Brief History of K-12 Schooling in America - By Lumos Learning
Transcript
00:03 | in this video . I want to talk briefly about | |
00:05 | the history of American K 12 schools , So I'm | |
00:07 | going to go pretty fast , going to speak in | |
00:09 | a lot of generalities . If people want specifics , | |
00:12 | I have a reference list at the end of kind | |
00:14 | of how I prepare these talks , so I'm going | |
00:17 | to break it up into three rough phase of the | |
00:19 | development . First is the Colonial and early American schools | |
00:22 | . Second is the common school era , and third | |
00:24 | is a consolidation era . And really , the story | |
00:27 | goes essentially from less standardized to more standardized in the | |
00:31 | early American Republic . And even before it was really | |
00:34 | left to the colonies of the states to figure out | |
00:36 | education . And most of them just kind of deferred | |
00:38 | it to the districts in the townships . So really | |
00:41 | , people were kind of on their own and thinking | |
00:43 | about how they wanted to educate kids . Next is | |
00:45 | the common school era . This is where reformers like | |
00:48 | Chorus Man and Henry Barnard started developing what we would | |
00:51 | now call public schools . But we were then calling | |
00:53 | common schools because we wanted kids to go in common | |
00:57 | to the same schools . These were small attendance was | |
01:00 | not compulsory . It generally wasn't fully tax supported by | |
01:04 | the consolidation era . We see more compulsory schools . | |
01:07 | We see schools coming , tax supported , and we | |
01:09 | see these common schools expanding out and becoming larger and | |
01:13 | more people using them . This is why I call | |
01:15 | it the consolidation era , and then districts get bigger | |
01:18 | and the instruction gets more standardized , etcetera . But | |
01:21 | it's really the story from less standardization , two more | |
01:23 | standardization . So the early colonies and states , the | |
01:28 | United States was plural . It wasn't singular , so | |
01:30 | it's not . The United States is a great place | |
01:32 | to live . It's the United States are a great | |
01:34 | place to great places to live . And you weren't | |
01:37 | really a U . S citizen . You were more | |
01:39 | like a Pennsylvanian or New Jersey and or North Carolinian | |
01:43 | . And all this is to say that different states | |
01:46 | and different areas did it very differently , So there | |
01:49 | wasn't really any unification between the states . In fact | |
01:53 | , most states really deferred to the districts , and | |
01:56 | most districts and townships basically still said , Well , | |
01:59 | you guys are on your own . Do it . | |
02:01 | Do whatever you want for education . So some townships | |
02:05 | like those in New England , the New England areas | |
02:07 | , um had a more formal approach . They would | |
02:10 | often take town money , pull it together and create | |
02:14 | schools really one room schoolhouses that people could go to | |
02:17 | , uh , usually for a discounted rate . So | |
02:20 | the state , or really , the township would subsidize | |
02:23 | tuition . But people generally still paid tuition what are | |
02:26 | called rape bills to go to those schools . Or | |
02:29 | , if you could afford to go somewhere else , | |
02:31 | you might do that . You might go to an | |
02:33 | academy if you could afford it . Those were more | |
02:37 | , I guess , systematic in their approach to instruction | |
02:39 | . If you were poor , you might go to | |
02:41 | a charity school . That was a school that was | |
02:43 | supported by a church , and we usually teach basics | |
02:46 | of reading and maybe mathematics . Combined with religious instruction | |
02:51 | . You might even go to what's called a dame | |
02:52 | . School , which is usually a female , would | |
02:56 | open up her house to take on kids in the | |
02:58 | school , and it was more like daycare . But | |
03:00 | there was some kind of remedial instruction involved . So | |
03:03 | here is an advertisement from a really early American school | |
03:07 | that basically consisted of a person opening up a school | |
03:11 | in his house , and you can see that tuition | |
03:13 | is $5 . I imagine that's $5 for the entire | |
03:16 | bit of instruction , and he would teach such things | |
03:19 | as arithmetic , grammar and geography So you can get | |
03:23 | a sense that , really , even though the New | |
03:25 | England states had common schools to some small degree , | |
03:28 | it was really left up to individual families because there | |
03:31 | were no laws saying You have to go to common | |
03:33 | schools and the the mid Atlantic states did things a | |
03:37 | little bit differently . They would often pool township money | |
03:40 | together , and instead of creating a school that everyone | |
