1. Philip Jackson, in his insightful book, The Practice of Teaching (1986), provided a thoughtful discussion of the philosophical dimensions of teaching. He suggested that there have been different views about teaching- some see it as an art or craft while others see it as a scientific enterprise with distinct and testable methodological principles.
2. Philosophy of Education
2.1. Engaging in philosophy helps teachers and prospective teachers to clarify what they or intend to do and, as they act or propose to act, to justify or explain why they do what they do in a logical, systematic manner
2.1.1. Thus, the activity of doing philosophy aids teachers in understanding two very important notions:
2.1.2. 1.) Who they are or intend to be
2.1.3. 2.) Why the do or propose to do what they do.
2.2. To proceed in doing philosophy, cetain key questions are posed that can be divided into three specific areas of philosophical inquiry.
2.2.1. 1.) Metaphysics which is a branch of philosophy that concerns itself with questions about the nature of reality.
2.2.2. 2.) Epistemology which is a branch of philosophy that concerns itself with questions about nature of knowledge.
2.2.3. 3.) Axiology which is a branch of philosophy that concerns itself with the nature of values.
3. Schools as Organizations
3.1. The Structure of U.S. Education
3.1.1. The organization of U.S. schools is complex on several levels.
3.2. Governance
3.2.1. When the Constitution of the United States was written, its authors indicated that those powers were not mentioned explicitly as belonging got federal government were retained by individual states.
3.2.2. The federal government made no claims concerning its authority relative to education, the states retained their authority and responsibility for education. Therefore, the United States has 50 separate state school systems. There is even a private school system within each state
3.2.3. Most U.S. public schools are paid for by the revenue that is raised by local property taxes.
3.3. Size and Degree of Centralization
3.3.1. It is estimated that more thank 55 million students are enrolled in kindergarten through the twelfth grade and that the cost of educating these children is over $650 billion annually.
3.4. Student Composition
3.4.1. In 2010, 53.5% of the students in primary and secondary public schools were white.
3.4.2. Of the 50 states and the District of Columbia, 16 have less that 50 percent of white students, and 10 states have almost no minority students. Some large states such as California, Texas, and New York are extremely mixed racially.
3.4.3. In 2009, in NYC, 85.6% of the students were nonwhite; in LA, 91.3%; Detroit 97.4% of the system's students were from minority backgrounds.
3.4.4. What this means is that the student composition of U.S. schools is becoming more diverse at the same time that there has been a trend toward increasing residential segregation. Student composition can also be viewed along other dimensions such as gender, class, ethnicity, and even ability
3.5. Degree of "Openness"
3.5.1. Public schools in the US are organized as elementary, junior high or middle school, and high school.
3.5.1.1. elementary schools usually contain K-6, junior high 7-9, and high school 9-12.
3.5.1.1.1. Usually children start kindergarten at age 5 and graduate at age 18.
3.5.2. The US school system is quite open, all children are entitled to enroll into public schools and to remain in school until they graduate.
3.6. Private Schools
3.6.1. Tend to attract students from families that are relatively affluent and have a commitment to education.
3.6.2. There are approximately 28,200 elementary and secondary private schools in the US, enrolling 5.5 million students.
3.6.3. Private schools constitute 25% of all elementary and secondary schools and educate 10% of the student population. The mean student enrollment of private schools is 193; only 7% of private schools enroll more than 600 students.
3.6.4. There is a tremendous amount of diversity in the private sector.
3.6.4.1. there are 15 major categories of private schools: Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Jewish, Seventh Day Adventist, Independent, Episcopal, Greek Orthodox,, Quaker, Mennonite, Calvinist, Evangelical, Assembly of God, Special Education , Alternative, and Military.
3.6.5. Most private schools are located on the East and West Coasts. Connecticut has the highest percent of private schools, while Wyoming has the lowest amount.
4. Curriculum and Pedagogy
4.1. Pedagogic Practices: How the Curriculum is Taught
4.1.1. Sociologists of education (Bernstein, 1990; Sadovnik, 1991a) suggest that different pedagogic practices, like different curricula, are differentially offered to different groups of students, often based on class, racial, ethnic, and gender differences.
4.2. The Philosophy of Teaching: Differing Views on Pedagogic Practices
4.2.1. The mimetic tradition is based on the viewpoint that the purpose of education is to transmit specific knowledge to students.
4.2.2. The best method of transmitting knowledge is through what is termed the didactic method, a method that commonly relies on the lecture or presentation as the main form of communication.
4.2.3. How something is taught is important to you because it can make the difference between learning the material or not learning it.
