Behind the Scenes of Education
Education has undergone many changes in regards to what has been regulated in the past and the new issues that have arisen in the present. Education is the way people of any age learn according to the three C’s; critical knowledge, community knowledge and classical knowledge. The latter, classical knowledge, is supposed to be taught throughout every school in America. Community knowledge can be thought of differently between suburban and urban communities but the general context is the same- people learn according to their surroundings. Critical knowledge, the way people learn that varies, is completely dependent on the interactions people have with their communities and the classical knowledge they have obtained. Critical knowledge is dependent on how people can relate what they have learned from the past and connect it to the present and the future. Education laws have been debated by liberals and conservatives in regards to the rights of children, parents, and enhancing the scope of government. Through the laws made by both federal and state governments, parents and politicians have had time to reform through the creation of new schools, new forms of education, and new laws. However, education laws have come to face new problems and need to be discussed further for the true betterment of education.
The issue of education in an urban society and a suburban society are all related to the unequal distribution of resources, opportunities to learn, and the types of governmental affiliation. When looking at urban societies, different factors tie in to the way education is handled. In urban societies, the youth face more environmental problems such as poverty, gang violence, segregation and issues happening around their part of the community.
The effects of the issues with education in the differing communities are the lack of achievement and goal setting; children in cities have more pressure on them to work with the societal pressures of racism, stereotypes, family issues, health issues, gangs, and the types of places surrounding their schools. With the added societal pressures to education, children are forced to think of multiple factors when looking at what paths to take in life.
Education has a mix of societal, political, and economical implications. People have observed that there is a hierarchy within the educational system. Students that go to college to earn PhDs or Doctorates are at the top of the food chain but it is those students on the lower rungs that have to fight for the positions of being the “Big Kahuna”. Students in suburbs and students in cities are often in battle for positions into colleges that will help them get to their full potential and become academically fit. Because, politically, there is not a central form of government directing money, grants, or any aid to the schools beyond block grants that allow local governments to use the money as they deem fit. Schools in suburban communities are managed differently than city schools. It is the management of the schools that provide unequal opportunity and an unequal distribution of necessary academia resources to aid students learning.
The multiple perspectives on the issue of education range from politicians, to teachers, to students, community members, and administrators. Politicians see education as a way to help future citizens become better “super” citizens while teachers see education more as a tool to help make more conscious beings of the world around them. Students see education merely as a thing they are obligated to do by law, which is something educators do not want to see education as. Community members have realized the schools their children go to matters and that they need to become involved with the teachers and students to help their children succeed and create better lives for themselves.
There is no set time period for the problems within education. Since the colonial era, education has been something debated and necessary for the citizens of the New World. Massachusetts passed the first compulsory education law in 1852 and after that, approximately sixty-six percent of states passed similar laws to Massachusetts. The author of The Therapeutic State writes, “The introduction of compulsory attendance laws represented the natural next step in the expansion of state authority in education…like common schools, compulsory attendance laws were initially resisted. Opponents argued against them on the grounds that they interfered with the rights and liberties of parents that they would be difficult to enforce, that they were un-American, and granted new powers to the government…advocates defended the laws by appealing not only to notions of public duties…but to the idea of the child’s individual rights” (Nolan, 138). Children were seen merely as objects that the government exploited for work while parents wanted children to be educated at the time. Compulsory education laws were laws that made it mandatory for children to go to school until a certain age. Some states indicate the lawful age students need to be in school is until sixteen and others say eighteen years old.
Horace Mann, a man who first-handedly experienced the problems with education, became involved with politics and realized the educational system of Massachusetts needed to be fixed, proposed “common schools” to be involved in the 1848 educational system. With a common school education, the social class gaps between rich and poor could be eradicated through education. Horace Mann stated in the Report of the Massachusetts Board of Education, 1848 that the distance between the two extremes of society is lengthening, instead of being abridged. With every generation, fortunes increase on the one hand, and some new privation is added to poverty on the other. We are verging towards those extremes of opulence and of penury, each of which unhumanizes the human mind…Education, then, beyond all other devices of human origin, is the great equalizer of the conditions of men,—the balance-wheel of the social machinery. Mann realized that through education, people would have a better chance of becoming equal with one another, especially since living in a capitalist society, the way the world works depends on how much money a person has but the person has to understand the rules of the economy game in order to succeed.
