WED 466: Unit 1

1
WED 466 Unit 1

• Historical, Philosophical, and Ethical
  Foundations
• of Workforce Education

2
General Objective

• Understands the historical, philosophical, and
  ethical foundations of workforce education.

3
Early Career and Technical Education in America

• Colonial America
• Education fell chiefly to the church and the
  family.
• Families served as the center for apprenticeship
  training.
• Wealthy families established private schools
  and/or sent their children to Europe for
  schooling.
• Churches provided elementary instruction in
  reading, writing, and church doctrine.

4
Early Career and Technical Education in America
(cont)

• American Apprenticeship
• Beginnings of Universal Education
• Early Educational Efforts for Adults
• Educational Reforms in the Common School

5
Early Career and Technical Education in America
(cont)

• Manual Training Movement
• Beginnings of Junior High and Comprehensive High
  Schools
• Movements for Including Practical Subjects into
  High Schools

6
Early Career and Technical Education in America
(cont)

• Arts and Crafts Movement
• Correspondence Schools
• Manual Arts
• Agriculture Education Prior to 1917
• Home Economics Education Prior to 1917

7
Early Career and Technical Education in America
(cont)

• General Business Education Prior to 1917
• Status of Practical Arts Programs in 1900
• Douglas Commission of Massachusetts
• National Society for the Promotion of Industrial
  Arts
• Commission on National Aid to Vocational
  Education

8
American Apprenticeship

• Two types
• Voluntary individual agreed to be bound to a
  master to learn a trade or craft.
• Involuntary or compulsory a master became
  responsible for poor children orphans and
  provided a means of meeting their personal and
  occupational needs.
• Impacted by the factory system of the 19th
  century.
• Chief source of education and training of the
  masses for 150 years.

9
Beginnings of Universal Education

• Universal education began with basic instruction
  in reading, writing, and math.
• Ben Franklin experimented with combining
  academics and practical arts.
• After the Revolutionary War, education was
  important in promoting nationalism and balancing
  freedom and order was chiefly supported by the
  church or special charity schools.

10
Beginnings of Universal Education (contd)

• Charity schools provided instruction to create
  moral character.
• Lancasterian system of instruction featured
  students seated in rows receiving instruction
  from monitors the manufactory of knowledge.
• Common schools mixed children together from
  different social classes.

11
Beginnings of Universal Education (contd)

• Education was considered a responsibility of the
  states.
• Three events were instrumental in establishing
  universal public education
• Establishment of primary public school system in
  Boston in 1818
• Establishment of public high school in Boston in
  1821
• 1827 Massachusetts law that required towns of
  500 to establish public schools.

12
Beginnings of Universal Education (contd)

• Three distinct aspects
• Education all children in common schoolhouse
• Using schools to convey government policies
• Creation of state agencies to control local
  schools
• New York was the first to create the position of
  State Superintendent of Schools

13
Early Educational Efforts for Adults

• Mechanics Institute Movement
• Effort to improve the economic and social
  conditions of industrial agricultural workers
  and provide a pool of educated workers
• American Lyceum Movement
• An organization in American towns to increase the
  knowledge of the common person

14
Early Educational Efforts for Adults (contd)

• Manual Labor Movement
• Provided physical activity, reducing the cost of
  education by selling student labor, promoting
  respect for all kinds of honest work, building
  character, promoting originality, stimulating
  intellectual development, and increasing wealth
  of the country
• Early American Technical Schools
• Provided curriculum to prepare individuals with
  advanced scientific knowledge in agriculture, the
  mechanical arts, and engineering
• Land Grant Act of 1862

15
Early Educational Efforts for Adults (contd)

• Trade School Movement
• Provided a workable system of industrial
  education for all Americans
• Provided specific trade training supplemented
  with related academic subjects
• Corporate Schools
• Established by large manufacturers in an attempt
  to revise the old apprenticeship method of
  training high quality employees

