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Internet (Independent) Assignment #1 

This assignment will take the place of your T-A-R assignment. Begin by reading Spring, Chapter 6 “Organizing the American School: Teachers and Bureaucracy.”

On a separate piece of paper, address the following:

1. Do an internet search over teacher training in the 19th century. Explore some of the websites and record some of the interesting information you learned about early teacher training, normal schools, and the roles women and men assumed during this time frame.
   
2. From your own personal perspective, describe how you see these historical factors influencing modern teacher preparation, gender roles, or other issues/perspectives you have.
   

Limit your responses to about 2 pages, DOUBLE-SPACED. Submit an electronic copy in Canvas.

Internet (Independent) Assignment #2 

This assignment will take the place of your T-A-R assignment. Begin by reading Spring, Chapter 10 “Scientific school management: Testing, Immigrants, and Experts.” As we have seen, over the years various groups have attempted to control schooling and curriculum. In this chapter we meet the next of many players in the development of U.S. schools—efficiency experts, social engineers, and IQ testers. After you read the chapter, please reflect on the following:

On a separate piece of paper, address the following:

Discuss the concept of educational merit: (1) Define what it meant, (2) Identify who stood to benefit from the movement, (3) Name those who stood to lose by it, and (4) Discuss the inherent biases and inequalities of the methods and testing procedures used.

Next, from your own personal perspective, address how today’s educational practices are a recycling of ideas from this time period.

Limit your responses to about 2 pages, DOUBLE-SPACED. Submit an electronic copy in Canvas.

Useful Websites:

The New England Primer: 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_England_Primer

The Hornbook:
http://www.iupui.edu/~engwft/hornbook.html

Dartmouth College History:
http://www.dartmouth.edu/home/about/history.html

Take a Tour of Historic Philadelphia:
http://ushistory.org/tour/index.html

Library of Congress — Memories of American History
http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/S?ammem/collections:@field(SUBJ+@1(Education)):heading=Topics%3a+Education

Noah Webster, America’s Schoolmaster Biography:
http://www.lexrex.com/bios/nwebster.htm

The Coalition for Essential Schools:
http://www.essentialschools.org/

Educational Reformer Ted Sizer:
http://www.forumforeducation.org/conveners/theodore-sizer

The Educational Trust, Advocates for all children:
http://www2.edtrust.org/edtrust/

The National Center for Educational Statistics:
http://nces.ed.gov/

National Center Just for Kids:
http://www.nc4ea.org/index.cfm/e/initiatives.just_for_the_kids

The American Museum of the American Indian (Smithsonian):
http://www.nmai.si.edu/

The National Education Association:
http://www.nea.org/

The American Federation of Teachers:
http://aft.org/

Learn about media literacy:
http://www.medialit.org

National Center for Policy Analysis (Includes educational policies):
http://www.ncpa.org/iss/edu/

Important Concepts and Self-Checks from Assigned Readings:

Spring Chapter 2, Globalization and Religion in Colonial Education, discussion ideas:

1. Describe how education was used to promote and maintain society and religion in New England.
   
2. Explain how schools both confirmed and conferred status
   
3. What educational issues from colonial America are still with us in 21st Century America? Explain.
   

Some important items from Spring, Chapter 2:

1. Colonial schools in New England were harsh, intolerant places. Students were viewed as wicked and sinful. Religious indoctrinations was thoroughly entrenched.
   
2. Schooling in Southern Colonies depended on wealth and social status. Rich landowners typically had tutors for their children.
   
3. In Massachusetts, the Old Deluded Satan Law (Massachusetts law of 1647) required towns of 50 families to establish schools. In 1650, the first tax was levied to support the costs of education.
   
4. The hornbook and New England Primer were the first teaching materials used throughout the colonies.
   
5. Puritanism weighed heavily on education; thus schooling was used to enculturate radical Protestant values on society, including ethnic minorities.
   

Spring Chapter 3, Nationalism, Multiculturalism, and Moral Reform in the New Republic, discussion Ideas:

1. Describe how schools were used to create a dominant “Anglo-American” culture within the Early Republic period.
   
2. Describe what types of schooling/training grew out of the construct of “faculty psychology.”
   
3. Explain how the Lancasterian System worked. What similarities do you see with modern schooling?
   
4. How were Noah Webster’s and Thomas Jefferson’s ideas on education similar or dissimilar to dominant educational views of the time? Explain.
   

Some important items from Spring, Chapter 3:

1. The “republic (limited) ideal” of education where most people have some access to education but a few people have great access to education is clearly evident during this time period.
   
2. Educational leaders’ concern for societal problems are apparent in their education proposals.
   
3. Ownership, control, and support for schooling is becoming clearer during this time period but several important events had to address these issues (the most important event being the court case Dartmouth College v. Woodward (1819).
   
4. Curricular materials (e.g. Webster’s Blue-Backed Speller) were used to create a dominant patriotic American culture based on social and political norms.
   
5. During the Early Republic period, American post-secondary education became well-established.
   

Spring Chapter 4, The Ideology and Politics of the Common School, discussion ideas:

1. Describe what America’s schools looked like before and Common School Era and what they looked like after the establishment of Common Schools.
   
2. Report on how Horace Mann’s background influenced his philosophy on providing a free common education.
   
3. Briefly summarize the features of common schools.
   
4. The Common School Era has been the subject of many interpretations. Describe three potential interpretations of the movement.
   

