Julie Young and the Promise of Technology

Julie Young isn't a name that most educators would recognize. I don't know the names of the various principals of the other schools in Albuquerque, so why would I know the name of a woman who is dean/principal of an online school in Florida? I wouldn't, but Paul Peterson believes that although she is unknown, what she is doing at her school, the Florida Virtual School, may be the turning point for education and schools across the nation.

The Florida Virtual School (FVS) began in 1997 with only 11,500 course enrollments in 2003, but by 2008 over 116,000 courses had been completed. With this, FVS has become the moved successful Internet-based school in the nation, giving students the ability to complete all their classes on-line. While this is beneficial to some students, there are some arguments against it.

Technology is a wonderful thing and most people would agree, but what about the face-to-face interaction that students receive in a classroom? Aren't there some students who benefit from the interaction with teachers...OK, if they are good teachers. What about the discussion that happens in a classroom of other students? Isn't the idea to have well-rounded thoughts and opinions? In an on-line class, aren't these benefits lost? And the social aspect. Not everyone has a terrific time in high school. Some believe that high school is nothing but socialization and schools cater to the upper echelon: the jocks, the cheerleaders, the "cool kids". While this may be true, the social aspect can be beneficial; team sports, group projects, and extracurricular activities all help shape us into socially-capable individuals.

But, for some, an on-line education is better than a bad education, or worse yet, no education. There are students who cannot do well in a traditional school setting, and the FVS gives them an opportunity to take classes. These classes range from the core classes that students may need to graduate to electives, to AP classes that may not be offered at the local school; there is even a physical education class offered for the students. The important question is, how are the students taught?

When the school first began, the teachers were required to create their own classes, but the school soon discovered that creating an on-line curriculum is not as easy as it seems. Now, most materials are purchased from distributors and teachers can supplement with their own material if necessary. The students e-mail their teachers, and the teachers are required to call the students and parents at least once a month to make sure that they are on track; they are required to call more often if a student is struggling. Also, the students take no externally proctored exams; everything is taken on-line. Teachers can work from anywhere. The computer system logs the assignment, how many times the teacher corresponds electronically with the students, and how much time is spent viewing the students papers. The beginning salary in 2009 was $45,500. Not bad when you factor in: no gas, no running copies, and no after school duties.

So, where does the road take us? Are on-line schools the wave of the future? Will teachers become coaches that simply guide students to self-discovery? Will students have the ability to choose their own subjects and topics to study? When will the control be given back to the educators? I don't think there are answers to any of these questions, but I keep coming back to the same thought when thinking about what would help...when we all start thinking about doing what is best for the student, maybe then the tide will change.

Peterson, Paul E. "Julie Young and the Promise of Technology." Saving Schools: from Horace Mann to Virtual Learning. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap of Harvard UP. 2010. Print.

James S. Coleman and Choice Theory

And so begins the third part of the book, entitled Signs of Resurrection. From theses concluding chapters, education is back on the uphill climb toward what really matters, the students, the teachers, and the learning. What this chapter focuses upon is James Coleman's third report, Coleman III, that compares public schools to private schools, bringing the debate over school vouchers into play.

If you have read the other posts, you will remember a little bit about James Coleman from the chapter on Martin Luther King and desegregation. In the late 1960s, Coleman had been enlisted to complete a report on the effects of integration on students that was given to the federal government. In 1980, he was asked to continue his work with education by collecting more data on students from public and private schools, over the course of 2-3 years. In the study, a nationally representative sample of high school students were tested as sophomores, then again as seniors, then they were followed into the labor force. The goal of the study was to find out how much students learned between their high schools years, along with the impact of schooling on college and the labor force.

