The Progressive Era The early 20th century

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The Progressive EraThe early 20th century
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• From 1885- 1920 school enrollment increased from
  358,000 (7 of school aged students) to 2.5
  million students in secondary schools (32 of
  their age group).
• Ten years later a majority of 14-17 year olds
  were in school.

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Caused

• Explosion in the need for buildings, teachers,
  teacher education programs, texts, and funds for
  all of these.
• However, changes in American life radically
  altered education.

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Urbanization

• In 1870, approximately 26 of people lived in
  cities.
• By 1920 over half lived in cities.
• Shift from being rural to urban society.
• Foul, filthy smelling overcrowded neighborhoods.
• Houses adjoined stables, and offal, debris, and
  horse manure littered the streets.
• Large rat population
• In one place 1,231 Italians were living in 120
  rooms in New York.
• In another area one could not find a single
  bath-tub in a three block area.

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Other problems

• Urbanization brought an increase in crime against
  people and property (as Jefferson feared),
  governmental corruption, great strife between
  laborers and employers.

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• Why were new immigrants to the U.S. from
  different countries considered to be less equal
  to people who had immigrated to America early on?

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• From 1866 to 1870, 98 of the 1.3 million
  Europeans that had immigrated to the US came from
  northern and western Europe and Germany.
• Left because of economic depression and
  population growth in their homelands.

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By 1906-1910

• 4.5 million immigrants were leaving because of
  better conditions and opportunities in the US
• Only 22 were the old immigrants
• Now from Italy, Greece, Russia, Poland, Hungary,
  Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Lithuania.

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Caused considerable prejudice

• View of national differences as race differences
• Slavs, Jews, Italians a different racial stock
  than Nordics
• British, German, Scandinavian considered free,
  energetic, progressive, tall, fair
• Slavs, Jews, Italians considered downtrodden,
  atavistic, stagnant, dark, short, low
  intelligence
• Origin of the Species (1859)

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• Competition for jobs
• Condition of the cities
• Hostility fueled by WWI
• Resulted in immigration restrictions

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• Why did the established American Civic and
  national leaders consider the predominance of
  foreign stock a significant problem for the
  workplace? Schools? Social Order in general?

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• Millions of immigrants were now a apart of the
  American social fabric.
• Hostile and racist attitudes continued
• 68 to 78 of population in large cities had at
  least one foreign born parent.
• Why the problem?

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• the new immigration contained a large number of
  the weak, the broken, and the mentally crippled
  of all races drawn from the lowest stratum of the
  Mediterranean basin and the Balkans, together
  with the hordes of the wretched, submerged
  population of the Polish ghettos.
• Madison Grant, p. 85

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• Why turn to the schools for solutions?

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• What is scientific management?
• How did it affect workers lives?
• Womens lives?
• Secondary school curriculum provided to working
  class girls?

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• The application of principles of engineering
  precisions to the management of people.
• Efficiency studies time, materials, and effort
  wasted by men at work

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• Break down a task to its simplest component parts
  so that an unskilled person could be trained
  easily.
• What was the result of this process?

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Positive

• Goods produced more cheaply
• Workers receive higher wages
• Total output increases

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Negative

• Workers up in arms
• Paid by the hour rather than the piece.
• 1. Development of unions
• 2. Populism
• 3. Socialism
• 4. progressivism

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Results for women?

• Home became place of consumption rather than
  production

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By 1900 90 of women working outside the home

• 1. Domestic service 39
• 2. Manufacturing (textiles, clothing, tobacco)
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• 3. Agriculture (especially Black southern women)
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• 4. Professions teaching/nursing 8

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By 1920

• 1. Office work (prior, 76 were male) 25.6
• 2. Manufacturing 23.8
• 3. Domestic service 18.2
• 4. Agriculture 12.8

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Results for schools

• Replacing ward (neighborhood) school boards with
  one city school board.
• What was the effect on neighborhood schools?

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• When and why were state governments passing and
  reinforcing compulsory attendance laws?

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• Abusive employment of youth in mines and
  factories
• To provide education for all youth
• Americanize immigrant youth
• Socialize to new political and economic
  conditions
• (1918)

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• What are the comparisons of classical liberals to
  modern liberals on natural law, reason,
  individualism, progress, and the role of the
  government, plasticity of human nature, and
  freedom?

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Natural Law

• Modified by Darwins Theory
• Universe no longer a fixed mechanism governed by
  unchanging laws of nature.
• Universe now evolves
• What we know today may be shown false tomorrow
• Warranted assertibility Dewey

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• What part did Darwins ideology play in the
  schools education plan?

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• What changes transformed American schooling
  during Progressivism? Are those changes still
  consistent today?
• Is that a good thing?

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• A response to urbanization, industrialization,
  and immigration
• It replaced the faculty psychology that was
  predominant at the time.

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• What did progressive education assume? How did
  progressive education differ from classical
  education?

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• Traditional classical curriculum should be
  replaced by one that is varied based on the needs
  and interests of the children
• Learning based on activities rather than rote
• School aims, content, and processes should
  reflect social conditions
• Primary aim of school is to help solve social
  problems

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• What was Deweys theory on Progressive education?
  How did Dewey suggest, think that children should
  learn? Be taught?

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• Children are by nature actively social creatures.
• Traditional school not only failed to encourage
  but actively penalized children for acting by
  their natures.
• Caused students to be passive learners.
• Caused them to accept a static curriculum rather
  than exercise their curiosity by following up on
  things that interest them
• He believed that the mark of a free person is
  one who could frame and execute purposes of his
  or her own.

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Dewey believed in

• The replacement of the traditional curriculum
  with varied child-centered curriculum
• Learning through activity
• Schooling as a response to social problems
• However the meaning of progressive education for
  Dewey was a bit different than the progressives
  of the day.

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• Progressives argued that elementary school should
  allow students to engage in activities based on
  occupations with which they were familiar
• Would provide thematic structure
• Would provide connections to outside world
• Non-school experiences could enrich school
  experiences
• Thought that progressive education was
  progressive because it was different than the
  traditional model.

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• Dewey cautioned against using specific
  experiences to prepare students for specific
  occupations or vocations in the work place.
• Should not educate for specific occupations but
  educate through these vocations.
• Could use these experiences to discuss, read,
  write, problem solve, perform arithmetic, and
  stimulate other intellectual pursuits in ways the
  traditional methods could not.

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Dewey believed

• Progressive education was marked by student
  activities that grew progressively out of student
  interests and past experiences, leading to new
  experiences and and new interests.

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• The Progressive school reflected consistent
  concern for social stability as a primary
  educational objective. In what ways was this
  accomplished?

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• The state maintains schools to render its
  citizens homogeneous in spirit and purpose. The
  public schools exist primarily for the benefit of
  the state not for the individual.
• Prepare students with specific skills and
  attitudes of the workplace.
• A shift from a liberal education to a manpower
  model.

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• What was Deweys view of equal educational
  opportunity?
• How did it compare to the progressive and
  Eliots view?

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• Only through education can equality of
  opportunity be anything more than a phrase. Dewey

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Interestingly.

• Progressives argued that
• Students would receive different kinds of
  education -- all students would have equal
  opportunity to receive an education appropriate
  to them.

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Helped to justify

• Separating students into different curricula and
  preparing them for different occupational
  outcomes while social efficient seemed
  undemocratic on the face.
• Elementary teacher should sort students by their
  evident or probable destinies. (Charles Eliot,
  1908)