Two other people also realized the problems with education. John Dewey and Francis Parker realized that education was not living up to its full potential. An article written by Arthur Zilversmit explains that education in general has changed and become more accepting. Francis Parker, John Dewey, and others who promoted progressivism have influenced education and encouraged a wider range of topics to be explored in the education process. “Progressive Education” states, “It is no surprise…that it [Chicago] became a major center for the development of progressive education, the ideology that would become a dominant form in American educational thought for much of the twentieth century.” It is because of progressive education that the whole country has been reshaped and given new ideas. One man, Francis Parker, “had developed an approach to education that rejected rote learning and enlisted natural curiosity of children in the schooling process.” The term “enlisted natural curiosity” is what made education more democratic, equal and free as children were, under Parker’s beliefs, able to think for themselves, and should be able to state what they want from learning.
The current solutions being used to solve the problems with education are organizations are being created to work with teachers and politicians for the betterment of education. Teachers unions exist for the betterment of classrooms as well as to protect teachers that are invested in their children’s education. Community meetings are held where teachers, students, and parents or any involved citizen can attend to talk about the state of the schools within the community. Students and children are given a voice in a non-profit organization called “Louder Than A Bomb” and another called “Fulfill the Dream” where they can openly talk about the problems they face in everyday life ranging from family issues to school issues to the disencouragement of the government.
The solutions, in Chicago, have not been completely effective. The strong political bonds of the problems with education keep people from fully reforming education. As history has proven time and time before, the forces that keep any movement from completely making progress have been many and the amount of revolutionaries or reformers completing their tasks have been few. However, as time goes on, the amount of people realizing the problems with education have been increasing. More schools are being turned around or phased out and the amount of community members, students and teachers being affected are greatly increasing.
Education has undergone many changes; from the beliefs that education should be about religion, to being a parent's decision, and to the government a way to make the "perfect" citizens. Reformers understood that in order to make something lawful better for the community, someone needed to stand up and say they disagree with the current laws. The government and lawmakers then reacted and revolutionary ideas have become the result of the hard work of the men and women who stood up for their beliefs. In 2012, students need to be aware of the history behind the reasons why they are in school as well as the overall question of why they are institutionalized at a young age to go to school. Although conservatives and liberals will debate government involvement in education, the extent of one's education is completely solely based on the beliefs of an individual. It is one thing to be told we need to do something and another to question why we do what we do and the importance of it. It is vital for children to know their rights as students and ultimately as human beings. It is necessary to first understand what lies beneath the common knowledge and delve into it further to understand entirely what happens around a person.
The issue of education in an urban society and a suburban society are all related to the unequal distribution of resources, opportunities to learn, and the types of governmental affiliation. When looking at urban societies, different factors tie in to the way education is handled. In urban societies, the youth face more environmental problems such as poverty, gang violence, segregation and issues happening around their part of the community.
The effects of the issues with education in the differing communities are the lack of achievement and goal setting; children in cities have more pressure on them to work with the societal pressures of racism, stereotypes, family issues, health issues, gangs, and the types of places surrounding their schools. With the added societal pressures to education, children are forced to think of multiple factors when looking at what paths to take in life.
Education has a mix of societal, political, and economical implications. People have observed that there is a hierarchy within the educational system. Students that go to college to earn PhDs or Doctorates are at the top of the food chain but it is those students on the lower rungs that have to fight for the positions of being the “Big Kahuna”. Students in suburbs and students in cities are often in battle for positions into colleges that will help them get to their full potential and become academically fit. Because, politically, there is not a central form of government directing money, grants, or any aid to the schools beyond block grants that allow local governments to use the money as they deem fit. Schools in suburban communities are managed differently than city schools. It is the management of the schools that provide unequal opportunity and an unequal distribution of necessary academia resources to aid students learning.
The multiple perspectives on the issue of education range from politicians, to teachers, to students, community members, and administrators. Politicians see education as a way to help future citizens become better “super” citizens while teachers see education more as a tool to help make more conscious beings of the world around them. Students see education merely as a thing they are obligated to do by law, which is something educators do not want to see education as. Community members have realized the schools their children go to matters and that they need to become involved with the teachers and students to help their children succeed and create better lives for themselves.
