HOW DID SCHOOLS BECOME DESIGNED BASED ON THE AGE OF STUDENTS?
Early in the 18th century educators and policymakers envisioned schools as a way to overcome poverty and crime by inculcating a good moral character into students who the reformers believed lacked appropriate parental guidance. Charity schools , which were the forerunner of the common school, were developed for this purpose (Spring, 2011). Although some students from low-income families attended the schools that existed during this period, many, including African American students in the north, attended charity schools while more affluent children attended private or public schools (Spring, 2011).
The elementary school curriculum in the first half of the 19th century was influenced greatly by the spellers and textbooks written by Noah Webster. His influence was not only on schools; he wrote an American dictionary with which many of you may be familiar. Webster was a schoolmaster who, in 1779, had an idea for a new way of teaching that included a spelling book, grammar book, and reader. When he finished writing the books five years later, he became an itinerant lecturer, riding through the country selling his books. He was a good salesman, selling 1.5 million copies by 1801 and 75 million by 1875. Webster’s books contained catechisms, but he did not limit the recitation to religion. He included a moral catechism and a federal one that stressed nationalism and patriotism (Spring, 2011).
Teachers in the one-room schools of the past and today serve not only as the teachers, but also as the custodian, nurse, secretary, and principal.
The first schools built in many rural communities were one-room schools with a teacher who taught all subjects to students who sometimes ranged in age from five to 17. These schools generally had desks or long benches on which students sat together. A popular instructional method was recitation in which pupils stood and recited the assigned lesson. Values of punctuality, honesty, and hard work were stressed in these rural schools (Howey & Post, 2002).
In the 1830s and 1840s, the father of common schools, Horace Mann, was concerned with divisions between social classes and saw mixing the social classes in the common school as one way to reduce the tensions between groups. Mann applied his ideas to schools when he became the first secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education in 1837. His concept of the common school became the tax-supported, locally controlled elementary schools that dominated U.S. education in the industrial era.
The curriculum of the common school included the skills needed for everyday life, ethical behavior, and responsible citizenship, with standardized subject matter in reading, writing, arithmetic, spelling, history, and geography (Cremin, 1951). Common schools were also expected to create conformity in American life by imposing the language and ideological outlook of the dominant Anglo American Protestant group that governed the country. Education in common schools was seen as a venue for upward social and economic mobility for native whites and European immigrants in the United States. Both girls and boys attended the common schools, usually together.
Video Link Watch a clip about Noah Webster.
Elementary Schools
The first school based on grades was established in Boston in 1848 as Quincy School. Teachers had their own separate classroom, and each student sat at a desk in classrooms designed for 56 students. Within seven years, all Boston schools were graded. Other cities and communities soon adopted the Quincy model, setting the stage for the graded schools of today (Spring, 2001).
Many urban schools prior to 1850 had classrooms for more than 100 students. One teacher managed the classroom with the assistance of student mentors who were selected from the better students. In this Lancasterian method, developed by Englishman Joseph Lancaster, students sat in long rows and the teacher sat at a desk on a raised platform at the front of the room. When it was time for instruction by the teacher, students marched to the front of the room. Afterwards, they were replaced at the front of the room by another group. The first group of students moved to another section of the classroom for recitation and drill with one of the mentors. Throughout the day, students moved from one part of the room to another to work with different mentors with several recitations occurring simultaneously in the room. Many educators and politicians of this era saw this very structured and orderly learning environment as the panacea for efficient schooling of the masses (Spring, 2011).
The Lancasterian classroom was designed for one teacher to manage the education of as many as 100 students at one time in the same room.
By the beginning of the 20th century, the standard classroom had rows of desks bolted to the floor. As the century progressed, many educators moved from lecture and recitation to student-centered activities, which called for smaller classes that allowed experimentation and flexibility. New York City classrooms, for example, averaged 50 students around World War I; by 1930, the average was 38 students (Spring, 2001).
The Webster spellers were replaced in the last half of the 19th century by the McGuffey Readers, which were written by William Holmes McGuffey. The readers provided moral lessons for an industrialized society. The leading characters in the readers were stereotypically male (Spring, 2011). Although the stories were more secular than those in earlier textbooks, religious selections were included along with stories focusing on moral character and the importance of charity. The McGuffey Readers sold more than 120 million copies between 1836 and 1960 (Urban & Wagoner, 2009). Textbooks in the last third of the 20th century became much more secular to the chagrin of some church leaders, who sometimes suggested that the nation would be better off if textbooks and schools returned to their Puritan roots. The “Dick and Jane” readers, which were popular from the 1930s through the 1950s, reflected white middle-class lifestyles and behaviors (Kaestle & Radway, 2009).
