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.
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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). |
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