My Foundations of Education

1. Politics of Education

1.1. Intellectual Purpose: to teach cognitive skills such as reading, writing, and mathematics: to transmit specific;and to help students acquire higher-order thinking skills such as analysis, evaluation, and synthesis

1.2. Political Purpose: to teach allegiance to the existing political order; to prepare citizens who will participate in this political order; to help assimilate diverse cultural groups into a common political order; and to teach children the basic laws of society

1.3. Social Purpose: help solve social problems; to work as one of many institutions, such as family and the church to ensure social cohesion; and to socialize children into the various roles, behaviors, and values of the society.

1.4. Economic Purpose: Prepare students for their later occupational  and to select, train, and allocate individuals into the division of labor.

1.5. Role of the School Perspective: It is in the broadest sense directly concerned with the aims, purposes, and functions of education in a society. The Conservative Perspective: sees the role of the school as providing the necessary educational training to ensure that the most talented and hard working individuals receive the tools necessary to maximize economic and social productivity. The Liberal Perspective: stresses the school's role in providing the necessary education to ensure that all students have an equal opportunity to succeed in society. They also believe in the school's role in socializing children into societal roles and teaching children to respect cultural diversity. On the political level, liberals stress the importance of citizenship and participation in a democratic society. They stress individual needs as well as societal needs and thus sees the school's role enabling the individual to develop his or her talents, creativity, and sense of self.

2. History of U.S. Education

2.1. Women were traditionally seen as homemakers, while men had educational opportunities and were the providers. In the beginning of the nineteenth century women's education opportunities were slim to none. Some were educated in basic math and literacy. In the middle of the nineteenth a number of girls were able to attend elementary schools and private institutions. The private institutions were seen as secondary schools. In 1821, the first female academy was opened.  It was Troy Female Seminary and it was located in Troy, New York. The curriculum consisted of mathematics, science, history, and geometry. The curriculum was based off male academies curriculum.  Troy's goal was to give females an education equal to their male counterparts. This reform also gave African Americans the right to go to school as well. In today's world it seems so unreal that only white males were allowed to have a good education. Without this reform African American and all the immigrants we have in the U.S. now would not be allowed to go to school. All the women who are teachers, doctors, police officers, and other important careers would be dominated by men. Women would still be at home raising children and cleaning house. This reform brought equality which is what America is about.

2.2. Democratic-Liberal Interpretation: The Democratic-Liberal interpretation is centered around equal opportunity for all. They saw it as the expansion of opportunity. There are also problems with equity and success, they want the education system to move them together without losing one or the other

3. Sociological Perspectives

3.1. Functional Theories: Thought school and society should work together to create social peace and harmony. Moral values were the foundations of society.

3.2. Conflict Theories: Is centered around the struggle between school and society. School is a struggle for teachers and students and teachers and administration. The power of the school and the ideology to achieve stop the war. The achievement ideology promotes learning and groups students based upon their abilities.  The achievement ideology hides the power within the school that works with society's power

3.3. Interactional Theories: Look at the smaller picture. Interactionalists look at problems that are less talked about and resolve them. They also focus on the interactions between students and teachers and students and students.

3.4. Employment: We have heard all our lives college is the gateway to the "good" jobs. Research proves that you learn by practice not from just going to college. There is a big variance in research between education and income level.

3.5. Student Peer Groups and Alienation: There are cliques in  every school. We are desensitized to to violence. Students against students and students against teachers are a big problem. There are also subcultures within the students: Intellectuals, Careerists, Strivers, and the unconnected. Students hold the keys to their futures. Within the schools they experience culture and socialization.

3.6. Inequality: The U.S. economy can be seen as a triangle with a lot of people at the base of the triangle. Income isn't the only factor that affects social class. Family, education, residence, child-rearing, etc. Race, gender, ethnicity are also major factors. Schools can make this worse, but they should focus on creating an open social environment.

3.7. Inadequate Schools: Inequality and Inadequate schools goes hand in hand. Urban schools in particular have failed the minorities. Suburban and elite private schools tend to have better education experiences.

3.8. Gender: Gender also plays an important role in inequality. In society men and women aren't completely equal. Men get paid more by the hour than women no matter the job. Women also have fewer job opportunities. Girls start out school better than boys, but by the end girls aren't confident and their motivation is lower than boys. Do teachers have an affect on girl's self esteem? Schools can be where gender inequality starts, but society also doesn't help.

4. Philosophy of Education

4.1. General Notions: Dewey was influenced by behaviorism and the philosophy of pragmatism. He thought society could be better through education. Students would learn through experimentation and books to prepare them for the real world. Dewey was seen as progressive. He believed students should be very involved with the planning and learning. Dewey believed children were always growing and changing and their school should reflect that.

4.2. Key Researchers: John Dewey- father of progressivism. Francis Bacon- believed heavily in experience. John Locke- believed children were born tabula rasa and you learn through your senses. Jean Jacques Rousseau- believed everyone was good and it was society that corrupted them.

