1. Philosophy of Education- Pragmatism
1.1. Generic Notions
1.1.1. Dewey's form of pragmatism was progressive and formed with the introduction of 2 terms: 1. Instrumentalism: Pragmatic relationship between school and society. 2. Experimentalism: Application of ideas to educational practice on an experimental basis
1.1.2. Influenced by the theory of evolution and optimistic beliefs in progress. Dewey believed education could translate to the attainment of a better society.
1.1.3. Children should learn through experience as well as by more the traditional book learning. This combined with learning to work together would prepare them for life in a democratic society.
1.1.4. Children should have freedom and responsibility in the classroom since these are part of a democratic society. Courses of study should reflect the stages of development that students are in.
1.2. Key Researchers
1.2.1. George Sanders Peirce, William James, and John Dewey
1.3. Goals of Education
1.3.1. To help prepare students for life in a democratic society
1.3.2. "Dialetic of freedom"- the belief that society should balance the needs of society on one hand and the beliefs on the individual on the other; this tension is referred to the dialetic of freedom which was termed by Maxine Greene and imperative when trying to understand Dewey's work.
1.3.3. School should help move society forward
1.4. Role of Teacher
1.4.1. Teacher acts as facilitator to learning; teachers offer suggestions, questions, and develops curriculum.
1.5. Method of Instruction
1.5.1. Students should learn individually and in groups
1.5.2. Problem-solving or inquiry method--Students should begin inquiry by posing questions about what they want to know.
1.5.3. Field trips & Projects
1.6. Curriculum
1.6.1. Integrated curriculum
1.6.2. Progressive educators support thinking about current issues; working from the known to the unknown, or "curriculum of expanding environments"
2. Schools as Organizations
2.1. Nature of Teaching
2.1.1. Teaching is an especially demanding profession due to the role switching between things like teacher, friend, nurturer, and community activist. (p. 234)
2.1.2. Teachers have to wear many personal and professional "hats" which often lead to burn out.
2.1.3. The teaching styles that teachers develop are special and highly personal.
2.1.4. Teaching is personal and difficult. The only rewards to be won are from students since teachers seldom get feedback from peers or bosses
2.1.5. The goals of teaching are not always clear; teachers are held accountable for student learning, though many needs must be met other than learning. teachers must be sensitive to the needs of the class as a whole as well as the individual students in order to be effective.
2.2. Professionalization
2.2.1. Teachers are not always especially qualified for their jobs. Some teach out-of-field meaning they are teaching a subject outside of their degree.
2.2.2. To be considered "highly qualified" under the NCLB standards, teachers must hold a bachelors degree, full certification or licensure, and content knowledge.
2.2.3. The "best and brightest" are not often interested in teaching and those who do go into it often exit quickly.
2.2.4. Sociologist Dan Lortie (1975) argues that teaching, particularly elementary school teaching is only partially professionalized" (236). This is because teachers receive income from one large "client" and they are unlikely to have teaching opportunities outside of the school they teach in.
2.2.5. Lortie (1975) argues that their socialization isn ot proven to be highly professional with standards of behavior associated with other porefssional fields.
3. Curriculum & Pedagogy
3.1. Limestone County Education Stakeholders
3.1.1. Local superintendent :
3.1.1.1. Dr. Tom Sisk
3.1.2. State Senators
3.1.2.1. Senate President: Kay Ivey (R) Majority Leader: J.T. Waggoner (R) Minority leader: Vivian Figures
3.1.3. House of Representatives
3.1.3.1. House Speaker: Mike Hubbard (R) Majority Leader: Micky Hammon (R) Minority leader: Craig Ford (D)
3.1.4. State Superintendent
3.1.4.1. Dr. Tommy Bice
3.1.5. Representative on state school board
3.1.5.1. Bret McGill
3.1.6. Local School Board
3.1.6.1. Mr. Charles Shoulders Mr. Marty Sanders Mr. Bradley Young Mr. Earl Graze Mr. Bret McGill Mr. Edward Winter Mr. Anthony
3.2. CUrriculum Theory
3.2.1. Social Efficiency--different groups of students have different sets of needs, so they should receive different types of schooling. Individiaulized and flexible curriculum
3.3. Approach to Curriculum
3.3.1. Multicultural & Feminist It is important for students to learn about types of groups other than just white males. In my future literature classes, I plan to teach novels not just written by or written about white men.