Video Link Learn more about the Lancastarian method.
In response to the question about changes that have occurred in the elementary school since 1968 when Mr. Kuhn began teaching, he said:
One of the things that is different is the mass amount of paperwork you have to do. Yes, you had to do paperwork when I first started teaching, and you were accountable for your work, but you now have to document everything you do. You’re basically teaching more to the standards than anything else. If you are not teaching to the standards, you are supposedly not on the right track.
High Schools
During the colonial period, a struggle for intellectual freedom was under way in England to expand education beyond the classical study of Latin and Greek. Dissenters believed that schools were limiting the freedom of ideas by teaching students to be obedient to a church or the government. The scientific revolution fueled the debate, and intellectuals such as Francis Bacon argued that education should provide the intellectual tools and scientific knowledge required to create a better society. This movement led to the development of what was called dissenting academies (Spring, 2001).
When the idea crossed the Atlantic Ocean, the academies became a popular alternative to the Latin grammar schools. An early model of a high school, the academies taught ideas and skills related to the practical world, including the sciences and business. They provided useful education and transmitted the culture that helped move graduates into the middle class. Sometimes the academies were considered small colleges, at other times high schools (Spring, 2001).
The English Classical School was founded in Boston in 1821 as an alternative to boarding schools and the Boston Latin School, which provided a classical education. The curriculum included English, geography, arithmetic, algebra, geometry, trigonometry, history, navigation, and surveying. A few years later, it was renamed English High School, becoming the first high school in the United States (Spring, 2001). Within a few years, Massachusetts passed a law to establish high schools across the state. Other states followed suit, but not without resistance. One of the most famous cases against public high schools was the Kalamazoo decision in the 1870s, brought by three prominent citizens who believed that high school should not be supported with public funds. The courts did not agree, settling the question about taxes supporting high schools.
Massachusetts enacted the first compulsory attendance law in 1852, requiring 12 weeks of school. By the end of the 19th century, 27 states had compulsory attendance laws, but all 48 states had passed them by 1918 (Urban & Wagoner, 2009). However, the establishment of attendance laws did not come about without objections. There were competing interests for what children should be doing at a specific age, which sometimes meant working instead of attending school.
By the end of the 19th century children were a large component of the rapidly growing industrial labor force, especially in the textile mills. Three in 10 mill workers in the South were under 16 years of age and 75% of the spinners in North Carolina were 14 or younger (Woodward, 1971). They worked long hours in dark, dirty, and dangerous conditions, which eventually led to child labor laws. However, this was slow to happen, especially in the South. It was not until 1912 that southern states prohibited night work for children and set age and hour limits that were as low as age 12 and 60 hours per week.
By the beginning of the 20th century, most 7- to 13-year-old children attended school. However, only 10% remained in school beyond age 14, and less than 7% of the 17-year-olds graduated from high school (Olson, 2000). As the 20th century unfolded, the combination of child labor laws and compulsory attendance laws were increasingly effective in pushing young people into school.
As high schools were established in small towns and cities, debates about the purpose of high schools were similar to those that led to the development of academies during the colonial days. Some people argued that the high school should develop a well-disciplined mind in the tradition of the old grammar schools. Others believed that the curriculum should prepare students for the practical world and occupations. Most of the early high schools ended up focusing on advanced science, math, English, history, and the political economy, but the curriculum was generally determined by the textbooks of the period. Admission required passing rigorous examinations; only 4% of eligible students were enrolled in a high school in the 1870s. Less than one in three of the admitted students completed high school. Those who didn’t complete the four-year curriculum entered business or taught elementary school (Cuban, 2004).
The National Education Association (NEA), which today is the largest teachers’ union, formed the Committee of Ten on Secondary School Studies in 1892 to develop uniform requirements for college admission. Instead, its final report identified goals for secondary education, recommending that the children of wealthy and low-income families take the same course of study, regardless of whether they would attend college. The Committee called for at least four years of English, four years of a foreign language, and three years each of mathematics, science, and history (Spring, 2001). The number of high schools grew dramatically at the turn of the century. Seventy percent of the students entering college in 1872 were graduates of academies; by 1920, 90% were high school graduates (Alexander & Alexander, 2001).
