Composition: History & Theory: 1865 - 1899
Social Educational Developments
Description
In The American School From the Puritans to No Child Left Behind (2008), Joel Spring outlines a number of educational developments that occurred during this time period. In 1872, the first reported summer school was founded as an alternative to police control (230). This was followed by the first U.S. public school Kindergarten in 1873 which was originally created in Germany to cultivate children in a passive environment and to encourage “social harmony” (218). Kindergartens were used in the U.S. to save “slum children from corruption,” to prep students for elementary classes, and to educate parents/mothers (218). The social play aspect was replaced by the goal of creating order and discipline in a child’s life. Spring notes the creation of the Carlisle Boarding School for deculturalization of American Indians in 1879—These schools were deplorable for their separation of students from their families and cultures in order to encourage hard labor (to support the school), for their military organization, and for their use of corporal punishment to destroy the “initiative and independence” of American Indian Students (242). The Meriam Report in 1928 helped bring a close to these schools, but the damage done to tribes was almost irreversible. In the 1880s, lesson plans began as part of the Herbartian Movement as did the play and playground movement. The focus of the playground movement should have been, according to Henry S. Curtis, founder of the Playground and Recreation Association, a way to combat insanity and damage done to the nervous system of children and adults in the urban environment (228). Playgrounds were used, however, to control perceived crime and to engage in directed play as opposed to free play in order to produce “the types of adults required by corporate industry” (229).
According to Spring, the first reported school shower, which was based on the prejudice of immigrants as unclean, was developed in 1889 (218). Spring references images of teachers bathing students and battling lice from Cremin’s Transformation of the School . In 1895 the Plessy v. Ferguson decision allowed for racially segregated schools under the “separate but equal doctrine”. In the same year, Spring notes the formation of the model school cafeteria program in Boston schools. This cafeteria program was spearheaded by home economists who began working in hospitals and school cafeterias to Americanize the diets of immigrants (224). The proponents of this movement were big on pre-packaged foods and standardized meals that could be produced quickly and in large quantities (which helped bring on the development of food chains and frozen dinners). They wanted to serve nutritious meals and influence student/patient diets. They believed that immigrant food was harmful (hard to digest and too spicy), so they created what we now know as bland American cuisine (ex: rice & fish) to help democratize students under “a single standard of domesticity” (227). People who did not embrace the new, sterile, American way of cooking/eating/consuming were considered ignorant. In 1896 John Dewey opened his laboratory school at University of Chicago, and, in 1897, school social centers organized in New York. People wanted the school to be a place where “democratic fraternalism” was formed (231). Schools became involved in hosting political clubs and polls.
Date of Upload
3/13/09