Coleman surveyed 70,000 students from more than 1,000 high schools during the spring of 1980. From his first round of observations he found that sophomores in Catholic schools performed at higher levels than those in pubic schools. One reason given was that the parents of these students supported one another as they attended Mass and participated in religious activities together (194). Similar to his previous studies, Coleman III came under attack. Some of the criticisms could be ignored; however, two were deemed valid (194):

1. Students at private schools cannot be compared to public school students fairly because they come from families that are willing to pay for their child's education; these parents are more involved in their child's education. Going back to the results of Coleman I, family is a primary component in a child's education.
2. Although the study showed that sophomores in private schools performed at a higher level, it did not prove that they actually learned more at the private school.

Taking these criticisms into account, Coleman began his second round of data collection two years later. With this data, Coleman was able to show that private school students had learned more during their two years in school than their public school peers had. The effects of this? School vouchers were brought back into the limelight.

School vouchers are certificates that parents can use to apply towards the tuition of private schools. It was argued in the 1950s that if parents could choose their child's school, then schools would become more competitive and thus raise the academic bar in order to keep these students. The argument was, and still is, that school vouchers would undermine the public school system, resulting in a loss of money for the schools. But, one state in the nation, Wisconsin, has tried a voucher program.

In 1990, Milwaukee began the first urban school voucher program. It began with only 1,500 low-income students and only secular private schools. Six years later the program was increased to include 15,000 students and religious schools were allowed to participate, which caused problems and court battles. Once the courts ruled favorably, the enrollment swelled to 22,500 students. What were some of the results of the voucher system (208)?

• More students graduated from high school of they attended a Catholic or Lutheran school.
• A 2009 study stated that boys, in voucher schools learned more than in public schools -- BUT, girls learned more in public schools! No reason was given for this...ARGH!
• The school board actually got the union to accept changes to seniority provisions so that principals had more control over the teaching force.
• The research suggested that public schools student performance increased when the school faced competition from private schooling.

But these were not enough to get the entire nation moving towards vouchers. I can see the benefit for school vouchers, especially for some students, but I also understand the concern that it would take away the already dwindling public school funds. Ideally, if school vouchers were given to parents, maybe that would jump start all districts to find ways to enhance their schools, i.e., better teachers, more resources, less bureaucracy. What has emerged from this debate is the concept of charter schools. Not quite public, not quite private. Maybe these will help jump start education in a way that vouchers couldn't.

Peterson, Paul E. "James S. Coleman and Choice Theory." Saving Schools: from Horace Mann to Virtual Learning. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap of Harvard UP, 2010. Print.

The Birth of "No Child Left Behind"

William Bennett and the Demand for Accountability

I'll admit that I only recognized William Bennett's name as being the author of The Children's Book of Virtues. I did not know that he was a former Secretary of Education and that he pushed for accountability in schools. I thought I would learn more about him from this chapter, but I didn't. The chapter focused on the federal government's move towards accountability of schools, the implementation of state standards and testing, and the always important No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law, but not on William Bennett as a person. But that is OK since the chapter did give me some background on why NCLB became a law. One thing I like about Peterson's book is that he doesn't come out and attack an idea, pointing out all the flaws. Instead, he shows the different sides and a reader can then form his/her own opinion. This is the case when he goes into the background of NCLB.

Bennett became the Secretary of Education during the Reagan administration and he helped to bring education to the forefront. He never tried to establish national standards, nor did he suggest that students be tested annually; however, he did believe that education was a state/local responsibility that did need to hold the education system accountable for student failure. He preached the three Cs: content, character, choice. These three Cs were his driving force in the excellence movement that would hold all schools to a higher standard. The downside of this was that the accountability created even more centralized control over the schools. Schools have to report to the district, districts have to report to the state, the state has to report to the federal government...which leaves the schools subjected to more scrutiny and control. This all lead to the first comprehensive federal school accountability law. The dirty words that are whispered throughout schools by hundreds of teachers...NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND...