4.2.4. The transformative tradition rests on a different set of assumptions about the teaching and learning process. Although learning information makes the student different than he or she was before, this model defines the function of education more broadly and, according to some, more ambiguously.
5. Equality of Opportunity
5.1. Class
5.1.1. Students in different social classes have different kinds of educational experiences.
5.1.1.1. There are several factors that can influence these class-based expectations. Education is Expensive...The longer a student stays in school the more likely the student will need financial support from their parents.
5.1.2. Middle and upper middle-class children are more likely to speak "standard" English. Teachers have been found to think more highly of middle-class and upper-class children than they do of working class and underclass children, because working-class and underclass children do not speak middle-class English. The leads to labeling children, ostensibly according to their abilities but covertly according to their social class backgrounds.
5.1.3. It is a little wonder, then, that class is directly related to achievement and to educational attainment; there is a direct correlation between parental income and children's performance on achievement tests, as well as placement in ability groups and curriculum track in high school
5.2. Race
5.2.1. Despite the Civil Rights legislation of the 1960s, U.S. society is still highly stratified by race. An individual's race has a direct impact on how much education he or she is likely to achieve.
5.2.1.1. Among 16-24 year old, for instance, 5.2 percent of white students drop out of school. Whereas, 9.3 percent of African-Americans students, and 17.6 percent of Hispanic-American students are likely to drop out of school.
5.2.1.2. Among 17 year-olds, 89 percent of whites will be able to read at the intermediate level. However, 66 percent of African-American students have reached that level of reading proficiency and 70 percent of Hispanic-American students are reading at the intermediate level.
5.2.2. The race is related to educational outcomes is undeniable, although, given the nature of U.S. society, it is extremely difficult to separate race from class.
5.3. Gender
5.3.1. Historically, an individual's gender was directly related to his or her educational attainment. Even though women are often rated as being better students than men, in the past they were less likely to drop out of school than males, and are more likely to have a higher level of reading proficiency than males. The same is true for writing. The one area that men outperform females is in the mathematics proficiency.
5.3.2. Overall, males are more likely to score higher on the SATs than females. It should be added that more women are attending pos-secondary institutions than men, although it is true that many of the postsecondary institutions that women attend are less academically and socially prestigious than those postsecondary institutions attending by men.
5.3.3. In the last 20 years, gender differences between men and women, in terms of educational attainment, have been reduced.
6. Educational Inequality
6.1. Student-Centered Explanations
6.1.1. in the 1960s, sociologists of education interested in educational inequality often worked from a set of liberal political and policy assumptions about why students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, often did less well in school than students from higher socioeconomic backgrounds.
6.1.1.1. The conventional wisdom of the time suggested that economically disadvantaged students attended inferior schools- schools that spent less money on each student, schools that spent less money on materials and extracurricular activities, and schools that had inferior teachers.
6.1.2. A number of research studies in the 1960s and 1970s demonstrated, however, that the conventional liberal wisdom was far too simplistic and that solutions were far more complex.
6.1.3. If school differences and financing did not explain unequal educational performance, then perhaps the schools themselves were not the most important factor.
7. Politics of Education
7.1. Conservative View- is a positive view of U.S. society and it ensures maximum productivity with the greatest degree of individual freedom.
7.2. Traditional visions tend to view the schools as necessary to the transmission of the traditional values of U.S. society, such as hard work, family unity, individual initiative, and so forth.
7.3. Back to Basics
7.4. School Privatization
7.5. The conservative perspective believes that schools should ensure that all students have the opportunity to compete individually in the educational marketplace and that schools should be meritocratic to the extent that individual effort is rewarded
7.6. Achievement is based on hard work and sacrifice
7.7. okay thanks for submitting
8. History of U.S. Education
8.1. Education for Women
8.1.1. Traditionally, the role for women in society was to be a helpmate or homemaker to the male.
8.1.2. This perspective held throughout the nineteenth and twentieth century.
8.1.3. Emma Hart Willard, in 1821, opened the Troy Female Seminary in Troy, New York. The curriculum included Math, Science, History, and Geography. Emma wanted the women to have the same education as the men did.
8.1.4. Mary Lyon founded Mount Holyoke Seminary in 1837. She also wanted the women to have the same education as the men did.
8.1.5. In 1865, the first of the Seven Sisters women's colleges was founded in Poughkeepsie, New York known as Vassar College.
8.2. Education for African Americans
8.2.1. In 1833, not only did Oberlin Collegiate Institution open its doors for women, but they also opened their doors for African Americans.
