1. Philosophy of Education
1.1. Pragmatism: Comes from the Greek word "pragma" meaning work. Pragmatism is a philosophy that encourages people to find processes that work in order to achieve their desired ends.
1.1.1. Generic Notes
1.1.1.1. Founded on the new psychology, behaviorism, and the philosophy of pragmatism. John Dewey's ideas were influenced by the theory of evolution and the belief in progress.
1.1.2. Key Researchers
1.1.2.1. Francis Bacon (1561-1626): Sought a new way of thinking in which people abandoned the traditions of the past for a more experiential approach to the world.
1.1.2.2. John Locke (1632-1704): He believed that the mind was a blank slate, and that one acquired knowledge through one's senses.
1.1.2.3. Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778): Believed that individuals in their primitive state were naturally good and that society corrupts them.
1.1.2.4. John Dewey (1859-1952): Saw the world as dynamic and developing. Developed the theory of natural selection.
1.1.3. Goal of Education
1.1.3.1. John Dewey believed that philosophy had a responsibility to society and that ideas required laboratory testing. He believed that school should function as preparation for life in a democratic society.
1.1.4. Role of the Teacher
1.1.4.1. In progressive setting, the teacher is no longer the authoritarian figure from which knowledge flows. Instead, the teacher encourages, offers suggestions, questions, and helps plan courses of study.
1.1.5. Method of Instruction
1.1.5.1. John Dewey believed that children should start their mode of inquiry by posing questions about what they want to know. Today we know this method as the "problem-solving" method.
1.1.6. Curriculum
1.1.6.1. Progressive educators are not wedded to a fixed curriculum, rather the curriculum should change as the social order changes and as children change interests and needs.
2. Sociology of Education
2.1. Five Effects of Schooling on Individuals
2.1.1. Knowledge
2.1.1.1. The more education individuals receive, the more likely they are to read books, newspapers, and magazines. It is clear that when evaluating the impact of education, the more years of schooling leads to a greater knowledge and social participation.
2.1.2. Employment
2.1.2.1. Most students believe that graduating from college will lead to greater employment opportunities and they are correct. But, the amount of education is only weakly related to job performance. Many other factors such as age, union, class, can affect income people earn. Getting a college or professional degree is important for earning more money.
2.1.3. Teacher Behavior
2.1.3.1. Teachers have huge impacts on student learning and behavior. Teachers wear many occupational hats such as instructor, disciplinarian, confidant, and employer. Clearly, teachers are models for students and they set standards for students that influence self-esteem and sense of efficacy.
2.1.4. Student Peer Groups
2.1.4.1. It is evident that student cultures play a big role in shaping their educational experience. Schools are more than just collections of people. they help develop cultures and traditions. These groups can help lead to what kind of career students pursue and their social groups and friends they make.
2.1.5. Gender
2.1.5.1. Gender discrimination is another way schools can reproduce inequalities. Women and men do not share equally society. Men are frequently paid more than women and women in general have fewer job opportunities than men do.
3. History of U.S. Education
3.1. Brown vs. Board of Education
3.1.1. The unequal and separate education of African-Americans in the South had become a focal point of the civil rights movement between the 193s though the 1950s. In 1954, Brown vs. Topeka Board of Education was a landmark when the Supreme Court ruled state-imposed segregation was unconstitutional.
3.2. The Radical-Revisionist School
3.2.1. The radical-revisionist historians of education, argued that the history of the U.S. education was the story of expanded success for different reasons and with different results. They did not deny it had expanded, they believed that it had expanded to meet the needs of elites in the society for the control of working class, immigrants, and for economic efficiency.
4. Curriculum and Pedagogy
4.1. Sociologist
4.1.1. Focus not only on what is taugh but why it is taugh
4.1.2. Believe in formal and hidden curriculum being taught in the classroom
4.2. Traditions of Teaching
4.2.1. Mimetic Tradition: based on the view point that the purpose of education is to transmit specific knowledge to students.