In theory, I believe NCLB to be a good law. At least, a law with good potential but a few kinks to be worked out. NCLB, passed by the Bush administration in 2002, lays out how schools will be held accountable for student success or failures. The main points are:

• States have to set curricular standards in reading, math, and science.
• States then develop a set of tests that are aligned with those above standards.
• States need to determine the level of proficiency; what score does a child need to be proficient? What standards does he/she need to demonstrate competence in?
• All students in grades 3-8 are tested, as well as students being tested once in high school.
• By 2014, ALL STUDENTS should be proficient in reading and math.
• In schools not meeting AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress) for 2 years, parents may send their child to another school in district that has met AYP.
• Schools failing to meet AYP for 5 years are to be reconstituted.

So the problems? Without national standards, the states are making their own AND determining what is proficient. The playing field is uneven. We all know that there are easy teachers and hard teachers. An A in one class is the same as a C in another of the same subject. This is similar to the states. States can set their own bar in order to for their scores to look better when compared to other states that demand more from their teachers and students. Also, all students are held to the same standards. A mentally disabled student is expected to take the same test as his/her peers and meet proficiency. And when he/she doesn't? The scores tell the child that he/she isn't as smart as his/her peers, and the school's overall AYP is lowered. ARGH!!!

This is when I get on my bandwagon...

I have been teaching for 10 years. For the first few, I stayed in my classroom doing what I needed to do to help my students. Did I honestly go through the standards and make sure I was hitting each and every standard daily? No. But I did (and still do) make sure that I taught my students the skills that they need to be successful in life. As I have progressed in my career, I have become more jaded about the entire education system in my district. As I complain to my husband, he tells me that other districts around the country are the same. I just need to do what I need to do and not get riled up about NCLB, AYP, IEPs, AIPs, testing, and everything else that teachers are inundated with each day. In my mind, I try to go through what it is exactly that bothers me. As I stated earlier, in theory, NCLB is good. Schools should be accountable and this law has made education focus on students and what can be done to help them succeed. However, this issue of accountability in Peterson's book is missing something. What about the accountability for teachers?

I firmly believe that in order to improve our education system, we need to begin improving our teachers. Not only the new teachers, but also the teachers who have been teaching for 10-15 years. I am not saying that all teachers should go back to school, but all teachers do need refresher courses or professional development that will help them to change with the changing population of students and educational trends. Going back to Albert Shanker and unions, teachers do need to be held to a higher standard of accountability, despite the problems that arise with tenure and grievance procedures. Good teaching should be rewarded and bad teaching should be condemned, but this is seldom the case. Until there is something in place that will hold all teachers truly accountable, I do not see how the education system can really improve.

Peterson, Paul E. "William Bennett and the Demand for Accountability." Saving Schools: from Horace Mann to Virtual Learning. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap of Harvard UP, 2010. Print.

Well, according the the negotiated agreement...

Albert Shanker and Collective Bargaining

I should preface this blog with the statement that I am not a member of the teachers' union here in town, nor do I have a copy of the negotiated agreement readily available to cite at any given time. My reasons for not being a member vary. When I first entered teaching, I didn't know anything about the teachers' union, and when I was approached to join, I was newly married and money was tight. We couldn't afford the dues and I was led to believe that it was a waste anyway. What could the union do for me personally? If they were going to fight for teachers, that would include all of us, members and non-members alike. Now that I think about it, it seems selfish. It feels as though I am reaping the benefits that I haven't paid for...but I am still not going to join. However, this is not about me and my personal thoughts on my local union; it is about Albert Shanker, the man who many believe brought collective bargaining to all teachers.

I didn't know that before 1960, most public employees did not have the right to bargain collectively. This led to illegal strikes and Albert Shanker's idea that teachers needed the protection and help that unions could give. I found it interesting that Shanker wasn't a teacher. He only worked in a school while pursuing his Ph.D., and it was there that he had a challenging assistant principal, and an idea was formed...teachers need protection. Similar to the thoughts of the Rights Movement that was sweeping through education, not only do students of all backgrounds have rights, but teachers do as well. Shanker helped bring about equality for teachers regarding policies and salaries, but unfortunately the power he created with unions can be seen as part of the downhill road that education has taken.

