In my continued study of the history of education, I have been reading up on the period from 1900-1950. It has really opened my eyes to how blessed we are to be living in this time period of education. We might be seeing a lot of reform going on right now with the common core standards that are being implemented in education, but the early 1900's was a mess in regard to education. The main goal for this time period was to "Americanize" the immigrant children that were pouring into the school systems. It was a time for schools and teachers to teach the students the knowledge and skills needed to participate in what was a democratic industrial society.  It was now a law that children were to attend  elementary school and many went on to high school. America was now famous for its free public education and we were ahead of other leading European Nations. Junior High Schools were implemented to handle the large amount of immigrant students and to train children as young as twelve for the work force. Meanwhile, there were many that felt it was time to change the way children were being educated. It was time for more practical studies that would prepare them for the work industry and less of academic courses. This led to the use of IQ testing to determine where the student needed to be placed in education. It would help identify the student's innate, fixed intelligence. Administration would use the results to determine if a student was to go on in the academic studies, or be placed in a program that best fit their abilities toward industrial work or other areas.
     About this time, philosopher John Dewey  campaigned  that children learned by doing instead of by reading about it. He developed an educational system that was a more child-centered and individualized approach. It was built to emphasize a child's interest and culture. This reform was implemented in Gary Indiana by a former student of Mr. Dewey, a William Wirt. It was met with mixed emotion at the time but later became very successful in that area. It was based on alternate periods of study and work.  It failed in New York due to parents feeling that it was preparing their children to go out and get jobs in the factories while they wanted their children to go on to higher education and jobs as doctors or lawyers. It was too bad that this approach did not succeed at the time. It might have changed the direction that education seemed to keep taking. Vocational tracking was still the big push thanks to the IQ testing and later the SAT testing that was developed to test for college acceptance.
     During the 1950's, the focus was on "real life" education, With this change in education came great disatisfaction. There was a claim that education had be reduced student effort, lowered standards, and reduced achievement as well. There was a cry for change in education again. With the Russian launching of the satellite Sputnik, there came a greater push for this reform. Congress passed a law that provided for higher education in the areas of mathematics, science, and foreign language. There was a big reduction in illiteracy  and more children attained an education.  But education still had a long way to go. In 1910, most children were still found at work in factories instead of in a classroom. When asked, many would rather work in the factories than be in unsafe, boring classrooms. Progressive leaders pushed to reform schools into places that would exercise a student's body as well as the mind, teach them by doing hands on learning, and explore the world around them. This lead to the introduction of William Wirt again. He developed a curriculum that would always keep the students moving and not let them have time to be bored. It gave an opportunity to the students to have a rich school experience. It was a split-shift system of Work-Study-Play where the students would learn skills for jobs, then academics, and then play time as well. It was a well-rounded program that met the need of all students and their talents instead of just a few. It was designed to help everyone be successful in academics as well as a working man. There was even a program to help the community members and hopefully meet a need for teaching parents how to manage better at home.
      There was great opposition once again to the "Gary Plan" in New York so it was never successful in their schools. They eventually went on to develop their own texts and curriculum that would focus on "Americanizing" the students. Only English would be spoken in the schools and Christian influence ruled. This became a time of segregation once again. It became harder for children to cross that cultural divide between school and home. IQ testing would build an even wider gap in educational segregation. It was thought that the scores could determine a student's knowledge by ethnicity, race or class. The testing was biased and only given in English so many children failed it. Many Mexican American students as well as Native American students were classified as slow learners or mentally retarded. Some were never even given the test. It was just determined that because of their race, they were bound to fail or only be able to succeed as an industrial worker. This was considered to be another form of segregation as the students' were educated to prepare for the industrial job market instead of higher education.
      Then came yet another push for educational reform. Arthur Bestor, a university professor and author, felt that students were being spoon-fed  information and not being given the chance to develop their own thoughts, or evaluations of the data. How could they come to any conclusions about the material when it was all handed to them and there was no thinking required. He pushed for a return to the basic core subjects of academics. The american school system was in a continuous cycle between progressive education and traditional forms of education. But there was also still the problem of little funding, buildings overcrowded and in disrepair, teacher shortage due to the war,  and cultural bias that needed attention. In 1958, President Eisenhower signed a bill known as the National Defense Education Act that would give huge amounts of money every year to education. It was a push to compete with Russia and reform our school system so that more scientists and mathematicians would be produced. This era would be known as the time of mass education but not of equal education.
     I cannot imagine how hard it would have been to be a teacher at this time. It seemed that ideas were always changing on how you should be teaching and there was a huge responsibility on the teacher to not only teach academics but also hygiene and basic life skills. The teacher often had to take the role of a parent as well as an educator. It must have been hard for the student as well to not know the language and be tested only to be told what you were going to learn so that you could get a job in something you might not have even been interested in. Many were denied the opportunity to expand their learning and find what talents they might have had in the arts, mathematics, or science. They were simply told that they would take courses that would prepare them for the work force. Our education system might have problems now, but at least students have an opportunity to explore different avenues of learning.  What is your opinion?