There is no set time period for the problems within education. Since the colonial era, education has been something debated and necessary for the citizens of the New World. Massachusetts passed the first compulsory education law in 1852 and after that, approximately sixty-six percent of states passed similar laws to Massachusetts. The author of The Therapeutic State writes, “The introduction of compulsory attendance laws represented the natural next step in the expansion of state authority in education…like common schools, compulsory attendance laws were initially resisted. Opponents argued against them on the grounds that they interfered with the rights and liberties of parents that they would be difficult to enforce, that they were un-American, and granted new powers to the government…advocates defended the laws by appealing not only to notions of public duties…but to the idea of the child’s individual rights” (Nolan, 138). Children were seen merely as objects that the government exploited for work while parents wanted children to be educated at the time. Compulsory education laws were laws that made it mandatory for children to go to school until a certain age. Some states indicate the lawful age students need to be in school is until sixteen and others say eighteen years old.
Horace Mann, a man who first-handedly experienced the problems with education, became involved with politics and realized the educational system of Massachusetts needed to be fixed, proposed “common schools” to be involved in the 1848 educational system. With a common school education, the social class gaps between rich and poor could be eradicated through education. Horace Mann stated in the Report of the Massachusetts Board of Education, 1848 that the distance between the two extremes of society is lengthening, instead of being abridged. With every generation, fortunes increase on the one hand, and some new privation is added to poverty on the other. We are verging towards those extremes of opulence and of penury, each of which unhumanizes the human mind…Education, then, beyond all other devices of human origin, is the great equalizer of the conditions of men,—the balance-wheel of the social machinery. Mann realized that through education, people would have a better chance of becoming equal with one another, especially since living in a capitalist society, the way the world works depends on how much money a person has but the person has to understand the rules of the economy game in order to succeed.
Two other people also realized the problems with education. John Dewey and Francis Parker realized that education was not living up to its full potential. An article written by Arthur Zilversmit explains that education in general has changed and become more accepting. Francis Parker, John Dewey, and others who promoted progressivism have influenced education and encouraged a wider range of topics to be explored in the education process. “Progressive Education” states, “It is no surprise…that it [Chicago] became a major center for the development of progressive education, the ideology that would become a dominant form in American educational thought for much of the twentieth century.” It is because of progressive education that the whole country has been reshaped and given new ideas. One man, Francis Parker, “had developed an approach to education that rejected rote learning and enlisted natural curiosity of children in the schooling process.” The term “enlisted natural curiosity” is what made education more democratic, equal and free as children were, under Parker’s beliefs, able to think for themselves, and should be able to state what they want from learning.
The current solutions being used to solve the problems with education are organizations are being created to work with teachers and politicians for the betterment of education. Teachers unions exist for the betterment of classrooms as well as to protect teachers that are invested in their children’s education. Community meetings are held where teachers, students, and parents or any involved citizen can attend to talk about the state of the schools within the community. Students and children are given a voice in a non-profit organization called “Louder Than A Bomb” and another called “Fulfill the Dream” where they can openly talk about the problems they face in everyday life ranging from family issues to school issues to the disencouragement of the government.
The solutions, in Chicago, have not been completely effective. The strong political bonds of the problems with education keep people from fully reforming education. As history has proven time and time before, the forces that keep any movement from completely making progress have been many and the amount of revolutionaries or reformers completing their tasks have been few. However, as time goes on, the amount of people realizing the problems with education have been increasing. More schools are being turned around or phased out and the amount of community members, students and teachers being affected are greatly increasing.
Education has undergone many changes; from the beliefs that education should be about religion, to being a parent's decision, and to the government a way to make the "perfect" citizens. Reformers understood that in order to make something lawful better for the community, someone needed to stand up and say they disagree with the current laws. The government and lawmakers then reacted and revolutionary ideas have become the result of the hard work of the men and women who stood up for their beliefs. In 2012, students need to be aware of the history behind the reasons why they are in school as well as the overall question of why they are institutionalized at a young age to go to school. Although conservatives and liberals will debate government involvement in education, the extent of one's education is completely solely based on the beliefs of an individual. It is one thing to be told we need to do something and another to question why we do what we do and the importance of it. It is vital for children to know their rights as students and ultimately as human beings. It is necessary to first understand what lies beneath the common knowledge and delve into it further to understand entirely what happens around a person.