Shanker's belief that collective bargaining would lead education upwards, actually can be seen as having the opposite effect. Unions, rather than focusing on what is best for the students, seem mostly focused on what is best for an employee, e.g. grievance procedures, benefits, pensions, and let's not forget increasing memberships. In the chapter, there are issues that teacher unions across the nation face -- teacher certification, merit pay, dismissal procedures, class size reduction -- but the way unions have approached these issues makes one wonder at their true motives.

According to Shanker -

• Unions are opposed to alternative teacher certification processes. He states that there are numerous studies that show that a teacher's credentials do not have a direct correlation to a teacher's effectiveness (121). Since teachers respond well to financial incentives (and really, who doesn't?), unions have helped educators to receive extra money for further education, like a master's degree, but this hasn't improved the quality of their teaching in the classroom. He doesn't state clearly why he believes unions oppose alternative certifications for teachers, just that they do.
• Unions also, as a whole, oppose merit pay. Shanker himself believed in school-wide bonuses for high-performing schools, but not in paying individual teachers for their performance. In recent years, the debate over merit pay has been in the news, with the Obama administration promoting it. The secretary of education, Arne Duncan, has stated that if states are to receive extra federal monies, they must create merit pay plans (124). Unions see the advantage of uniform pay schedules since they also unify the organization. If everyone receives the same salary increment, the only way to receive it is to support the union.
• Tenure for teachers depends on the state, and unions have helped more teachers to achieve tenure by insisting that districts follow in-depth grievance procedures before a teacher can be fired. And, to help recruit members, unions offer full legal assistance to teachers if a union tries to dismiss them. In many districts, before a teacher can be fired for ineptitude, there has to be months of observations and documentation, showing that the teacher is incapable of his/her job. Unfortunately for students, this seldom happens due to whatever reasons, and poor teachers remain in the system, protected by the union.
• Class size reduction is the one area in which the unions have had a positive impact, at least to some. Since 1960, the ratio of students to teacher has gone from 26:1 to almost 15:1 in 2005 (129). Most educators would agree that smaller classes are ideal, but Peterson raises the idea that if given the choice between a higher salary or less students, most teachers would choose the higher salary, whereas the unions may prefer the latter since it would increase the number of possible members. He does go on to offer the explanation that unions may be in such support of smaller class sizes because the American public seems to be.

Although Albert Shanker opened the door to teachers being able to collectively bargain for their rights, the unions that were created failed in the most important aspect...keeping the teachers' salaries high enough to keep the jobs competitive. Although the student to teacher ration dropped, the number of employees (instructional and support staff) to students has doubled between 1960 and 2000. Lowering the number of students requires more teachers, and with this comes more administrative duties and support services, and also more money. Instead of eliminating the middle man, education adds to it by creating more jobs outside of the classroom, rather than raising teacher salaries to attract high-quality professionals, i.e. quantity over quality (154).

This moves us into the era of focusing on education excellence, but are the good intentions actually another route towards even more centralized control over schools and less emphasize on the actual student learning?

Peterson, Paul E. "Albert Shanker and Collective Bargaining." Saving Schools: from Horace Mann to Virtual Learning. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap of Harvard UP, 2010. Print.

"The time is always right to do what is right." ~Martin Luther King Jr.

The Rights Movement Diversifies

It is interesting that this chapter begins the second part of the book, which is labeled "The Decline". To me, it seems as though Peterson makes this distinction, not because he believes that granting rights to minority groups who lacked equality is a bad thing, but that rather the door that was opened ultimately led to more lawsuits and centralized control over school systems, which can be seen as negative. Rather than local school boards being solely in charge of their schools, city councils and state and federal governments also gained a foothold in decisions that were being made.

