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George Counts (1889- 1974 )

George Sylvester Counts began his professional career in 1916 at the University of Delaware

as Head of the Department of Education. He spent the major portion of his professional career at

Teachers College, Columbia University, from 1927 till 1956. He was also active in politics, for

he established the Liberal Party in New York and ran as its candidate for the United States

Senate in 1952. He was a member of the National Committee of the American Civil Liberties

Union.

Dare the Schools build a New Social Order

Dare the Schools build a New Social Order is a pamphlet made up of three essays written by

a professor from Columbia University George S. Counts in 1932. The titles of these papers are

Dare Progressive Education Be Progressive; Education Through Indoctrination; and Freedom,

Culture, Social Planning, and Leadership. In his book, Counts wanted educators to be aware of

their position in reconstructing the society. His central theme was that society has been

dramatically altered at the beginning of the twentieth century by introducing modern science,

machinery, and industrialization; thus, the traditional role of education as a means to introduce

people to their cultural and social conditions should shift o accommodate the dramatic changes

happening to the American society. However, Counts remarks that this change was not

happening in America during the 1930s “… our schools instead of directing the course of

change, are themselves driven by the very forces that are transforming the rest of the social

order.” (Counts, 1932, p.1)

Teachers are the agents to this change in society; they can lead society instead of following it.

Counts believed that teachers should not be only concerned with educational issues but also be

part of the economic and political policy making process. Teachers should reach for power and

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be able to use it to establish new cultural patterns and eliminate social problems, but the power

teachers implement in schools cannot be greater than the power they have in society. Thus, they

are best viewed as a bridge between school and society (Counts, 1932).

Counts Thesis

Counts thesis was based on his belief that all education contains a large element of inevitable

imposition. He examines ten fallacies which underlay his opposition to all forms of imposition.

“man is born free – helpless; the child is good by nature; the child lives in a separate world of his own; education is some pure and mystical essence that remains unchanged from everlasting to everlasting; the school should be impartial in its emphases; the great object of education is to produce the college professor; education is primarily intellectualistic in its processes and goals; the school is an all-powerful educational agency; ignorance rather than knowledge is the way of wisdom; and in a dynamic society like ours the major responsibility of education is to prepare the individual to adjust himself to social change.” (Sylvester Counts, 1965, p. 29) According to Counts man is restricted in his freedom by an imposed culture of a dominant

group. Children are good by nature; however, guidance for children is found in the culture and

society. Children should not be isolated from the activities of adults; thus, school society should

not be isolated but bound together by common educational purposes. Next, education should not

unchanged and independent of society; it should rather be dependent on cultural surroundings.

Counts believes that schools could and should not be impartial; they must shape attitudes and

impose ideas. Moreover, he believes educational leaders should be able to gather facts m make

decisions, and act. Education should produce social leaders and not college professors. Equally

important to intellectualism in education is the element of faith or ideal which moves children

into the same vision of a reformed society and engages their loyalties. Although this might

contradict the title of his book, Counts insists that schools are not all powerful but part of many

formative agencies. Although some form of imposition is inevitable in schools, educators should

make an effort to influence the growth of a child in a deliberate direction by enforcing one habit

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over the other. Finally, teachers should not prepare students to adapt to social change; instead

teachers should endeavor to assume responsibility and become a social force that would prepare

children to develop a firm mentality and a vision of the possibilities that lie ahead. (Crutchfield)

Objections to Counts Social Reconstruction

Objections to the concept of reforming society through schools stated that the idea of social

reconstruction is unrealistic, and the adoption of social reconstructionism as the driving

philosophy of education would have a harmful affect on scholarly areas. Furthermore, critics

argued that main task of the school should be the education of children and social reform; social

improvement is only a segment of the larger task and it should not be allowed to dominate the

process of learning. Finally, most objections to Counts thesis in the 1930s held a real fear of

socialism.

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References

Counts, G. (1932). Dare the schools build a new social order?. (1st ed.). New York: Stratford

Press, Inc. Retrieved from http://brittleebooks.library.illinois.edu

Sylvester Counts, G. (1965). Classics revisited: Dare the schools build the great society?. Phi

Delta Kappan, 27-30. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/20371451

Crutchfield , C. E. (n.d.). George sylvester counts. Retrieved from

http://www.2.southeastern.edu/Academics/Faculty/nadams/edu692/Counts.html