Foundations of Education

1. Philosophy of Education

1.1. Generic Notions: Plato distrusted the world of matter.

1.2. Modern Idealists: St. Augustine-added religion to classical idealism.

1.3. Goal of Education: teachers encourage their students to search for truth as individuals which leads to responsibility.

1.4. Role of the teacher: to analyze and discuss ideas with students.

1.5. Methods of Instruction: through questioning, students are encouraged to discuss, analyze, synthesize, and apply what they have read to society.

1.6. Curriculum: For Idealists, all problems have their roots from the past and can best be understood by examining how previous individuals dealt with them.

2. Schools as Organizations

2.1. My District: State Senators: Jefferson Sessions and Richard Shelby. Alabama state senate is composed of 35 senators.

2.2. House of Representatives: Composed of 105 members. Members of house are elected to 4 year terms. Must be 21 years of age.

2.3. State Superintendent: Tommy Bice. Representative on state school board: Governor Robert Bentley-President.

2.4. Local Superintendent-Dr. Brian Lindsey (Muscle Shoals City Schools)

2.5. Local School Board: currently 5 board members.

2.6. Germany: selects and sorts its children at a relatively young age and puts them into a tripartite system of secondary education. Germany system is opposite of U.S. system.

3. Curriculum and Pedagogy

3.1. Historical: Social Meliorist Curriculum-concerned with the role of the schools in reforming society.

3.2. This should change society, or, at the least, help solve its fundamental problems.

3.3. Propose that the school curriculum should teach students to think and help solve societal problems, if not to change the society itself.

3.4. Sociology: Concentrates on the function of what is taught in schools and its relationships to the role of schools within society.

3.5. Modern functionalist theory: stressed the role of the schools in preparing students for the increasingly complex roles required in a modern society.

3.6. Functionalists believe that schools teach students the values that are essential to a modern society.

4. Equality of Opportunity

4.1. Students with special needs:1975 passed the Education of All Handicapped Children Law

4.2. Law reauthorized in 1996 as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

4.3. By the mid-1980's, the efficacy of the law became a critical issue for policy makers and advocates of the disabled.

4.4. Coleman Study: Response to Coleman Round One.

4.5. Where an individual goes to school has little effect on his or her cognitive growth or educational mobility.

4.6. This assumption was the foundation that justifies busing students between schools and between school districts.

5. Educational Inequality

5.1. Functionalists: they believe that the role of the school is to provide a fair and meritocratic selection process for sorting out the best and brightest individuals, regardless of family background.

5.2. Functionalists expect that the schooling process will produce unequal results.

5.3. Functionalists focus on the attempts to provide equality of opportunity and results.

5.4. Genetic Differences: the most controversial student-centered explanation.

5.5. Biological explanations of human behavior are viewed as limited because social scientists believe that environmental and social factors are largely responsible for human behavior.

5.6. Question remains: is there evidence to support the argument that differences in school performance among groups of students are due to genet differences among these groups, particularly in intelligence.

6. Educational Reform

6.1. Privatization: Public vs. Private Schools

6.2. Private education companies increasingly becoming involved in public education in a variety of ways.

6.3. Companies taking over failing schools and districts.

6.4. Full Service and Community Schools: Attacking education inequity.

6.5. Examining and planing to educate not only the whole child, but also the whole community.

6.6. Full Service schools focus on meeting students' and their families educational, physical, psychological, and social needs in a coordinated and collaborative fashion between school and community services.

7. Politics of Education

7.1. The Conservative Perspective looks at social evolution as a process that enables the strongest individuals and/or groups to survive

7.2. Also, it looks at human and social evolution as adaptation to changes in the environment

7.3. Central to this perspective is the view that individuals are rational actors who make decisions on a cost-benefit scale.

7.4. Progression visions tend to view the schools as central to solving social problems.

7.5. Progressives believe the schools should be part of the steady progress to make things better.

7.6. Progressive visions also tend to view the schools as an integral part of a democratic society.

8. History of U.S. Education

8.1. The Reform Movement that has had the most influence in my opinion would be Education for Women and African-Americans because even though educational opportunities for women were expanding, education for African-Americans was severely limited.

8.2. This caused a legal suit in Boston because before this they wanted blacks to attend a separate school than whites.

8.3. Finally in 1863, Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation which announced the end of slavery in all states.

8.4. One interpretation is the Democratic-Liberal School who believed that the history of U.S. education involves the progressive evolution, albeit flawed, of a school system committed to providing equality of opportunity for all.

8.5. They also believe that the U.S. educational system must continue to move closer to each, without sacrificing one or the other too dramatically.

8.6. They always try to interpret U.S. educational history optimistically even though the nation's schools has a flawed, often conflictual march toward increased opportunities.

9. Sociological Perspectives

9.1. The relation between school and society states that sociologists almost always have a theory about the organization of society and how it shapes the education of children.

9.2. Schools shape children's perceptions of the world by process of socialization.

9.3. The values, beliefs, and norms of society are internalized within children so that they come to think and act like other members of society.

9.4. Education is also related to individual's sense of well-being and self esteem. It is clear that even taking into account the importance of individual social class background when evaluating the impact of education, more years of schooling leads to greater knowledge and social participation.

9.5. Getting a college and professional degree is important for earning more money, but education alone does not fully explain differences in levels of income.

9.6. Most Americans believe that more education leads to economic and social mobility; individuals rise and fall based on their merit.