3.4. Pedagogical Practice
3.4.1. Transformative-- Meaning that the function of school is about more than simply passing knowledge to students. The purpose of schooling is to change students in some meaningful way. Dewey's belief about the goal of education was simple and ambiguous: "growth leading to more growth" (297).
4. Equality of Opportunity
4.1. Educational achievement and attainment of women
4.1.1. In the past, women were less likely to attain the same level of education as men. However, today women are often rated as being better students.
4.1.2. Today, females are less likely to drop out of school and often have a higher reading and writing proficiency than males.
4.1.3. More women today are attending post secondary institutions.
4.1.4. In the last 20 years, gender difference in terms of educational attainment have been reduced
4.1.5. Men are more likely to haven a easier time competing for spots in prestigious academic schools.
4.1.6. Boys outperform girls in mathematics and science.
5. Educational Inequality
5.1. Student centered explanations
5.1.1. Schooling process is meritocratic, and educational inequalities are caused by factors outside the schooling process
5.1.2. STudents from lower socioeconomic backgrounds often do less well in school
5.1.3. The Coleman report concludes that educational inequality has more to do with students: their families, neighborhood and communties, their culture, and maybe even their genetic make up..
5.1.3.1. CUltural Deprivation Theory Suggests that working class and nonwhite families often lack the cultural resources, such as books and other educational stimuli, and thus arrive at school at a significant disadvantage Oscar Lewis--> theorists assert that the poor have a deprive dculture--one that lacks the value system of middle-class culture These theories led to the creation of programs like head start, which is meant to intervene in the education of poor studetns
5.1.3.2. CUltural Difference thoery ARgue that while non white students may come to school disadvantages, it is not because of deficenicies in their home life, but rather due to them being an oppressed minority.
5.1.3.3. School financing Jonathan Kozol looked at the difference between fundnig in poorly funded schools vs highly funded schools and found stark differences. In Serrano vs. Priest, the california supreme ourct ruled the system of unequal school finanncig between wealthy and poor districts unconstitutional.
6. Politics of Education
6.1. Radical
6.1.1. Does NOT believe that free market capitalism is the best form of economic organization, but rather believes that democratic socialism is a fairer political-economic system. (p.25)
6.1.2. Based on writings by Karl Marx (1818-1883) who argued that the capitalist system, while highly productive, produces fundamental contradictions (p.25)
6.1.3. Believe that the capitalist system is central to U.S social problems. Social problems are caused by the structure of society and solutions must be addressed to this structure, not to individuals (p.25)
6.1.4. Assert that only a transformation of capitalism into democratic socialism will ensure that the social problems will be addressed (p. 25).
6.1.5. Believe that schools should reduce inequality of educational results and provide upward social mobility, but that historically the schools have been ineffective in attaining these noble goals (p. 28).
6.1.6. Believe that the educational system has failed the poor and minorities through classist, racist, sexist, and homophobic policies (p. 29).
6.2. Progressive
6.2.1. View schools as central to solving social problems, as a vehicle for upward mobility, as essential to the development of individual potential, and as an integral part of the democratic society (p. 26)).
6.2.2. Encompass the left liberal to the radical spectrums (p.27).
7. History of U.S Education
7.1. The Age of Reform: The Rise of the common school
7.1.1. From 1820-1860, enormous changes took place with unprecedented speed. The industrial revolution brought factories which in turn cause Urban areas to grow dense as many migrants flocked to the states (p. 67).