Shortly after the push for the racial integration of schools, another group began to think about the rights every child deserved toward an equal education. Like African Americans, the disabled were excluded from public schools based on the beliefs that they could not learn like other children. One case that helped propel the rights of disabled children was PARC v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

At the Pennhurst State School, a facility for the mentally retarded, in Altoona, Pennsylvania, a young boy died. The official cause was pneumonia, but one of the boy's friends had stated that he had died in a fire. The case was investigated but the truth is still unknown to this day. The story persuaded the Pennsylvania Association for Retarded Children (PARC) to pursue legal action against the school. The basis of the case was that the school was denying the children a fair education.

This was one of the first cases of its kind, and fortunately, the state (school) seemed unwilling to defend itself against the charges. The state's director of special education, who you would believe to be helping to defend the school, actually helped the plaintiffs by providing information. This information helped the plaintiffs to find experts who testified that all children, no matter their disability, can learn to some degree. In 1971, the state dropped its defense and came to an agreement that required all disabled children to be provided with a free, public education, while also being given whatever special assistance was needed. The beginning of special education.

Shortly thereafter, disability advocates decided to try for a federal statute, a bill that would would be proposed to Congress. It went through without opposition, and the Education of All Handicapped Children Act was born. (It later became known as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, IDEA.) The impact of the bill on the states was that now states were required to provide "free and appropriate education" (91) to all children with disabilities, ages 3-21. This also gave parents a say in their child's special education, and thus the Individual Education Plan, IEP, was created in 1974. The impact? The IEP became a legal document that teachers, schools, and parents created for the child's customized education; an idea that went back to the beliefs of Rousseau and Dewey.

Another group that began to fight for students' rights were immigrants, specifically the bilingual and English-language learners. For many years, immigrants had tried to retain their home languages so that the cultural values might not be lost, but in the American schools this proved to be difficult. German immigrants, in the late 1800s, decided that in order to preserve their culture and language, they would create private schools for their children, with German being the language of instruction. Some public schools followed this example and began to offer bi-lingual education. Unfortunately, with the beginning of World War I, a national sentiment of anti-German feelings arose, and many states enacted laws that stipulated that all school instruction had to be in English.

It was in 1968 that the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) began in San Antonio, Texas, and started to file suits that proposed bilingual education. They believed that this was a remedy for the unequal education opportunities that had been offered to minority language groups. In three years, the group had succeeded in having a federal appeals court order some form of bilingual education.

However...this was not the only minority group to seek education reform. In San Francisco, another law suit was filed on behalf of the Chinese American students. Like the Mexican Americans complaint, parents argued that their children were denied an equal education because the instruction did not take into account their native tongue. The Supreme Court agreed by basing its decision on a clause found in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that forbade discrimination on the basis of race or ethnicity. This required that schools address the linguistic problems that some minority students faced, but it did not clarify how this was to be done.

For many years, the bilingual debate remained below the radar, but as immigration, both legal and illegal, rose, the English-speaking majority began to take notice, launching it into a political issue once again. In 1998, California, a state inundated with Spanish-speaking immigrants, asked voters whether or not they wanted to ban bilingual instruction that was not specifically requested for by a child's parent. The voters voted in favor of the ban, while other states, Arizona and Massachusetts, both passed similar referenda (102). These decisions were not entirely based on an anti-immigration sentiment, but also on the immigrants' own beliefs that their native language and cultural values were not being threatened by English only instruction.

With the door that was opened with integration and the Civil Rights Movement, other minority groups were able to begin fighting for their rights to a fair and equal education for their children as well. Of the groups, special education seemed to receive the most attention, possibly due to the IEP that is required for all special education students, whereas the bilingual education debate raises its head only periodically. What was probably not anticipated was the fight for the rights of educators that also began during this time. In the next chapter the birth of teacher unions will be discussed, along with Albert Shanker, the man who helped bring to the table collective bargaining for teachers. But did the change he brought have a positive impact on education? We shall see...

Peterson, Paul E. "The Rights Movement Diversifies." Saving Schools: from Horace Mann to Virtual Learning. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap of Harvard UP, 2010. Print.