16
Educational Reformsin the Common School

• Reshaping of Elementary Education
• Oswego Movement
• Quincy Plan
• American kindergarten
• Gap between working non-working classes
• Illiteracy
• Crime

17
Manual Training Movement

• Began with a 4-year high school in St. Louis that
  provided instruction in math, science, drawing,
  language, literature, and practical use of tools
• Believed that manual activity was a way to
  enhance general education.
• Expansion of programs led to comprehensive high
  schools and technical schools

18
Junior High and Comprehensive High Schools

• Early high schools provided an academic track
  with few opportunities to develop practical
  skills.
• Business and industry supported the doctrine of
  social efficiency, wanting education to train
  individuals for specific roles and to work
  cooperatively in that role (reducing competition
  in that role).

19
Junior High and Comprehensive High Schools
(contd)

• Key elements in the development of the
  comprehensive high school
• Vocational education
• Vocational guidance
• Establishment of the junior high school
• Social-efficiency movement led to vocational
  guidance movement.

20
Movements for Including Practical Subjects into
High Schools

• American Sloyd
• Was a method of hand tool instruction
• Arts and Crafts Movement
• Introduced artistic design and practical skill
  development
• Correspondence Schools
• Brought education and training to those who did
  not live near schools, couldnt attend because of
  work schedule, wished additional training, or did
  not have a wide selection of courses in their
  schools

21
Movements for Including Practical Subjects into
High Schools (contd)

• Manual Arts
• Addressed the neglect of aesthetic principals in
  manual training beautiful useful objects should
  be an outcome of the learning process
• Industrial Arts
• Drew its content from industry replaced manual
  training and manual arts terms.

22
Agricultural Education Prior to 1917

• Morrill Land-Grant College Act of 1862
• Established colleges and universities that
  provided programs combining practical
  applications of agriculture and industry with
  scientific knowledge
• Enhanced by
• Agricultural experiment stations
• Farm journals
• Mechanization of agriculture

23
Home Economics Education Prior to 1917

• Difficult to establish because of prejudice
  against the education of women
• Morrill Act of 1982 established departments of
  domestic science to provide leadership for
  establishing home-making in the public schools of
  America,
• Enhanced by
• Conferences on economics and social aspects of
  the home
• Founding of the American Home Economics
  Association
• Opening the field to people from diverse
  backgrounds

24
General Business Education Prior to 1917

• Private business schools emerged to prepare
  individuals for careers in business and commerce.
• Clerical workers employed for specialized tasks
  as a result of the application of Frederick
  Taylors scientific management.
• Smith-Hughes Act of 1917 created the Federal
  Board for Vocation Education of which business
  education was a part.

25
Status of Practical Art Programs in 1900

• Practical subjects were added to school curricula
  as a supplement to academic content to hold the
  interests of students.
• Industrialization led to a hands-off policy by
  the government big business exploited workers.
• Workers experienced removal of thought and
  creativity from their work.

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Status of Practical Art Programs in 1900 (contd)

• Managers wanted
• Increased output without wage increases
• Reduced labor turnover
• Reduced labor/management conflict
• Increased worker loyalty
• Workers who respected authority
• Workers who valued the work ethic

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Status of Practical Art Programs in 1900 (contd)

• Business and industry wanted educated citizenry
  for their economic self interests.
• Skilled workers were coming from Europe due to
  relaxed immigration laws.
• Schools through vocational education programs
  produced workers with specific skills and a good
  work attitude.

28
Douglas Commission of Massachusetts

• Massachusetts led the way for universal public
  education due to educators like Horace Mann.
• Report concluded that the lack of industrial
  training for workers increased the cost of
  production workers with general intelligence,
  technical knowledge, and skill would command the
  world market.
• Report brought to the nations attention that
  vocational education programs in high school
  could prepare workers for Americas growing
  industries.

