Syllabus

SYLLABUS



Reading Schedule, 2nd half

**ED513: Historical and Social Contexts of Teaching and Learning** **Bard MAT, Summer 2011**

Professor Katina Manko Email: kmanko@bard.edu

Office and Phone: Shafer House, (cell phone) 518-755-9208 no calls after 9pm please.

Class Meeting Time: Mondays 9am-12pm or Wednesdays 1:00-4:00pm WikiPage: __http://mat-ed513-2011.wikispaces.com/__

= Course Description = This course examines the historical foundations and functions of American education. Much of our readings will focus on the evolution of public schooling and reform throughout the 20th century, and through this students will consider ways to apply a historical analysis of enduring problems and opportunities to the schools we create today. The overarching story of American education in the 20th century is about institutional growth and bureaucratic control; but it is also about creativity, close relationships between students and learners, and deep thinking about reform in a democratic society. Throughout the course, we will look to history to examine a series of questions: what are the purposes of American education and who controls it? What is the relationship between American education and American culture? How does American ideology influence the purposes of education, the curriculum, and the roles of the teacher and the student?

= Required Readings = Selected articles available in the Course Reader and on electronic reserve or JStor.

Larry Cuban and David Tyack, //Tinkering Toward Utopia: A Century of Public School Reform// (Harvard UP, 1997) Jonathan Kozol, //Savage Inequalities: Children in America’s Schools// (NY: Harper, 1991) Herbert Kliebard, //The Struggle for the American Curriculum: 1893-1958// (NY: Routledge, 1995) James T. Patterson, //Brown v. Board of Education// (NY: Oxford UP, 2001) Diane Ravitch, // The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and // // Choice are Undermining Education // (Basic Books, 2010) Kate Rousmaniere, //City Teachers: Teaching and School Reform// (NY: TCPress, 1997)

**Papers and Evaluations** Students will write **three** 2-4 page response papers to the weekly readings and **one** 12-15 page final research paper.

**Grading Policy** Classroom participation: 25% Three short response papers: 15% each Research paper and presentation: 30%

Papers are due on the day specified. Please note that I will consider granting an extension only if you speak with me at least 48 hours before the deadline, and then for no more than one week after the original deadline. Late papers (unapproved extensions) will lose one letter grade for every day that they are late.

**Student Etiquette:** Make a commitment to yourself to prepare for and attend all classes. Attendance is compulsory because it is the only way to participate in active and engaged discussion, which will help your understanding of materials. Missing classes or arriving late is a sure way to achieve a sense of frustration, confusion, and low grades. Students who are clearly unprepared will be asked to leave the class. Stuff happens, of course, and I understand that emergencies and other unforeseen things make keep you from class. Call me, but please understand that there is no such thing as an “unexcused absence.”

I expect all students to act honestly and responsibly. The College’s guidelines on academic honesty as outlined in the college and student handbook will be upheld.

= Keep all work! = Please keep copies of all work, both work I have not evaluated and that with written feedback. A portfolio of work can help us evaluate progress in the course, troubleshoot problems during the semester, and document achievement in the event I lose my computer files or someone kidnaps me. **Reading Schedule** The following is the term schedule, week by week. All articles are available in the Course Reader, on Jstor or on electronic reserve, unless otherwise noted.

**Week One: June 6/8 Introduction – What is education for? and the origins of public schooling** **(200 years of education history (to 1850) in 3 hours or less)** Read these articles BEFORE COMING TO OUR FIRST CLASS. Be prepared to discuss them regarding: the questions they ask, the sources they use, and the major themes they develop.

Jill Lepore, “Dead Men Tell No Tales: John Sassamon and the Fatal Consequences of Literacy” //American Quarterly// 46, 4 (1994) E. Jennifer Monaghan, “Literacy Instruction and Gender in Colonial New England” AQ 40, 1 (1988) N. Ray Hiner, “The Cry of Sodom Enquired into: Educational Analysis of Seventeenth Century New England” //History of Education Quarterly// 13, 1 (1973)

In class: Massachusetts statistics on population, juvenile control, and schools Horace Mann, Report No. 12 of the Massachusetts School Board (1848)

“ From its very inception, America placed an enormous premium upon education.” Please analyze and evaluate this oft-heard statement, using specifics from the texts.

**Week Two: June 13/15 – Education as Americanization: American Indians and African-Americans** Indian Education: Explore the website of the Carlisle Indian School: __[]__

Robert A. Trennert, “From Carlisle to Phoenix: The Rise and Fall of the Indian Outing System, 1878-1930” //Pacific Historical Review// 52:3 (Aug 1983): 267-291. Jacqueline Fear-Segal, “Nineteenth-Century Indian Education: Universalism versus Evolutionism,” //Journal of American Studies// 33:2 (Aug 1999): 323-341. David Wallace Adams, selections from //Education for Extinction: American Indians and the Boarding School Experience, 1875-1928// (ereserve)

African-American Education: James M. McPherson, “White Liberals and Black Power in Negro Education, 1865-1915,” //American Historical Review// 75:5 (1970): 1357-1386. James D. Anderson, “Northern Foundations the Shaping of Southern Black Rural Education, 1902-1935” //HEQ// 18:4 (1978): 371-396. Marybeth Gasman, “W.E.B. Du Bois and Charles S. Johnson: Differing Views on the Role of Philanthropy in Higher Education,” //HEQ// 42:4 (Winter 2002), 493-516.