03:43 | can go to divvy up that money so that especially | |
03:46 | poor families could afford some sort of private school , | |
03:49 | and the South didn't really do much of anything , | |
03:51 | mostly because it was really agrarian and very rural . | |
03:54 | So it would have been really hard to get any | |
03:57 | school anywhere where a lot of people could go . | |
04:01 | But the moral here is that states and really townships | |
04:04 | kind of did their own thing , and you just | |
04:07 | got the education that suited you that you wanted and | |
04:09 | that you can afford . So here is an excerpt | |
04:13 | from a book called Confessions of a Schoolmaster from 18 | |
04:16 | 39 . This is a book that was written by | |
04:19 | a person who started teaching in schools in in the | |
04:22 | early 18 hundreds , and this gives us an insight | |
04:24 | into what schools , especially one room schoolhouses , looked | |
04:27 | like at the time . So , he says , | |
04:29 | among 35 or 40 pupils , I had three or | |
04:31 | four who came to learn the alphabet . These were | |
04:34 | seated in the lower seats , usually near the middle | |
04:36 | of the room , and during the first hour and | |
04:38 | a half of the day , they were destitute of | |
04:40 | any employment . So what do we gather from this | |
04:42 | quote ? Well , first of all , we gather | |
04:44 | that different kids kind of showed up on a different | |
04:46 | day , and this teacher only had 35 or 40 | |
04:49 | pupils on a given day . Remember , education was | |
04:52 | not compulsory in the early 18 hundreds , so it | |
04:55 | was not at all uncommon for some people to show | |
04:59 | up one day not to show up the next day | |
05:01 | , show up for three days in a row and | |
05:02 | then not show up for two days After that . | |
05:05 | Um , really , the teacher got to school and | |
05:08 | didn't really know what kids were going to be there | |
05:10 | . That day , and there were some books in | |
05:12 | the school and the teacher would instruct you based on | |
05:15 | where he thought you were , and in some sense | |
05:17 | is based on what you came to school thinking that | |
05:20 | you needed or really that your family thought you needed | |
05:23 | the other thing we get from this is that really | |
05:26 | ? There was a mixed age group of students . | |
05:28 | There is no such thing as grade levels , but | |
05:30 | what most teachers did to kind of put similar students | |
05:33 | together is , they would put maybe the best students | |
05:37 | in the front of the room . The the younger | |
05:39 | students may be in the back of the room who | |
05:41 | needed more remedial instruction and kind of divide the room | |
05:44 | that way . That way he could instruct groups of | |
05:47 | students at a time . But even here you can | |
05:50 | see the dilemma . Is your teaching all of the | |
05:52 | students of very mixed ability at one time ? So | |
05:55 | anything you're teaching some people might need and other people | |
05:58 | kind of have to tune out . It's a really | |
06:00 | hard job for a teacher , which is why , | |
06:03 | starting with the common school air , there was an | |
06:05 | attempt to try to standardize a little bit of the | |
06:08 | education , so let's go there . So the common | |
06:11 | school era we can get to roughly 18 40 . | |
06:14 | And the big name here many of you are familiar | |
06:16 | with it is Horace Mann , who was the secretary | |
06:20 | of the Board of Education in Massachusetts . There's also | |
06:23 | Henry Barnard , who is doing the same job in | |
06:25 | Connecticut and some other folks , and they started thinking | |
06:28 | it would be really great if we could somewhat systematize | |
06:32 | this system because the one room school house is really | |
06:34 | informal . The teacher is usually just whoever is an | |
06:37 | educated person that's willing to work for a certain sum | |
06:40 | of money , and it's okay you're hired . Teach | |
06:42 | , however you think is best , which is potentially | |
06:45 | unfair because different students at different schools in different areas | |
06:49 | now get different treatment . So Huisman and the others | |
06:52 | dream was , Why don't we create something that's a | |
06:55 | little bit more systematic ? And the first order of | |
06:58 | business was to get more people attending the common schools | |
07:02 | , which were the one room schoolhouses . So they | |
07:06 | did this in a few ways . Number one . | |
07:07 | They pushed for more tax support for education . Remember | |
07:11 | , students are still paying tuition , even at public | |
07:13 | schools called rate bills , and they , first of | |
07:16 | all , made moves to abolish rate bills and make | |
07:18 | it so that anyone could attend these common schools completely | |
07:21 | for free . Another thing they did is they tried | |