High schools at the turn of the 20th century were beginning to sort students for specific roles in society. The NEA’s Commission on the Reorganization of Secondary Education published its report, Cardinal Principles of Secondary Education, in 1918. Its attempt to redesign the high school to meet the needs of the modern corporate state impacted the high school curriculum for the next 50 years. The proposed comprehensive high schools were to teach English and social studies to promote unity among students from different socioeconomic, ethnic, and language backgrounds, but also included vocational programs in agriculture, business, industry, fine arts, and the household. The purpose of high schools was expanded from a narrow focus on academics to also attend to the socialization of students by encouraging their involvement in common activities such as athletics and extracurricular activities such as student government, the student newspaper, and clubs. The report also called for high schools to promote good health through physical and health education (Spring, 2011). During this period, high schools developed an academic track for students who were encouraged to attend college. All other students were guided into general or vocational tracks that would prepare them for jobs immediately after high school. Over time, fewer and fewer students took the academic courses, as shown in Figure 6.1.
Figure 6.1 Percentage of High Schoolers Taking Academic Courses: 1928 to 1961
Source: The failed promise of the American high school, 1890-1995 by Angus, David l.: Mirel, Jeffrey E. Copyright 1999. Reproduced with permission of Teachers College Press in the format of Textbook via Copyright Clearance Center.
It was not until after World War II that the need for a high school education became widespread. By the 1950s, a majority of teenagers were earning high school diplomas. Although more students were attending high school, not all of them were happy with the curriculum and the way they were treated. By the end of the 1960s and into the 1970s, students of color were disrupting many high schools as they confronted discrimination and demanded that their cultures be included in the curriculum. High schools entered the 1980s more peacefully, but with more rights for students, in part, due to a number of court cases. The curriculum and textbooks began to incorporate content on the experiences and history of people beyond the white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant male.
Middle Level Education
At the beginning of the 20th century, psychologist G. Stanley Hall argued that early adolescents were neither children nor adults. He believed that separate education would better serve the students between elementary and high school (Beane, 2001). A second reason for the creation of this new level of schooling was to prepare young people for the differentiated comprehensive high school in which they would be sorted into academic and vocational tracks (Urban & Wagoner, 2009). Table 6.2 lists some of the educators who have influenced U.S. education.
The first junior high school was established in1909 in Columbus, Ohio, followed by one in Berkley, California, in 1910. Although some educators and psychologists were calling for the creation of schools between elementary and high school, the number of junior high schools grew over the next few decades primarily in response to social conditions. Elementary schools were overcrowded with the large influx of immigrant children and the increasing number of students not being promoted to the next grade (Beane, 2001). Four in five students were attending junior high school by 1960 (McEwin, Dickinson, & Jenkins, 2003). For the most part, they had become miniature high schools that were not effectively serving young adolescents.
Still believing that early adolescents deserved an education that was different from that provided in elementary and secondary schools, middle level educators proposed a new structure. Like junior high schools, middle schools evolved, in part, because of the practicalities of the times. By the late 1950s, the baby boom generation was overcrowding elementary schools, which suggested building more elementary schools. Another option was to add a wing to the high school, move to it the ninth grade from the high school, and grades 6–8 from the elementary school. Some communities built a new high school and remodeled the old one for grades 6–8. Sometimes the fifth grade was moved into the new intermediate schools.
Middle school advocates argued that schooling for young adolescents should focus on their developmental as well as academic needs. Rather than a large, departmentalized school like high school, their vision was smaller clusters of teachers and students. Teachers and other school professionals in these schools were to provide guidance to help students maneuver though their changing social and physical development. Educators were to be more affectionate and sensitive to young people.
As the popularity of junior high schools declined, the number of middle schools grew quickly to more than 11,000 by 1999 (Snyder & Dillow, 2011) and more than 15,000 today (McEwin & Greene, 2011). With the national focus on academics in the 1990s, middle level educators pushed for a curriculum that would provide access to academic subjects in a positive and nurturing climate. Teachers were encouraged to use collaborative and cooperative learning with interdisciplinary teams of teachers and block scheduling. Advocates promoted eliminating the tracking of students and creating heterogeneous groups in which cultural diversity was celebrated and diverse learning styles were recognized.