Some important items from Spring Chapter 4:

1. The Common Schools were the forerunner of today’s public schools replacing a patchwork quilt of educations systems: charity schools, private schools, tutors, etc.
   
2. Horace Mann is rightly called the father of American public education. His personal background from a Calvinist upbringing to the embrace of faculty psychology (he was a phrenologist—someone who studied cranial features to make a character analysis) led him to believe in the power of education to improve the individual and society.
   
3. In the eyes of non-Anglo Americans (especially the Irish Catholics) common schools became synonymous with protestant schools. This was due to the infusion of protestant values, teaching, and curricular materials containing anti-Catholic statements.
   
4. Spring Chapter 5, The Common School and the Threat of Cultural Pluralism, discussion ideas:
   
5. In what ways was the Common School Movement successful in promoting Protestantism, republicanism, and capitalism?
   
6. Do you think schools still promote these values? Why or why not?
   
7. How was the Civilization Fund Act of 1819 used to enculturate Native Americans into Anglo-American culture?
   
8. Why was cultural pluralism a threat to the dominant culture of the time? What is a current perception of the relationship between schools and cultural pluralism?
   

Some important items from Spring Chapter 5:

1. Many Irish-Americans refused to sent their children to schools where their religious beliefs would be challenged or denigrated.
   
2. Prior to the Civil War, Southern states made it illegal to educate slaves.
   
3. Blacks and Native Americans often used oral traditions as a psychological refuge to dominant ideals and values.
   
4. Initially some blacks supported segregated education as a means of protecting their children against prejudice, however in Boston, blacks used the legal system to challenge segregation.
   
5. After being relocated West of the Mississippi, the Choctaws and Cherokees created bilingual schools that had almost 100% literacy rates.
   

Spring, Chapter 6, Organizing the American School: Teachers and Bureaucracy, discussion ideas

1. Explain why young women were considered perfect for becoming America’s teachers during and after the common school era.
   
2. How did Pestalozzi educational theories including those on motherhood influence American schools?
   
3. Explain how McGuffey’s Eclectic Readers reinforced societal roles and mores
   

Some important items from Spring Chapter 6:

1. The first normal schools (teacher training academies) began to be established in the Northern states during this time period. It was once said that Emma Willard's signature was the first form of teacher licensure in the US.
   
2. American women were thought to bring motherhood, domesticity, high morals, and stability to the teaching force
   
3. American men, if they did become teachers, were paid higher than their female counterparts.
   
4. Toward the end of the Nineteenth Century, most women assumed the role of teacher whereas men generally assumed supervisory roles.
   
5. Teacher-proof curricular materials begin to appear during this time. Technology makes printing less costly, and printed texts begin to contain pictures or illustrations.
   

Spring, Chapter 7: Multiculturalism and the Failure of the Common School Ideal. Choose ONE of the sections listed below. Prepare a short summary of your section. Run-off five copies of your summary. At our next class session, we will break into jig-saw groups for you to present your summaries.

1. pp 163-169 Mexican-Americans and Education
   
2. pp 169-176 Asian-Americans and Education
   
3. pp 176-183 Native-Americans and Education
   
4. pp 183-190 African-Americans and Education
   
5. pp 190-196 Puerto Ricans in the US
   

Spring Chapters 8 & 9, Global migration and the growth of the welfare function of schools, and Human capital: high school, junior high school and vocational guidance and education key concepts:

1. Describe a several external factors (i.e. business interests) that influenced American public education during this time period.
   
2. How can education be described as part of the functioning of a “welfare state?”
   

Spring Chapter 11, The Politics of Knowledge, discussion ideas:

1. Trace the development of teacher unions (including the National Education Association) as outlined by Spring.
   
2. Explain how perceived threats to American government and culture influence educational policy and control of schools.
   
3. Summarize what you learned about censorship issues as presented in this chapter.
   

Spring Chapter 12, Schools, Media, and Popular Culture, discussion ideas:

1. According to the chapter, how has the American media/pop culture view students?
   
2. Describe some of the forms of backlash that have taken place.
   
3. Explore the website below on media literacy. Write a short description about what types of information this website provides.
   

Spring Chapter 13, American schools and global politics: The Cold War and Poverty, discussion ideas:

1. Discuss the influence the Cold War had on American education policy and practice
   
2. Was the War on Poverty successful or not successful, explain.
   
3. Explain how Sesame Street figured into education and national policy.
   

Spring Chapters 14 & 15: The Fruits of Globalization and Globalizing the American schools from Nixon to Obama, discussion ideas:

1. Explain how the Federal Government has intervened in the struggle for Civil Rights for all citizens and education of the handicapped.
   
2. Briefly summarize the educational contributions of Presidents, Bush, Clinton, Bush, and Obama.
   
3. Describe several backlash movements that gained momentum as a result of Federal interventions
   

Some important items from the chapter readings:

1. Federal intervention into what historically was a state issue began with the Great Civil Rights movement. Although the 10th Amendment to the US Constitution gives rights not mentioned in the Constitution to the States or People, the Brown v. Board decision used the 14th Amendment's Civil Rights emphasis to justify Federal intervention
   
2. The events in Spring chapters 14 & 15 dealing with social, racial, and educational justice come to fruition at this time period. The democratic (inclusive) ideal of education (the most education for all people) is being implemented at this time
   
3. Because desegregation and prohibition of school prayer were unpopular in many parts of the country, private academies, charter schools, and new means for private education were created