender role as being the only available to for advanced education. However, I imagine some wives and women were just as happy not being educated. Some probably saw it as their traditional role and duty to the household to stay behind as men were schooled. |
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