29
National Society for the Promotion of Industrial
Education

• Its mission was the promotion of industrial
  education by focusing public attention on the
  value of an educational system that could prepare
  young men and women to enter industrial pursuits.
• Industrial education referred to that area of
  education between manual training and engineering.

30
Commission on National Aid to Vocational Education

• Recommendations included
• Grants for vocational teacher salaries
• Grants for public schools less than college grade
• Instruction limited to youth over age 14 and
  designed for employment in agriculture the
  trades
• Vocation programs including day school,
  part-time, and evening classes.
• A federal board to oversee grants.
• State boards created to administer grants.

31
Educational Philosophies of John Dewey and
Charles Prosser

• Deweys progressive movement advocated the
  education accommodate the natural traits of
  children.
• Prossers philosophy of existentialism was
  grounded in meeting the needs of industry.
• Their differences were in the manner in which
  vocational education programs were infused into
  the curriculum.

32
Dewey and Prosser Differences

• Their differences were in the manner in which
  vocational education programs were infused into
  the curriculum.
• Prosser contended that public education in a
  democracy was not intended for individual
  fulfillment, but to prepare its citizens to serve
  society.
• Dewey placed emphasis on human development in
  order to stabilize and improve American society.

33
The GI Bill Educational Opportunities for
Veterans

• What are the basic concepts?
• What is the impact of this law?
• What types of education and training does the law
  support?
• What is the GI Bill legacy?

34
Schools of Philosophy

• Idealism
• Realism
• Pragmatism
• Existentialism
• Eastern Ways of Knowing
• Native North American Ways of Knowing

35
Idealism

• Idealism is the school of philosophy that holds
  that ideas or concepts are the essence of all
  that is worth knowing.
• Educational Implications
• Idea centered vs. subject-centered or
  child-centered
• The study of great leaders as examples
• Idealists Plato, Socrates, Kant, Martin

36
Realism

• Realism is the school of philosophy that holds
  that reality, knowledge, and value exist
  independent of the human mind (metaphysics).
• Educational Implications
• Subject-centered curriculum
• Employs experimental and observational techniques
• Realists Aristotle, Locke, Whitehead

37
Pragmatism

• Pragmatism is the late 19th-century U.S.
  philosophy that holds the belief of an open
  universe that is dynamic, evolving, and in a
  state of becoming (metaphysics).
• Educational Implications
• Learn best through experience
• Use ideas as instruments for problem-solving
• Pragmatists Peirce, Dewey, Rorty

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Existentialism

• Existentialism holds that reality is lived
  existence and the final reality resides within
  the individual (metaphysics).
• Educational implications
• Proper education starts with human individual.
• Education fills the gaps in understanding so that
  an individual can fulfill their purpose.
• Existentialists Sartre, Nietzsche, Greene

39
Eastern Ways of Knowing

• Eastern thinkers emphasize the illusory quality
  of the physical world stress inner peace,
  tranquility, attitudinal development, and
  mysticism.
• Includes Indian, Chinese, Japanese thought
• Educational Implications
• Emphasizes teacher-student relationship
• Transforms individuals to face life.
• Puts humanity in tune with nature.

40
Native North American Ways of Knowing

• Native North American ways of knowing include a
  varied set of beliefs, positions and customs that
  span different tribes.
• Includes Navajo, Lakota, Hopi
• Educational Implications
• Emphasizes the importance of nature
• Pursuit of knowledge happiness must be
  subordinate to respect for the whole universe.

41
Professionalism and Ethics

• Four ethical obligations
• Promote learning.
• Ensure health and safety.
• Protect the public or private trust.
• Promote the transfer of learning.
• How can ethical standards guide educational
  practice and policy making?

42
Summary

• Historical foundations of workforce development
  includes two systems (a) public education and (b)
  business and industry.
• The study of philosophical thought provides a
  basis for establishing a personal educational
  perspective.
• A true professional exhibits behavior that is
  consistent with the four ethical obligations.