4.2.2. Didactic Method: A method that commonly relies on the lecture or presentation as the main form of communication.
5. Equality and Opportunity
5.1. Class
5.1.1. Class favors wealthy families over middle and lower class families. High class students are more likely to finish school that lower and working class students.
5.2. Race
5.2.1. Race has a direct impact on how much education a student will achieve, It is not a surprise that minority students receive less educational opportunities than white students do.
5.3. Gender
5.3.1. Today, females are less likely to drop out of schools than males are, and they have a higher reading level proficiency than males. Males however, have higher outcomes in math than females.
5.4. Coleman Study 1982
5.4.1. The average test scores of public school and private school sophomores were compared and not one public school student scored higher than private school students.
5.4.2. Coleman and colleagues argued that private schools were more effective than public school environments, because of the aacademic emphasis they place on students.
6. Schools and Organizations
6.1. District 6
6.1.1. State Senator: Larry Stutts
6.1.2. House of Representatives: Phil Williams
6.1.3. State Superintendent: Michael Sentance
6.1.4. Lauderdale County Superintendent: Johnathan Hatton
6.1.5. Florence City Superintendent: Janet Womack
7. Politics of Education
7.1. The Four Purposes of Education
7.1.1. 1. The Intellectual Purpose: To teach basic cognitive skills, to transmit specific knowledge, and to help students acquire higher-order thinking skills.
7.1.2. 2. The Political Purpose: To inculcate allegiance to the political order, to help assimilate diverse cultural groups in a common political order, to prepare participants in this political order, and to teach the basic laws of the society.
7.1.3. 3. The Social Purpose: To help solve social problems, to work as one to ensure social unity, and to socialize children into the society.
7.1.4. 4. The Economic Purpose: To prepare students for their later occupational roles and to then select, train, and allocate individuals into the division of labor.
7.2. The Liberal Perspective
7.2.1. Believes that a free market can be prone to significant abuses, to groups who are disadvantaged politically and economically. Liberal view believes that cycles of recession that must be addressed through government intervention. The liberal perspective insists that government involvement in the political, economical, and social areas is necessary to ensure fair treatment of all citizens.
8. Educational Inequality
8.1. Cultural Deprivation Theories
8.1.1. Suggests that working class and non-white families lack cultural resources like books and other materials. They assert that poor class families lack the value system that middle class culture has.
8.1.2. Programs such as "head Start" are based on the assumptions that because poor class families lack materials and resources, the schools should provide an environment to make up for their lost time.
8.2. Functionalists believe that schooling should be based on student differences and not the differences of the group or class. Conflict theorists believe that the role of schoolings is to reproduce inequality and not eliminate it. Interactionism believe that you must understand how families and schools interact on a regular daily basis in order to comprehend academic factors of success and failure. Multidimensionals believe that inequality in education is the product of the relationship between sociental, interactional, institutional, and intrapsychic points.
9. Educational Reform
9.1. No Child Left Behind: mandates uniform standards for all students in order to reduce and remove social class and race achievements in schools.
9.1.1. Requires annual testing of students in grades 3-8 in reading and math, plus one test in grades 10-12 with science tests to follow.
9.1.2. Schools must have "high qualified" teachers for the core academic subjects such as foreign languages, government, and geography.
9.2. Race to the Top: primary goal is to aid states in meeting the components of No Child Left Behind Act.
9.2.1. Adopts standards and assessments that prepare students to succeed in college and In the workplace
9.2.2. Turning around low achieving schools.
9.3. School-to-Work Opportunities Act of 1994
9.3.1. Signed by President Bill Clinton, this allowed states and partners to bring together educational reform and work preparation to provide youth with high wage and high skill careers.
9.4. School-Business Partnerships
9.4.1. In the 1980s business leaders became concerned that the U.S schools were not producing graduates necessary for the economy. Many business partnerships were formed with schools to help. Many included programs were a business adopted a school or gave scholarships to poor students. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation given millions of dollars to small schools.