Notions of Education for Liberation

1. Notions of Education for Liberation • George Counts • Paulo Freire • Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.

2. George Counts (1889-1974) • Influenced by John Dewey • Accused of being a communist • Writing during the Progressive Era • Critique of the classical curriculum • Schools as mirrors of society • Primary aim of schooling is to help solve society’s problems

3. Paulo Freire (1921-1997) • Brazilian professor and head of the National Literacy Program • Worked with poor rural adults supporting the active exercise of democracy

4. Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., (1917-2007) • U.S. historian and author • Described as a “lion of liberalism” • Worried about the disuniting of America

5. In three groups… • What is the purpose of education as your author sees it (both individually and collectively) • What kind of society does your author envision? • What might the job of a teacher look like? What role does your author see for the teacher, and what kind of teacher training would be necessary?

6. Your personal reflections… • What do you make of these authors’ visions of the purpose of education? • What do you think of the notion of ‘imposition’? • Can you see the tensions between different goals in schools? What are they? • How should we judge if a person is ‘liberated’? How can you tell? • How should schools create Americans (the unum out of the pluribus)?

7. What does “American” mean to you? • Dictionary: of or relating to the United States or its people; an inhabitant • Is it also: • A mindset? • Commitment to a set of principles? • A set of relationships? • Does it demand loyalty (however defined?)

8. Declaration of Independence • We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.

9. Preamble to the Constitution We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our prosperity, do ordain and establish this Constitution.

10. First Amendment • Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right o the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for redress of grievances.

11. Early Education of Domestic Foreigners Native Americans and Mexican Americans

12. Any idea who said… “We find ourselves threatened by hordes of immigrants who have already begun to flock into our country and whose progress we cannot arrest.”

13. “We find ourselves threatened by hordes of immigrants who have already begun to flock into our country and whose progress we cannot arrest.” Governor of California, Pio Pico in 1846

14. Common School Reforms (1830s-1860s) • Demographic changes and patriotic ambitions • Ideological shift with regard to the nature of ‘God’ • Purpose of education: the great equalizer, assimilation, morals, and citizenship

15. Progressive Era 1880s-1930s • Demographics • Ideology (rise of the IQ) • Purpose of education • Fit schools to child’s needs • Schools help solve society’s problems • Social stability • Equal educational opportunity

16. Native Americans-Conditions • Manifest Destiny • Wars and diseases • Considered domestic foreigners • Bureau of Indian Affairs

17. Native Americans and Education • White ideas • Considered educable and salvageable • Ultimate goal: assimilation and training for an industrial society

18. Carlisle Indian School, 1885

19. Native Americans and Education • Native Ideas • To make/enforce contracts; preserve culture • Choctaw and Cherokee examples

20. Chief Sequoyah (1776-1843)

21. Mexican Americans-Conditions • Colonization by Spain • Mexican Revolution • Relationship to the United States shifts • Mexican-American War (1846-1848); Treaty of Guadalupe Hildalgo

23. LULAC founders, @1929

24. Questions for Discussion • Is vocational education inherently bad? • How do LULAC and Pratt compare in their ideas of education for liberation and assimilation? • How should we judge if a person is ‘liberated’? How can you tell? • How should schools create Americans (the unum out of the pluribus)?

25. Women’s Education: Gender, Class, and Racial Implications

26. Three groups of thought on women’s education • Conservatives • Liberals • Radicals

27. Declaration of Sentiments, Seneca Falls Convention, 1848 We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men and women are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights…Whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of those who suffer from it to refuse allegiance to it, and to insist upon the institution of a new government. The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries toward woman, having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over her…Now, in view of this entire disfranchisement of one-half the people of this country, their social and religious degradation…and because women do feel themselves aggrieved, oppressed, and fraudulently deprived of their most scared rights, we insist that they have immediate admission to all the rights and privileges which belong to them as citizens of these United States.