"What is the quality of your intent?" ~ Thurgood Marshall

Martin Luther King Jr. and School Desegregation


I know that my beginning quote and the title of the chapter do not match, but it seems remiss to not have some reference to Thurgood Marshall in this blog since he was the driving force behind the landmark court case of Brown vs. Board of Education. After almost 60 years of the court's decision on Plessy vs. Ferguson, which deemed schools could be segregated as long as they were separate but equal, Thurgood Marshall won the court case that helped jump start the Civil Rights Movement. And with this, Martin Luther King Jr. began his journey that he is known for in history.


It is interesting that MLK Jr. only receives a couple of pages dedicated to him in this chapter. Besides being a leader for equal rights, he was a man who inspired many with his non-violent ways. Although his battles seemed to mainly be focused towards political and social equality, some battles did also fall to education. What I gathered from this chapter is that King may not have had any concrete plans for the integration of schools, but his legacy opened the door to the demand for equal rights for all children, no matter their color, race, or intelligence. But this continues into the next chapter...

Back to this chapter...
With the court's decision in 1954 for Brown vs. Board of Education, segregation did not happen immediately, and in some places it did not happen at all for another decade. It wasn't until 1968 did desegregation actually speed up. And, as it seems with everything in education today, it was due to money that desegregation finally hit a fast track. At this time the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare stated that Southern districts would receive federal education funding only if it was obvious that the districts were making clear progress toward integration. So for a few years, districts were making progress toward integration so that they could receive federal aid.


What happened to cause integration to hit a stumbling block was that people, OK mainly white people, began moving out of the cities and school districts and into the suburbs, where most African Americans were unable to move due to cost. This eventually lead to another court case surrounding school segregation, Milliken vs. Bradley (1974). In this case, the Supreme Court made a distinction between the legal segregation that was happening in the South and the happenstance segregation that was occurring in the North (families moving to the burbs). The court ruled that a school board has no obligation to integrate a school that has become segregated due to individual decisions (63). Which, many of us in education already know, caused schools to remain segregated. Perhaps they were not identified officially as segregated, but when looking at the racial composition of the students, it was hard to miss.

What came out of these debates on integration was the decision for a formal survey to occur that researched the effects segregation had on students, both black and white. James Coleman (more about him later in Chapter 9) was chosen to conduct the research...and what he found was not what was expected by those in government offices. Coleman tested 4,000 randomly selected students from across the nation, in various subjects, while also collecting information on the characteristics of the schools the students attended. These characteristics included the racial composition, degrees earned by teachers, the number of books in the school library, etc. He also collected family background information on the students as well (70). So, what did he find?

In his report, which was labeled "Coleman I", Coleman found that the expenditures per pupil were close to the same in black and white schools, in rural, urban, and suburban areas. He also found that students did not learn more because more money and resources were spent on their education, or that the number of students in a class, the teacher's credentials, or the number of books in the library were important. What he did discover to be the most important in the child's education was the family background. The mother and father's education, the family income, having fewer siblings, the number of books in the home--all contributed to the variations in the selected students' reading achievements (71).

What he also discovered was that the social composition of the students at a school affected the student achievement. Meaning, if a lower economic African American student was grouped together with students who were white and from a higher socio-economic status, the African American child performed better. However...the opposite was not found to be true. A white child did not suffer from having lower economic black classmates. It boiled down to integration helped the minority without harming the majority (72).

So, with all this, what was accomplished? I believe that most educators would agree that schools are still segregated, at least to a point. Just looking at my district, there are definite divisions between the four quadrants; the Northeast Heights schools are considered the higher performing, whereas the South Valley Schools are considered lower performing. What is the difference between all the schools? Is the racial composition? Is it the family backgrounds? The parental involvement?

Have schools changed tremendously from the 1960s? Did Martin Luther King's dream come to fruition? Maybe not, but what his impact on education was is he opened the door to the idea that all children deserve an equal education, and that is what the next chapter "The Rights Movement Diversifies" covers...