Compare these interpretations of Northern whites’ involvement in African-American education. How do the authors come to such different conclusions? And whose argument is more persuasive? Why?

**Week Three: June 20/22 – Progressivism and Industrialization** Kliebard, //The Struggle for the American Curriculum//, Chapters 1-4

Supporting websites: __[]__ The Dewey Center at __[]__ Full text of //Democracy and Education// at __[]__ Where do you stand in the debate, illustrated in the last section of chapter 4, between John Dewey and social efficiency educators such as John Bobbitt? According to which principles should high schools be organized?

**Week Four: June 27/29** **The People versus the Experts** “Where all people think alike, no one thinks very much.” -- Walter Lippman

Developing the IQ; defining intelligence (Wheeler/Becker pdf.) Kliebard, Chapters 5, 7, and 9 Laura M. Westhoff, “The Popularization of Knowledge: John Dewey on Experts and American Democracy” //HEQ// 35 (1995): 27-47.

[Please read 3 of the following: your choice.]

Stephen Lassonde, “Should I Go or Should I Stay? Adolescence, School Attainment, and Parent-Child Relations in Italian Immigrant Families of New Haven, 1900-1940” //HEQ// 38 (1998): 37-60.
Jonathan Zimmerman, “The Dilemma of Miss Jolly: Scientific Temperance and Teacher Professionalism” HEQ 34, 4 (1994): 413-431. William Graebner, “The Unstable World of Benjamin Spock: Social Engineering in a Democratic Culture, 1917-1950.” //The Journal of American History//, v67 n3 (Dec., 1980): 612-629. Jeffrey P. Moran, “’Modernism Gone Mad’: Sex Education Comes to Chicago, 1913.” //Journal of American History//, v83 n2 (Sep., 1996): 481-513.

What balance needs to be struck between experts and “the people”? Is an education system, which relies on expert knowledge and management, inherently anti-democratic?

**Week Five: July 4/6** **Schools, Women, and the semi-professionalization of Teaching** Grant and Murray, //Teaching in America//, chap 5. (.pdf posted on ElecRes) All Read: Rousmaniere, //City Teachers// (all)

Recommended: Victoria-Maria MacDonald, “The Paradox of Bureaucratization: New Views on Progressive Era Teachers and the Development of a Woman’s Profession” //HEQ// 39 (1999): 427-453.

To what extent can teachers be active participants in shaping education and education policy while working in the bureaucratic soup of the schools “system”? What elements of teacher status have endured into the 21st century that you believe were determined in the early 20th?

**Reading Week: July 11-15 TWO OF THREE RESPONSES DUE BEFORE BREAK** Reading Schedule MAT513 Summer 2011

History of (in)equality of educational opportunity
Scott Baker, “Testing Equality: The National Teacher Examination and the NAACP’s Legal Campaign to Equalize Teachers’ Salaries in the South, 1936-1963” //HEQ// 35 (1995): 49-64.

Open Response **Week Seven: July 25/27** **Education in the 1970s /80s** Patterson, //Brown v. Board of Education//, chapters 7, 8, 9 Kozol, //Savage Inequalities// Read the 1 st chapter on St. Louis and the chapter on New York, PLUS one other chapter of your choice. Read beyond that to the point that you have to stop yourself. Reagan Administration: “A Nation at Risk” (1984) Response prompt: Using these readings as background, and write an op-ed piece for a newspaper that discusses a current issue in education. **Week Eight: August 1/3 Throwing up our Hands and the Nostalgia of the Past** Cuban, //Tinkering Toward Utopia//, Intro, Ch 1, Ch 2 FIRST SET of RESEARCH PRESENTATIONS **Week Nine: August 8/10** **The Culture Wars: Education and the Conservative Backlash** Essay Packet [to be distributed] including: Diane Ravitch, “Politicization and the Schools: The Case of Bilingual Education” //Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society// (June 1985): 121-28. Gary Nash, “The History Standards Controversy and Social History” //Journal of Social History// (1995): 39-49. Diane Ravitch, “Who Prepares Our History Teachers? Who Should Prepare Our History Teachers” //History Teacher// (Aug 1998): 495-503 and more... SECOND SET of RESEARCH PRESENTATIONS Ravitch, //Death and Life of the Great American School System// Gerald Bracey, “What Happened to America's Schools?” //American Heritage// 1997//.// THIRD SET of RESEARCH PRESENTATIONS
 * Week Ten: August 15/17 **
 * Diane Ravitch through the ages... **