Notions of Education for Liberation

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Notions of Education for Liberation

• George Counts
• Paulo Freire
• Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.

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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
  societys 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

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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?

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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)?

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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?)

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Early Education of Domestic Foreigners

• Native Americans and
• Mexican Americans

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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.

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• 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

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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

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Progressive Era 1880s-1930s

• Demographics
• Ideology (rise of the IQ)
• Purpose of education
• Fit schools to childs needs
• Schools help solve societys problems
• Social stability
• Equal educational opportunity

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Native Americans-Conditions

• Manifest Destiny
• Wars and diseases
• Considered domestic foreigners
• Bureau of Indian Affairs

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Native Americans and Education

• White ideas
• Considered educable and salvageable
• Ultimate goal assimilation and training for an
  industrial society

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Carlisle Indian School, 1885
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Native Americans and Education

• Native Ideas
• To make/enforce contracts preserve culture
• Choctaw and Cherokee examples

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Chief Sequoyah (1776-1843)
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Mexican Americans-Conditions

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

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LULAC founders, _at_1929
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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)?

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Womens Education Gender, Class, and Racial
Implications
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Three groups of thought on womens education

• Conservatives
• Liberals
• Radicals

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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
  rightsWhenever 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 herNow, in view of this entire
  disfranchisement of one-half the people of this
  country, their social and religious
  degradationand 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.

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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

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Common School Era

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

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Women and Higher Education

• Oberlin
• Mount Holyoke (MA) 1837
• Vassar (NY) 1861
• Bennett (NC) 1873
• Wellesley (MA) 1870
• Spelman (GA) 1881

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Womens 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

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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)?

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Religion and Education Jews and Catholics
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Colonial, Revolutionary, and Common School Era
Conditions

• Colonial Era
• Rural Protestants outnumbered others worried
  about wilderness of the soul
• Revolutionary Era
• Jeffersons bill for religious freedom
• Common School Era
• Loosening of family ties/national loyalty Uncle
  Sam created increased Irish immigration

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Religion in Textbooks

• 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)

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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 educationpublic education
• Anti-Catholic intentions

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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?

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How to Educate New Citizens African Americans
after the Civil War
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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

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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)

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

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Language Issues Does an American Have to Speak
English?

• Ingles
• Englisch
• ??
• Inglese
• ???????

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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)

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Questions for Discussion

• Reflect on the purpose of education as weve
  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?

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Achieving Quality Education through Desegregation
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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

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Chinese Canadians

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

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Oh! Law, they are coming in their own teapots
now!
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Harpers Weekly, March 6, 1886

• A deliberate and determined effort was made to
  expel the Chinese from the town of Seattle,
  Washington Territory a mob invaded the Chinese
  quarter and marched them toward a steamer. The
  mob was thoughtful enough to provide wagons to
  convey the baggage of its victims. (allowed to
  return home, mob tried to persist but were
  disbanded by federal troops)

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Japanese/Japanese American Conditions

• Treaty between US and Japan, 1854
• Seen as better than Chinese (more educated)
• Anti-Chinese sentiments spread to Japanese
• CA school board violates treaty President steps
  in Gentlemens Agreement reach in 1907

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The Brown Decision, 1954

• Briggs v. Elliot (SC), 1950
• Belton v. Gebhart Bulah v. Gebhart (DE), 1951
• Brown v. Board of Education (KS), 1951
• Davis v. Prince Edward County SB (VA), 1951
• Bowling v. Sharpe (DC), 1952

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Questions for Discussion

• How do the courts/readings define good
  education?
• How do you define good education? What does
  education for liberation look like with regard to
  the issues on the table for today?
• What do you make of Bells claims of re-writing
  Plessy? Are you convinced?
• Which comes first, a change of laws or attitudes?

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College Students Defining Education
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Expanding Access

• Civil Rights Act, 1964
• Higher Education Act, 1965
• Campus-based affirmative action programs
• Vietnam veterans and the GI Bill

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Black Student Activism

• The rise of Black Power
• Demands for Black Studies, professors, more black
  students
• Administrative/police response

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White Student Activism

• Students for a Democratic Society formed 1959
• Attacked university complicity in American social
  ills
• Free Speech Movement, 1964
• Influenced by work in MS
• Issue politicking on campus
• Called for a strike
• Administrative/police response

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Chicano/a Student Activism

• High school student walk-out in Los Angeles, 1968
• Created college-based organizations
• Conferences organized and manifestos issued

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Questions for Discussion

• What is the purpose of college? How is it
  reflected?
• How do we reconcile separation with the mission
  of the common school?
• Can/should SNCCs vision for education be
  realized?
• Who is qualified to teach Black studies?
  Chicano/a studies? Womens studies? Etc?