Wednesday

• Common School Period (ca. 1840 – 1880)

• Progressive (1880 – 1920)

• Modern (1920 – Present)

Common School Period 1840-1880

• HORACE MANN– Father of American Education– Self-educated– Became Secretary of Education

• Horace Mann felt that a common school would be the "great equalizer.“– Poverty would disappear– Reduction in crime

Common School Period 1840-1880

• Common Educational Purpose– established the first public normal school

in the United States– reinvigorated the 1827 law establishing

high schools– led the movement to set up teacher

institutions – Education =

• Freedom and opportunity

Mary Lyon 1797-1849

• Gifted teacher

• Pioneer in Teacher Education (Focusing on Women)

• Inspired by her own struggles to obtain an education – she worked hard to expand academic

opportunities for young women and – to prepare them to become teachers

Mary Lyon 1797-1849 • Founded the Mount Holyoke Female Seminary

– A curriculum equivalent to those at men's colleges– A minimum entrance age of 17– Low tuition

• to make education affordable to students from modest backgrounds. Mount Holyoke's was $60 a year.

– Rigorous entrance examinations • to make sure students were adequately prepared.

– Permanence. • A lack of funds forced many 19th-century female seminaries to close after a few years.

A good number were proprietary, or owned by an individual, eager to make a profit. Some schools were so dependent upon the founder's popularity, that the institution collapsed after his or her death.

– Domestic work by students • to keep operating expenses, and therefore, tuition, low.

– Independence. • Mary Lyon sought no affiliations with a religious denomination or wealthy sponsor.

Instead, she formed a Board of Trustees, a group of dedicated male supporters who donated their time to help Mount Holyoke thrive and succeed.

– A wide base of financial support. • It was important to Mary Lyon that people from backgrounds like her own would feel

that Mount Holyoke was a school for their daughters. She collected donations ranging from six cents to $1,000, as well as quilts and bedding from women's sewing circles and necessary items like stoves and furniture from trustees.

Reference: http://www.mtholyoke.edu/marylyon/

THE CATHOLIC ISSUE

• Catholic Immigration to US– 1830-1850 = + 1 million Catholics– Discrimination of the Catholic Minority lead to

the Catholic School System

• Protestant control of the general School System– Catholics forced to become more “Protestant”

in public school systems

Julie Kern

THE CATHOLIC ISSUE

• Public Schools– Denied Catholics use of their Bible and

Prayers– Led to the Privatization of Catholic Schools

that exists to this day…

Julie Kern

THE MCGUFFEY READERS

• Rev. William Holmes McGuffey– Peaked the interest of Truman and Smith

Publishing company– First reader – code of ethics– Second reader – resulted in literacy of

millions– Third reader – formal, for the mature mind– Fourth reader – intro to literature– Fifth reader – elocutionary, articulation– Sixth reader – quoted 111 authors

THE MCGUFFEY READERS

• Rev. William Holmes McGuffey– These were "eclectic readers" – i.e., the

selections were chosen from a number of sources

– were considered remarkable literary works – probably exerted a greater influence upon

literary tastes in the United States more than any other book, excluding the Bible.

COMPULSORY EDUCATION

• Compulsory attendance act of 1852 – first general law attempting to control the

conditions of children.– law included mandatory attendance for

children between the ages of eight and fourteen for at least three months out of each year,

• of these twelve weeks at least six had to be consecutive.

COMPULSORY EDUCATION

• Compulsory attendance act of 1852 – The exception to this attendance at a

public school included: • the child's attendance at another school for the

same amount of time, • proof that the child had already learned the

subjects, poverty, • or the physical or mental ability of the child to

attend.

Vicky Grocke

COMPULSORY EDUCATION

• Compulsory attendance act of 1852 – law was ineffective

• it did keep the importance of school before the public and helped to form public opinion in favor of education

– Revised in 1873• age limit was reduced to twelve• annual attendance was increased to twenty weeks per

year• a semblance of enforcement was established by forming

jurisdictions for prosecution and the hiring of truant officers to check absences

Vicky Grocke

COMPULSORY EDUCATION

• Child Employment – Law of 1842

• stated that no child under fifteen could be employed in any business in the state without proof of attendance in school for at least three months out of twelve.

• children could not work more than ten hours a day.

– By 1918 all states had passed a compulsory attendance law

Vicky Grocke

COMPULSORY EDUCATION

• Compulsory education laws and child labor laws have worked hand in hand to advance children's rights.

