Everything in the world is always fluctuating and transforming,and education is no different. Just like humanbeings, education has concepts that it was raised on. Looking at education, it has three dominant “parents”. The historical aspect looks at how education was shaped, while thephilosophical characteristic focuses on the different ideologies that educationwent through to become what it is today and the sociological side emphasizes onthe government legislation, publications and court cases that have transformedthe passage of education. The earliest dame schools of the 1600’sonly offered schooling for 6-8-year-old children. Boys were taught acraft to use later in their life while the girls were being trained to housewives.
Latin Grammar schools had the sons of the “rich and famous” read Latinand Greek literature, as well as the Bible. Benjamin Franklin’s Academy was slowlybecoming more like modern day schools with science, math, and athletics. Both boys and girls were welcomed- if their parents could afford theprice of the school. Horace Mann and the tax supported commonschool could be compared to an elementary school.
Main components taughtin common schools were reading, history arithmetic, science and writing. Parochial schools came about for the Catholic immigrants who wantedtheir children to be taught the readings in the Bible. With public high schools becoming more of an opportunity for more andmore students, a junior high was needed to help bridge the gap from theelementary school level to high school level. Mann once again assisted in bringing theidea of normal schools to fruition.
Normal schools werethere for teachers to learn the material required to teach the youth. Normal schools and the increase of female teachers go hand in hand. Booker T. Washington founded the Tuskegee NormalSchool for Colored Teachers, what was later renamed as the Tuskegee Institute. The Tuskegee University, as it is now known as, equipped AfricanAmericans with the knowledge of practical employment skills such as teachingand agriculture. Bythe time the end 1800’s, the public was divided on how they wanted high schoolsto operate. One of the twomajor ideas were that high school should help students prepare for college,while the other proposition was more utilitarian endeavors for those who saw high school as the end of their education.
The NationalEducation Association, or the NEA, dealt with this situation in 1892. The NEA suggestedeight years of elementary school and four years of high school, with programs thatsuited the needs of both factions of high schoolers. John Dewey, one of the most significanteducators of the twentieth century, had an educational philosophy known as progressivism. Progressivism is the philosophy that stressedactive learning through problem solving, projects, and hands on experience. (Koch) Some of the moreradical reform philosophies included existentialism, which took studentconcentrated learning to an extreme. Within this philosophy, individuals had to select their own courseof study as a part of them figuring out their position of society.
Maxine Green, a USphilosopher and social activist who believed in Dewey’s idea of progressivism, developedaesthetic education. Aesthetic education believes that the goal of education is to helpstudents realize that they are responsible not merely for their own individualexperiences, but they also have a deep connection to, and responsibility for,other human beings share this world. (Koch) The studentswho follow this education ideology should be a spark in the world to help educatorsand scholars to discover concepts more profoundly and analytically engaged withthe world.The separate but equal debate hit an apex in 1954 with the caseof Brown v. Board ofEducation of Topeka, Kansas.TheUnited States Supreme Court unanimously determined that the segregated schoolswere disproportionate in ways of teaching and decided that separated schoolsteaching would cease operation. The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA),passed by Congress in 1965, supplied one billion dollars to improve theeducation of academics from families living below the poverty line.
The intention behind Title IX is to stay awayfrom the use of federal money to fund sexually discriminating practices. One of the results of Title IX has been ongirls’ athletics and amenities, requiring that there is equal funding, accommodations,and opportunities for both teams. 1975 was the year that Congress passed the Education for All HandicappedChildren Act.
Now known asthe Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, ensures that all children with disabilities could receivefree, appropriate education, just like other children. (Koch) The world thatis happening right now is controlled by standards-based reform and assessments. The children of today are getting bombarded withstandardized text after standardized test. Sir Ken Robinson says that these childrenshould not have tests thrown at them for them to just need some sort ofmedicine that deaden them to what is happening in the world, but to rather wakethem up to see what is inside of them. (Robinson) Education is everchanging. There are so many factors thathave made education the way it is today. It is not just the historical factors, or just the philosophical influences, or just the sociologicaleffects.
It is all three and so much more. They are all interconnected in atangled web that will only expand as time goes on. What is happening right nowin education is going to be part of someone’s schooling in the future. Thereare always new ideas and viewpoints being formed every day. From now on, newlaws will come to fruition and change the way future actors, doctors, athletes,lawyers, astronauts, and teachers are taught their education.
The world willalways be changing, and so will education.