7.1.2. In the decades following 1850, uneducated reformers emerged whose goals were secular in nature. America would become a secular paradise created by the new reformers (p. 67).
7.1.3. This reform movement wanted to address issues of slavery, mental illness, intemperance, and pacifism. Reformers agreed that the answer lied in education (p.67).
7.1.4. Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote of this age, "We are all a little wild here with numberless projects of social reform" (p. 67).
7.1.5. The struggle for free public education was led by Horace Mann,, a lawyer from Massachusetts, who abandoned his career in order to fight for a state board of education.. He also helped createt he first teacher training school which was established in Massachusetts in 1839 (p. 67). Man argued that school was a preparation for citizenship as well as "the great equalizer of the conditions of men" (p. 68).
7.1.6. By 1820, the movement for education for women was becoming more important (p. 28).
7.1.7. During the period before the civil war, education opportunities for African-Americans was limited since most southerners believed that literacy bred revolution. In 1847, Benjamin Roberts filed a legal suit over a requirement that his daughter go to a segregated school (p. 69). In 1865, slaves were freed and in 1868, they obtained citizenship.
7.1.8. The common school was born of an age of reform in this country that was unprecedented until the period between 1900 and 1914.
7.1.9. Dewey made a huge contribution to both the philosophy of education and pedagogic practice (p. 71).
7.2. The Radical-Revisionist School
7.2.1. in 1960, Radical historians, sociologists, and political economists of education challenged the optimistic vision of democratic-liberal historians (p. 83).
7.2.2. The radical revisionist historians of education revised the history of education in a more critical direction. Michael Kats (1968), Joel Spring (1972), and Clarence Karier (1976) argue that schools expanded to meet the needs of the elitists in society for the control of the working class and immigrants, and for economic efficiency, leading to more stratification within the system with the poor and minorities getting the short end of the stick (pp. 83-84).
7.2.2.1. Michael Kats (1968) argued that it was the economic interests of nineteenth -century capitalists that explain the expansion of schooling. He argued that educational reformers stressed the ability for schools to train factory workers, to socialize immigrants into US. values and to create stability in the newly expanding urban environments (p. 84).
7.2.2.2. Historians Joel Spring (1972) and Clarence Karier (1976) later argued that expansion of the schools really was done more so in the interests of control than in the interests of equity (p. 84).
7.2.2.2.1. Joel spring argues that this perspective "advances the idea that schools were shaped as instruments of the corporate liberal state for main stream social control" and that "public schools were seen as an important instrument used by the government to aid in the rationalization and minimization of conflict by selecting and training students for future positions in the economy and by imbuing the population with a sense of cooperation and national spirit (p.84).
7.2.2.3. The explanation of this expansion is more complex since other radical historians suggest that the working class wanted education for their own reason so they actively supported the expansion.
7.2.2.4. The radical interpretation is a more pessimistic one that suggests that the process benefited the elite more than the masses, and has not produced either equality of opportunity or results (p. 84).
8. Sociological Perspective
8.1. Conflict Theory
8.1.1. Social order is not based on some collective agreement, but ont he ability of dominant groups to impose their will on subordinate groups through force, cooptation, and manipulation (118)
8.1.2. Emphasizes struggles between teachers, students, and administrators.
8.1.3. Randall Collins argued that that educational expansion is best explained by status group struggle.
8.1.4. Weber had an acute and critical awareness ofh w bureaucracy was becoming the dominant type of authority in the modern state; beurocratic ways of thinking were bound to shape educational reforms (119)
8.2. Effects of schooling that impact students most
8.2.1. Tracking: "refers to the placement of students in curricular programs base on students' abilities and inclinations (127).
8.2.1.1. In reality, trackingi s usually decided based off of other criteria such as class or race.
8.2.2. Teacher Behavior: Teachers have a huge mipact on student learning and behavior.