Peterson, Paul E. "Martin Luther King Jr. and School Desegregation." Saving Schools: from Horace Mann to Virtual Learning. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap of Harvard UP, 2010. Print.



With all this discussion about integration, I wanted to mention a wonderful novel that my students and I read each spring, Mississippi Trial, 1955, by Chris Crowe. It is about the murder of Emmett Till, as told through the eyes of a 16-year-old boy, Hiram, who returns to Mississippi and discovers that everything is not what it seems. The novel mentions segregation and the Brown decision, while also painting a picture of what life was like in the South during this period. Each year the students are amazed to find out that the story of Emmett Till is true; a 14-year-old African American boy was pulled from his bed one night and murdered because he didn't know his place in the South and he whistled at a white woman. The novel helps students see a side of American history that is seldom seen in a textbook, and a side that seems unreal to many students. If you get a chance, read it. If your students are like mine, they will be moved by the novel.

Dewey-ing it, Progressive Style

"Don't worry, Scout...Our teacher says Miss Caroline's introducing a new way of teaching. She learned about it in college. It'll be in all the grades soon. You don't have to learn much out of books that way--it's like if you wanta learn about cows, you go and milk one, see?...I'm just trying to tell you the new way they're teachin' the first grade, stubborn. It's the Dewey Decimal System." (Lee, 18)
--Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird. New York: Warner, 1982.



John Dewey and the Progressives

John Dewey. Who in education has not heard this name? When I think back to my undergrad education classes, I think of all the books that I was required to read that my professors believed had a positive impact on education. Among the books, The Courage to Teach, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, and The Boy Who Would Be a Helicopter, was John Dewey's Experience and Education. I would love to say that I remember everything about the book, but that was 11 years ago, and to be honest, it has been sitting on my shelf until a couple of weeks ago when I noticed that John Dewey had a chapter dedicated to him in Saving Schools. From Paul Peterson's chapter on John Dewey, I have pulled out some important aspects of Dewey's beliefs on education; many of which I believe have impacted me personally in my career as a teacher.



Dewey contributed to 4 tenets of education; two focused on personalizing education to the child -Dewey was influenced by the French philosopher Rousseau in this regard, who in Emile seemed to say that the best education was the one the child discerned for himself (42) - while the other two focused on tight central control on education. (42) They are:

1. Children should be accepted as they are because they are all different.



2. The natural curiosity of children needs to be aroused and used to motivate learning.



3. A child should be socialized into the community.



4. The social order of America needs reform.

Dewey believed that education needed to be focused on engaging the child into the learning process, rather than having them taught by rote. In came the new ideas of project-based or hands-on learning (sound familiar?), the more progressive thoughts of where education needed to go; although to some critics, this style was thought to be more of a justification for disorganized teaching. (41) Dewey helped push the "whole-word" method of spelling and reading instead of the traditional phonics based instruction, while also pushing the use of manipulatives rather than memorization, especially in regards to math skills. Vocational education and elective courses that would help students to become more active learners also grew in number during this time.

It is important to remember that Dewey did not believe that traditional education should be scrapped; there needs to be a balance between the styles that would help students to learn. To help achieve this, teachers need to be sufficiently trained and the school boards themselves need to be focused on the educational needs of the students, rather than the personnel matters and administrative details (49). This would be an area of education that would remain challenging, even to present day when education is continually attacked by the public.

In his ideals, I can definitely see how Dewey, 80 years later, directly impacted my own education as a teacher, as well as a public school student. I never realized the extent until reading this chapter and thinking back to my early days as a student and teacher, which does make a very strong argument for all beginning teachers to read the writings of John Dewey. And...ALL teachers should go back and revisit the readings during their career!

Peterson, Paul E. "John Dewey and the Progressives." Saving Schools: from Horace Mann to Virtual Learning. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap of Harvard UP, 2010. Print.