4.3. Goal of Education: Where ideas are formed, practiced, and critiqued.  Prepare students to be members of a democratic society.

4.4. Role of the Teacher: The teacher is not the authoritarian figure, but a facilitator. They encourage students and guide them in forming their own ideas and opinions.

4.5. Method of Instruction: They start off with inquiring about what they wish to know. Then, they experiment, discuss, and use projects to answer their question. Field trips are also useful. They create experiences which are more memorable and they learn to apply it to the real world.

5. Schools as Organizations

5.1. Superintendent of Alabama: Michael Sentance

5.2. State Senator for Lawrence County, Alabama: Larry Stutts

5.3. House of Representatives for Lawrence County, Alabama: Ken Johnson

5.4. State Board of education Representative for Lawrence County, Alabama: Jeffery Newman

5.5. Superintendent of Lawrence County, Alabama: Jon Bret Smith

5.6. Local School Board Representative: Bobby Burch

5.7. The elements of change in school processes: Schools are full of conflicting goals between teachers' pedagogical goals, students' social goals, and administrators' instructional goals. Schools are also very political. All of these conflicting ideas, goals, and perspectives can cause a lot of tension in schools. Negotiation is key in bringing change to schools. Everyone involved in schools teachers, students, parents, they all have a sincere interest and want things to run in a manner that they perceive is best. The only way to bring change to the school process is negotiation. All the groups with colliding interests must collaborate and compromise.

5.8. The elements of change in school culture: As quoted Exploring Education (2013), "Changing the cultures of schools requires patience, skill, and good will." In all schools there are students who form "cliques". It is just human nature to desire to be around others who you feel are similar to yourself. We tend to seek groups where we feel comfortable. There are also racial and ethnic groups. Changing how people feel about their-self and others is a daunting task. You are changing more than policy, you are are changing a "way of life". It will take a lot of time and effort to bring forth change. It will also take persistence.

6. Curriculum and Pedogogy

6.1. Social Efficiency Curriculum: This curriculum theory is a pragmatic curriculum that calls for different types of schooling for children with different needs and goals.

6.2. Mimetic Tradition: There is a relationship between the learner and the facilitator and the process is passing information. The mimetic tradition calls for clear goals and evaluation of those goals. Transformative Tradition: This tradition focuses on changing the student in a deep, meaningful way. (spiritually, academically, emotionally, etc.) There is a more multidimensional approach in the transformative tradition.

7. Equality of Opportunity

7.1. Class: Education is an expensive process so, upper class families could easily support students. Lower-class families often have lower expectations as well. Teachers also favor middle and upper class students than lower class students. This is where labeling occurs which can affect a student's attitude towards education.

7.2. Race: Minorities receive less educational opportunities than the majorities. There is a lot of statistics that show the drop-out percents, and reading proficiency.

7.3. Gender: Females are less likely to drop of school than males. Females are also better at reading and writing. Males are generally better at math than females. Teachers attitudes about student achievement based on gender affects how each gender actually performs.

7.4. Response 1: The school has little on the cognitive growth or educational mobility. Response 2: The differences between Catholic and public schools' are significant but, the learning difference is not.

8. Educational Inequality

8.1. Cultural Deprivation: 1) Working class and nonwhite students resist the dominant culture of schools. They reject cultures of academic success of other groups. 2) African American children adapt to an oppressed lifestyle because of class. There is a job-ceiling fro African Americans. Parents encourage the inferior chances instead of encouraging children to learn the skills and values to jobs not always open to them.

8.2. School Financing: There is a significant difference in funding in poor district schools and affluent districts. Property taxes play a big role in funding and property tax is determined by the value of the property in communities. Property tax is much lower in poor districts so, they receive less funding. Budget crises in the state also affect education. If there is an area of government that is strapped for money the governor will cut the education fund.

8.3. Effective School Research: There are characteristics that help explain why students achieve better academically. From the Coleman report if the student differences are more important than school differences then teachers are not to blame. The effective school literature helps explain why positive performance schools do better compared to other schools. Another reason is working-class kids are less successful because they attend inferior schools.

9. Educational Reform

9.1. Charter Schools: There is a high demand for charter schools. They are constantly expanding charter school growth and charter school laws. Charter schools differ from public schools because, they do not have some of the same regulations and are held for their student performance. They have free reign on how the school is run, the staff, budget, and curriculum.

9.2. Teacher Education: Teachers have been under fire because of failing schools. Teacher education programs have been looked at closely and are always changing to produce the best results. A study showed that teacher education programs lacked: 1) Rigor and Intellectual demands 2) The need to attract and retain competent teacher candidates 3) Reorganize the academic and professional components at the baccalaureate and post-baccalaureate level.

9.3. School Finance Reforms: Supplemental programs and preschool programs were required in 1998 to reform urban schools. They also equalized funding. Other supplemental programs and services were added.

9.4. Community Schools: Community schools were formed to help educate families psychologically, academically, physically, and socially. They were designed to help at-risk neighborhoods and support them.