8.2.2. After Nat Turner's Revolt in 1831, many Southerners believed more than ever that literacy bred both insubordination and revolution. In return, they forbade the teaching of reading and writing to the slave population.
8.2.3. Because of the dismal picture of schooling for African Americans, Benjamin Roberts filed a legal suit in Boston in 1846 in requirement that his daughter attend a segregated school. The case, Roberts v. City of Boston, was ruled that the local school committee had the right to establish separate educational facilities for whites and blacks. Therefore, African Americans were encouraged to establish their own schools
8.2.4. President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. This announced the end of slavery. In 1865, Congress passed the Thirteenth Amendment which freed all slaves. In 1868, the Fourteenth Amendment was passed which gave full citizenship to all ex slaves.
8.2.5. Although the Fourteenth Amendment and Freedman's Bureau attempted to help reconstruct the slaves lives and give them full citizenship, the Klu Klux Klan continued to spread racial hatred, and Jim Crow Laws and Black Codes in the South continued discrimination against the blacks.
8.2.6. In 1868, the Freedman's Bureau helped establish Black Colleges, including Howard University, and Hampton Institute.
9. Sociological Perspectives
9.1. Without some idea of how the major elements in society fits together, teachers are at a loss in understanding the relation between school and society.
9.2. Persell, in her Education and Inequality book, provided a model for analyzing the relationship between school and society through four interrelated levels of sociology.
9.2.1. The societal level includes the most general structures of a society.
9.2.2. The institutional society includes a society's major institutions.
9.2.3. The interpersonal level includes the process, symbols, and interactions that occur within such institutional settings.
9.2.4. The intrapsychic level includes individual thoughts, beliefs, values, and feelings.
10. Educational Reform
10.1. Federal Involvement in Education
10.1.1. President G.H.W Bush, with the support of the National Governors Association, announced six national goals for U.S. education
10.1.1.1. 1. By the year 2000, all children will start school ready to learn.
10.1.1.2. 2. By the year 2000, the high school graduation rate will increase to at least 90 percent,
10.1.1.3. 3. By the year 2000, American students will have grades 4,8, and 12, having demonstrated competency in challenging subject matter, including English, Math, science, history, and geography, and every school in American will ensure that all students learn to use their minds well, so they may be prepared for responsible citizenship, further learning, and productive employment in our modern economy.
10.1.1.4. 4. By the year 2000, U.S. students will be first in the world in math and science achievement.
10.1.1.5. 5. By the year 2000, every adult American will be literate and will possess the skills necessary to compete in a global economy and exercise the rights and responsibilities of citizenship.
10.1.1.6. 6. By the year 2000, every school in America will be free of drugs and violence and will offer a disciplined environment conductive to learning.
10.1.2. Until 1993, President Bush's educational reform proposal America 2000, based on these national goals, was in the implementation stage. America 2000 built on four related themes.
10.1.2.1. 1. creating better and more accountable schools for today's students.
10.1.2.2. 2. creating a New Generation of American schools for tomorrow's students.
10.1.2.3. 3. transforming America into a nation of students.
10.1.2.4. 4. making our communities places where learning will happen.
10.1.3. Within each of the objectives, America 2000 proposed a number of specific goals.
10.1.3.1. 1. World Class Standards in Five Core Subjects(English, math, science, history, and geography).
10.1.3.2. 2. A system of voluntary national examinations.
10.1.3.3. 3. Schools as the site of reforms.
10.1.3.4. 4. Providing and promoting school choice.
10.1.3.5. 5. Promoting outstanding leadership by teachers and principals.
10.1.4. Creating a new generation of American Schools for tomorrow's students
10.1.4.1. 1. The development of Research and Development teams, funded by the business community, to develop these schools.
10.1.4.2. 2. The creation of at least 535 New American Schools that "break the mold" of existing school designs.
10.1.4.3. 3. The development of leadership at all levels, federal, state, and local.
10.1.4.4. 4. The commitment of families and children devoted to learning.
10.1.5. Transforming America into a nation of students
10.1.5.1. 1. Strengthening the nation's education effort for yesterday's students, today's workers.
10.1.5.2. 2. Establishing standards for job skills and knowledge.
10.1.5.3. 3. Creating business and community skill clinics.
10.1.5.4. 4. Enhancing job training opportunities.
10.1.5.5. 5. Mobilizing a "nation of students," by transforming a "Nation at Risk" into a "Nation of Students."
10.1.6. Making our communities places where learning will happen.
10.1.6.1. 1. Developing greater parental involvement.
10.1.6.2. 2. Enhancing program effectiveness for children and communities.