Vicky Grocke

W.E.B. DuBois

• First African American to receive a Ph.D. from Harvard

• Founder of NAACP

• Changed political/social views over course of his lifetime– NAACP under DuBois was

considered “Militant”

Sarah Wright

Booker T. Washington

• Born a slave

• appointed head of the Tuskegee Institute in 1881– Converted town to progressive and

contemporary environment

• Educated Teachers, craftsmen, businessmen– African Americans freed from slavery

Sarah Wright

Booker T. Washington

• He was hoping to create the "black bourgeoisie," whereas DuBois would settle for no less than equality.

• Washington was able to adjust to the changes in society while DuBois was not…

Sarah Wright

THE MORRILL ACT OF 1862

• AKA the Land Grant College Act– major boost to higher education in

America– gave each state 30,000 acres of public land

for each Senator and Representative– land was sold

• the money from the sale of the land was to be put in an endowment fund which would provide support for the colleges in each of the states

THE MORRILL ACT OF 1862

• Benefited Millions of Americans– At first, not all– Racial separation

• Blacks were not allowed to attend original land-grant institutions

– Second Morrill Act was passed and expanded the system of grants to include black institutions

THE MORRILL ACT OF 1862

• Changed the course of higher education– Gave education Governmental support– purpose of education shifted from the

classical studies – allowed for more applied studies that

would prepare the students for the world that they would face once leaving the classroom

Brad Lightcap

NEA (NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION)

• Began in 1857 as the National Teachers Association – founded "to elevate the character and

advance the interest of the teaching profession, and to promote the cause of popular education in the United States (Meyer, 387-388)."

Christine Teeter

Meyer, Adolphe. An Educational History of the American People. second edition.

NEA (NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION)

• However:– didn't allow women to be members until

1866.– didn't allow men who taught in private

schools to be members.– 1870, the National Teachers Association

merged with the National Association of School Superintendents and the American Normal School Association to become known as the NEA

Christine Teeter

NEA (NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION)

• NEA today…– wants to benefit teachers and United States children,– to make the education of all Americans better. – researches school problems and teachers' well being, and– tries to make curriculum and instruction better. – helps other educational groups in other parts of the world.

• Became a Union during the 20th century– Represents educator benefits and salary– Class sizes– Planning time– Professional Development

Christine Teeter

Normal Schools

• July 3, 1839 – three young women reported to Lexington,

Massachusetts, with hopes of attending the first state funded school specifically established for public teacher education

– After taking an examination which determined they were satisfactorily versed in the subjects taught by the ordinary district school, they were granted admission to this experimental program, the first in the nation.

Karen Cheek

Normal Schools

• motivation to provide a public school education for all children was twofold– the desire to indoctrinate them with

religious teachings to assure the continued existence of a devote and moral populace (+ regular church attendance)

– need to educate for social, economic, democratic and national reasons.

Karen Cheek

Normal Schools

• upper classes– there existed some good colleges providing a classical

education for ministry, law or medicine. – Teacher education was not considered a profession worthy

of their attentions. – Common (public) schools at this point were in bad shape.

• Typically in session only four months of the year (because of the agrarian society and the need to have children helping out at home), they were poorly attended, and basically taught by whomever was available.

– Low pay was not much of a motivator for teachers to seek out an education specific to the occupation or for existing colleges to provide it.

Karen Cheek

Normal Schools

• James G. Carter, – "Father of the American Normal School" – was influential in the passage of a bill

creating the first State Board of Education in Massachusetts

– Horace Mann was first Secretary of Education

Karen Cheek

Normal Schools

• Horace Mann– "I believe Normal Schools to be a new

instrumentality in the advancement of the race. I believe that, without them, Free Schools themselves would be shorn of their strength and their healing power and would at length become mere charity schools and thus die out in fact and in form."

Karen Cheek

Normal Schools

• Teaching methods of Prussian schools as defined by Pestalozzi influenced education at this time– He described the process of teaching as

directing the child in the unfolding of his latent powers and emphasized the harmonious development of the individual's faculties into a complete personality.

Karen Cheek

Normal Schools

• need to provide the type of education which would foster a critical thinking populace

• Daniel Webster – "Make them intelligent, and they will be

vigilant - give them the means of detecting wrong, and they will apply the remedy."

Karen Cheek

Normal Schools

• Spread of the normal school to other states

• can in part be credited to twenty-six graduates of the third Massachusetts normal school– These graduates went on to become

normal school heads as far away as Illinois and Michigan

Karen Cheek

Normal Schools

• The emphasis was on common everyday learning. – The colleges, with their classical

curriculums, looked down on the normal schools.

• The normal school crusade advocated teaching as a profession.

Karen Cheek