The document discusses the history of education in the United States from the post-Civil War era through the late 20th century. It covers major events like the establishment of schools for freed slaves, the growth of urban areas and immigration, compulsory attendance laws, and influential educational philosophers. Key figures mentioned include Booker T. Washington, Jane Addams, John Dewey, G. Stanley Hall, Jean Piaget, Maria Montessori, and B.F. Skinner. The focus was on understanding child development and improving educational approaches.

1. Education in a Free SocietyAlexander RippaChapters 5-8 Alicia Daley Edf 3521

2. Chapter 5 Civil War from 1861-1865. President at the time: Abraham Lincoln Casualty toll of the war, approximately 258,000 soldiers on the Confederate side and 359,000 on the Union side perished, leaving the southern fields with dead Americans. In the fall of 1865, about half-million white people were without shelter or food in the areas of Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. Northern organizations such as the Boston Educational Commission and the American Missionary Association established schools for the former slaves, provided teachers, and equipped the classrooms. The missionaries taught the freedmen Yankee war songs, by advancing equalitarian ideas, and by instilling hostile attitudes toward the former master class.b

3. The earliest and most highly respected educational leader of his race was Booker T. Washington, whose views commanded attention throughout the South and North. 1881 Washington founded Tuskegee Institute in an unfriendly white community in Alabama. Child labor was a growing problem. By the early 1900’s about 1.7 million boys and girls under the age of 16 were hired for long hours of work in fields and factories. Mary Harris Jones became a crusader to end child labor. She committed herself increasingly to the Workers’ struggles against low wages, long hours and depressed working conditions. Business leaders pointed out that many youngsters were forced to drop out of schools after elementary grades. By the end of 6th grade, basically not learning anything.

4. Chapter 6 After 1900 one of every 3 American lived in a city with a population of 8 thousand or more. Urban growth of American society grew by the arrival of non-English speaking immigrants. Approximately 22 million Russians, Poles, Bohemians, Hungarians, Slovaks, Greeks, and Rumanians emigrated to the United States between 1880-1914. The schooling of immigrant children was almost guaranteed through compulsory attendance laws. By 1890, 27 states and territories required parents or guardians to send their children to school. Massachusetts made a compulsory school attendance law in 1852, requiring that children from 8 to 14 years of age be sent to “public school”.

5. By 1911 over half the pupils in public schools of 37 of the most heavily populated cities were children of immigrant parents The “muckrakers,” surely the most popular agitators for social change, were themselves powerful reformers: the choice of subject alone was often a weapon eagerly used not only for selling journals but also for curbing vice and urban evils. Jane Addams expanded school curriculum that would add “human significance” to a person’s life. Addams opened in September 1889, Hull House in Chicago, an educational force in the lives of impoverished immigrants of the surrounding area. Hull House was a vision of a society in which all people, regardless of race, gender, or socioeconomic status would have a chance to develop talents and interests. Felix Adler, a humanitarian leader and the son of German rabbi, opened in 1878 the first “free kindergarten” in the slums of New York City.

6. Charles Darwin- Darwinism stressed the power of people to control their environment and coincided perfectly with the spirit of the reform era. Darwinism brought a sharp change in biological inquiry, giving the new biology a firm place in the school curriculum. Darwinism emphasized individual differences and encouraged the study of child development. William Graham Sumner espoused a strong laissez-faire doctrine. Lester Frank Ward: within the genetic process, a new and potent factor emerges with the development of the human mind. Herbert Spenser: the great popularizer of the theory of evolution and of social Darwinism. His ideas were of mainstream modern pedagogy.

7. Chaper 7 Friedrich Froebel’s Kindergarten, decreased the rigidity of the classroom atmosphere and gave new dimensions to the study of child development. William Torrey Harris helped Americans to adjust to the stresses and strains of a dynamic society through a Hegelian idealism that combined tradition with change. Francis Wayland Parker viewed education as an exploratory process leading to self discovery. John Dewey conceived of educational purpose in truly social terms. Johann Friedrich Herbart was a profound philosopher and skilled educator. He viewed moral development as the primary aim of education. He says it was the foundation and the goal of education

8. Herbartian disciples formalized Herbarts theory into 5 steps: preparation, presentation, association, systematization, and application. Friedrich Froebel was long interested in the development and education of children from 3 to 7 years of age. He realized the significance of the early childhood years as a basis for personality development. He believed that the young child should grow and learn through social participation. William T. Harris approached the initial problem of a large-scale enrollments by instituting the graded school, organized on a quarterly system, with pupils grouped and promoted on the basis of periodic examinations. According to Francis Wayland Parker, the public school was to be cohesive element in a free society. John Dewey had a philosophy that active learning was the way to learn.

9. John Dewey created a Laboratory school, where children learned through “experimental practices”. For Dewey, problem solving was essential for mental activity; in brief, the underlying factor in the thought process. Dewey referred to education as a process not an end product. He also said “thinking is the method of intelligent learning and that one learns how to think through experience”.

10. Chapter 8 In 1883 Granville Stanley Hall founded at John Hopkins University the first psychological laboratory in the United States. In 1887 Hall launched the American Journal of Psychology, the first psychological journal to be published in the United States. He concentrated his research on child development. In 1891 Hall founded the Pedagogical Seminary, a periodical devoted to child study. Arnold L. Gesell was interested in observing and studying the growth and development of children in a laboratory setting. He was very interested in developmental pathology. Jean Piaget studied children’s behaviors.

11. He observed children at play and developed clinical interviews as a research for studying children. Piaget identified 4 main periods of intellectual development: the sensorimotor period (age 0-2), the preoperational period (age 2-7), the concrete operational period (age 7-11 or 12), the period of formal operations (age 11 or 12 onward). Maria Montessori opened the “Casa dei Bambini”(The Children’sHouse) in 1906. Her philosophy is that not all children are ready for school at the same time, and she believed moreover that children of the poor are at a special disadvantage. Sigmund Freud was a psychoanalyst, strived to reveal the innermost depths of the psyche. Alfred Binnet was concerned with problems of intelligence and reasoning. He devised suitable tests of intelligence that would detect and measure mental defects.

12. Toward the end of the 20th century the most widely accepted approach was Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences. The 7 intelligences according to Gardnerare: Linguistic, Musical, Logical-Mathematical, Spatial, Bodily-Kinesthetic, Interpersonal, and Intrapersonal John B. Watson studied objective behavior. B.F. Skinner also developed an objective psychology. Skinner maintained that most behavior is operant (emitted by the organism) rather than respondent behavior ( elicited in response to certain stimuli) Early cognitive interpreters were the Gestalt psychologists who were interested in cognition and problems of perception. Gestalt theory is learning by insight. A learner who develops insight into a problem sees, often quite suddenly, the whole situation in a new way with a clearer perception of logical relationships.