Ch.4--Rethinking Education

The Development of American Schooling

This chapter looks at the evolution of the education system in America, of course with a negative tone towards our present-day education which is apparently unsuitable and pressed for change. The chapter shows how we’ve moved from apprenticeship to universal schooling and are presently facing a need for change.

I guess new thinking I’ve gained from this chapter is: as life changes, our methods of education change, but apparently our current system is broken according to the book, so this is news to me. I however, don’t consider our current system broken, so I’m trying to examine what the authors of Rethinking Education in The Age of Technology are precisely speaking of. As a future educator, I will not get stuck in one way of teaching; I hope to diversify my teaching style and methods to fit the needs of my students.

So basically the spread of knowledge fostered by the invention of the printing press, the Reformation, the American Revolution, and the Industrial Revolution lead to America’s current education system. The invention of the printing press helped to spread information and knowledge to a larger population than before. With the Reformation, religious leaders insisted that the Bible be translated for the public to read and understand on their own. The American Revolution demanded an educated population to make sounds political decisions since the government became a Republic ran by the people. Ultimately, the formal system of education is to blame at the cause of the Industrial Revolution which brought people out of the fields and into cities to work which left children to work (which child labor laws reduced), to cause substantial trouble, or to be educated. Education seems like the good choice to me as well.

So as education became mandatory, the schools evolved in different ways to resolve various issues of the rapidly urbanizing country. Attendance was made mandatory; schools were divided into grades; tests were given to track progress and sort students into grades; textbooks were implemented to help with uniformity in learning and content for teachers to instruct; Carnegie units helped to keep the uniformity in a national aspect; and comprehensive high schools offered a variety of courses for students to choose from. “But as the system became more rigid, it ceased to evolve as the society around it continued to evolve, and so in recent years, it has become more and more out of sync with the demands of a continually evolving society” (p. 56). Now, the authors suggest that our education system has failed us and that we are stuck teaching for the last century. With technology replacing people in jobs, the authors insist we must learn to use technology rather rely on the memorization of facts and figures. It seems that these authors have no hope unless there is a drastic and radical reform in education where we all get feeds implanted in our brains and strictly work from computers 24/7. The fact that I’m taking a required technology in education course can attest to the fact that the education system isn’t against technology and is working to incorporate such things to aid in the realm of learning.

“Three demographic changes have also led to the changing in pressures on schools: 1) the increase in the life span, 2) the decline in the birthrate, and 3) the increasing diversity of the American population” (p. 63). So, 1) since there are more people out of school without children in school, they don’t want to pay the taxes to support public education, which is bogus because the taxes of other people went to them for their education, so it’s only fair they pay their dues; and my favorite, 2) “…the opening of other occupations to women has meant that schools have had increasing difficulty in attracting the best and brightest women to a traditionally female-dominated profession” (p. 63). I’m not quite sure what they’re trying to say here. Is that statement flattery or blame? I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt, but I bet a large part of budget cuts in schools has a lot to do with intelligent women with degrees seeking other higher paying vocations.