THE BARD AS A SCHOOL BOY. Hearing about the grammar schools teaching Latin and Greek was interesting, because Shakespeare was educated through grammar school. I’d always thought it was only comparable to elementary school or 8th grade at most. Shakespeare makes plenty of references/allusions to the classics and mythology, so it makes sense that he would have learned Latin and Greek.
SO THERE. The Anglos in Pennsylvania initiated their campaign to alienate the German kids from their language and heritage, but it didn’t work. Even today, we still speak of the Pennsylvania-Dutch (Dutch, really referring to German “Deutsch”). The subgroup didn't fade away.
WOULD YOU LIKE SOME TEA? The culture of Britain was extended into the New World. I thought it had just happened that way. I didn’t know it was a premeditated plan to try to push the English culture past the island and to make its mark on the world. But on p. 25, we learn that building the British culture in North America was premeditated! Since the Brits were better than the Irish, American Indians, India Indians, and people of any “colour,” it was their "duty," their "burden" to lead the others. The sun never sets on the British Empire, it was said, but under the reign of the King’s Speech king, the empire loosened ties with all those colonies and became a commonwealth with a lot less British say-so. Like that king didn’t have enough problems already with WWII.
THE DESTROYERS WON. So the plan was to de-culture the Native Americans. Well, it may have taken longer than they wanted, but by comparison so few people alive today know the old Native American languages. Even fewer can read or write them. The customs and oral stories are largely lost. The remnant, displaced onto hostile arid land, struggles with alcoholism and unemployment. Cultures are shattered, not to mention, so many lives.
DOUBLE TIERS OF SCHOOLS. In the early days there were reading and writing schools and the better grammar schools. Later Jefferson still advocated for schools for regular folks and those for future leaders. Despite schools as the great equalizer, maintaining the system of have’s and have not’s has still been predominant.
VOTE FOR THE SCHOOLS! On p.79, Spring talks about Ohio schools being financed by rent from land. Was that the beginning of our unconstitutional property tax method of funding?
Even back then, they were trying to convince people to help pay for schools, even if they had no kids. The same arguments continue today whenever a school levy is on the ballot. Yet in our district, the problem is not the elderly vote, our levies more often fail in the precincts that are wealthy, where people are probably over-extended on their mortgages and bills.
Even back then, they were trying to convince people to help pay for schools, even if they had no kids. The same arguments continue today whenever a school levy is on the ballot. Yet in our district, the problem is not the elderly vote, our levies more often fail in the precincts that are wealthy, where people are probably over-extended on their mortgages and bills.
QUOTE WITHIN A QUOTE. On p. 84, Spring quotes Horace Mann’s notes. Horace had actually quoted the line about “Train up a child…” from the Bible. Proverbs 22:6.
STIFF UPPER LIP. p. 106. Provocative quote about the up-tight Anglo’s being afraid of the “sensuous and emotional rhythms” of Black and Native American music and of the ritual of the Catholic church.
OH, WE MEANT "DECEITFUL" IN THE NICEST WAY. p. 112 The Catholic parents were pleased to hear that the Public School Society was trying to take the anti-Catholic spin out of the text books. 'Guess the Society was sleeping on the job when an approved book talked about the “deceitful Catholics.” Yeah, no bias there. Not at all.
Spring, Joel. The American School: A Global Context from the Puritans to the
Obama Era. 8th ed. New York: McGraw Hill, 2011. Print.
Spring, Joel. The American School: A Global Context from the Puritans to the
Obama Era. 8th ed. New York: McGraw Hill, 2011. Print.
Carol, in response to "Double Tiers of Schools" and LaToya's blogs "Rich and Poor Education" and "Private versus Public Education" it is quite evident, that we live in a society where these duo or tiered levels of education will forever be permeated in the United States. The reason for this is because – realistically – the wealthy will never fully allow the poor (no matter how intellectually or politically astute) to enter and disrupt the elite or upper-class way of life. From a God perspective – Christian, “the poor will always be with you…”; from a human nature perspective, people are selfish, greedy, and controlling. As discussed in “The Ideology and Politics of the Common School”, pgs.99-100, Michael Katz states:
ReplyDelete“the common school movement was a ‘coalition of social leaders…status hungry educators to impose educational innovation, upon a reluctant community…Leaders of the common school movement actions were not the result of disinterested humanitarian impulses but were caused by a desire to protect their social positions and to provide the new industrial system with disciplined workers.”
In the 21st century, we have the low and middle class schools that addresses learning for the purpose of developing skills for manufacturing and the service industries and disciplines that promote respect for law, government, civil obedience. Upper class schools that train and prepare students in a way that will make them the managers, directors, and high level administrators over the low and middle class students. The wealthy and elite schools prepare their students in areas of finance and investments, corporate leadership and ownership, and political prowess and power.