28. Colonial Era/Revolutionary Era • Colonial Era • Educated to be better wives and mothers • Elite received schools; curriculum (mostly) in the polite arts • Revolutionary Era • Worried about race-suicide • Revolution brought questions of what a ‘civilized’ society was • Cult of domesticity

29. Common School Era • Co-education catches on • Women as teachers • Worries about race-suicide remained (though they were countered) • Edward Clarke • Anna Brackett

30. Women and Higher Education • Oberlin • Mount Holyoke (MA) 1837 • Vassar (NY) 1861 • Bennett (NC) 1873 • Wellesley (MA) 1870 • Spelman (GA) 1881

31. Women’s Education in the Progressive Era • More girls/women in schools • Gendered curriculum (and race/class implications) • 1920 (19th amendment) women get the right to vote

32. Questions for Discussion • (feminism v. womanism) • How do we understand liberation in the context of gender? • Should girls/women be educated differently than boys/men? • What do you think of single-sex education (for girls OR boys)?

33. Religion and Education: Jews and Catholics

34. Colonial, Revolutionary, and Common School Era Conditions • Colonial Era • Rural; Protestants outnumbered others; worried about “wilderness” of the soul • Revolutionary Era • Jefferson’s bill for religious freedom • Common School Era • Loosening of family ties/national loyalty; Uncle Sam created; increased Irish immigration

35. Catholicism Catholics need the Pope while Protestants rely on Bible as guide A danger to the state Sample texts Judaism A religion or a race? Associated with greed (contrast with Franklin) College admissions becomes HUGE issue (progressive era) Religion in Textbooks

36. Court cases • State v. John Scopes (Monkey Trial) (TN), 1925 • Evolution v. Creationism • Science in the classroom • Inherit the Wind • Pierce v. Society of Sisters (OR) 1925 • Compulsory education=public education • Anti-Catholic intentions

37. Questions for Discussion • How do groups “get ahead?” Inside or outside the system? • Can we teach morals without religion? • How do/should groups balance uniqueness against “American-ness?” • What do you think of public money for private education?

38. How to Educate ‘New’ Citizens: African Americans after the Civil War

40. Political History • 13th amendment, 1865 (abolishes slavery) • 14th amendment, 1868 (equal protection) • No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. • 15th amendment, 1870 (franchise) • Reconstruction (Hayes-Tilden Compromise) • Rise of Jim Crow laws (Birth of a Nation) • Plessy v. Furguson, 1896

41. Black Educational Conditions • Black education in the North • Access to grammar schools • Access to high schools • Access to college; the creation of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs)

42. Debate in the history of education: What to make of Booker T. Washington

44. Questions for Discussion • How were Washington and DuBois treated in your history classes? • Separation v. segregation issues • Differentiated education: how much is too much, and when is it OK? • What do you make of vocational training? Is it inherently bad?

45. Language Issues: Does an American Have to Speak English? Ingles Englisch 英語 Inglese إنجليزي

46. Bilingual Education in Politics • Meyer v. Nebraska, 1923 • Lau v. Nichols, 1974 • Question: equal or equitable treatment required by schools? • Critical mass necessary • Language rights now a civil rights issue • English Only Movement/US English, 1983 • Proposition 227 (CA)

47. Questions for Discussion • Reflect on the purpose of education as we’ve discussed it; how does bilingual education fit? • How does bilingual education fit with our discussion of integration/assimilation/ acculturation/separation/segregation? • How do we reconcile Lau with Brown?

48. Achieving Quality Education through Desegregation

49. Chinese/Chinese American Conditions • Population increase during Gold Rush • Likened to blacks • Considered an economic threat/ proposal that they should have permanent laborer status • CA school code • Chinese Exclusion Act, 1882 • Tape v. Hurley, 1885

50. Chinese Canadians • The only non-British settlers • Moved north to Canada during/after Gold Rush • Built Trans-Canada railway