07:24 | to professionalize the teaching force . So they tried to | |
07:27 | compile statistics on what teaching methods worked so that teachers | |
07:32 | to be hired would have to kind of be fluent | |
07:34 | in those methods , usually graduating from teachers , colleges | |
07:37 | that were then called normal schools . Another thing they | |
07:40 | try to do , especially now that more students are | |
07:42 | attending these schools is try to make them instead of | |
07:45 | one room like this picture indicates , try to make | |
07:48 | them multiple room so that it's at least possible to | |
07:51 | teach some people in one room maybe the students who | |
07:54 | need lower reading instruction versus other students in another room | |
07:58 | who might need higher reading instruction . So that was | |
08:01 | another development , so the school's got a little bit | |
08:03 | more sophisticated . Another thing they did was they started | |
08:07 | to have success in passing compulsory education laws . At | |
08:12 | this point , students attended if they wanted to , | |
08:14 | and if their families really didn't need them to stay | |
08:17 | home and work . But states started passing compulsory education | |
08:22 | laws , starting in 18 51 with Massachusetts and ending | |
08:25 | in 1917 with Mississippi . I'm recording this in 2019 | |
08:30 | . So if you really , really think about it | |
08:32 | , the last state in the union to pass compulsory | |
08:35 | education was only 100 . And two years ago , | |
08:38 | that's pretty interesting . Another thing , of course , | |
08:41 | that I mentioned was that education became entirely state funded | |
08:45 | . So this really increased dramatically . The number of | |
08:47 | people who attended schools , first of all , because | |
08:50 | by law you have to attend school . And second | |
08:52 | of all the choices now between a school that I | |
08:54 | can attend for free the common school versus the school | |
08:57 | that I have to pay tuition for , which is | |
09:00 | the private school , maybe the academy or something else | |
09:03 | . So most people started to choose public schools , | |
09:09 | and this leads us to the consolidation era . So | |
09:14 | it wasn't good enough to slightly formalize schools . At | |
09:17 | this point , a lot more students are starting to | |
09:19 | attend to the common schools for reasons that I just | |
09:21 | mentioned . So now we get ideas about well , | |
09:25 | hey , it's maybe if we want schools with a | |
09:28 | lot of people attending them , we not only need | |
09:31 | bigger schools , but we need more systematic schools . | |
09:33 | We need rooms that are divided so that maybe 20 | |
09:36 | or 30 students at a time of a similar age | |
09:39 | grouping can receive the same instruction from one teacher in | |
09:42 | this room and then moved to another room to receive | |
09:44 | instruction in another area from another teacher . Uh , | |
09:47 | so maybe the nine and 10 year olds are working | |
09:49 | together , and the 12 and 13 year olds are | |
09:51 | working together . So this is really a long way | |
09:54 | from the confessions of a schoolmaster expert excerpt , where | |
09:58 | everyone is receiving instruction by the same teacher in the | |
10:02 | same room . Another thing that happened during this consolidation | |
10:06 | era is called scientific management . The idea here is | |
10:10 | that there is a way to design curriculum and pedagogy | |
10:15 | the way we teach students in a systematic and they | |
10:18 | thought , scientific way . So instead of hiring a | |
10:21 | teacher and saying , teach the way you think is | |
10:23 | best , teach what you think is best to teach | |
10:26 | how you think it's best . The idea was , | |
10:28 | we want to create a curriculum and pedagogical methods that | |
10:33 | are designed by experts , and these experts will tell | |
10:37 | teachers and schools how they should be teaching now . | |
10:39 | In one way , this sounds really horrible because no | |
10:42 | longer is the teacher really in charge of what they're | |
10:44 | teaching . They're teaching someone else's curriculum , using someone | |
10:47 | else's methods designed by so called experts . But on | |
10:51 | the other hand , it makes a lot of sense | |
10:53 | because if you want students at different schools to really | |
10:56 | receive essentially the same quality and type of instruction , | |
11:00 | Uh , this is a really good way to do | |
11:02 | it . You want to standardize , and hopefully , | |
11:04 | if you standardize , you want quote unquote experts to | |
11:07 | be the ones guiding that standardization . Here's another picture | |
11:12 | that just illustrates one of the changes from the one | |
11:15 | room schoolhouse to a more modern desk . So this | |
11:18 | is a picture of a one room schoolhouse desk on | |
11:20 | the left . It's bolted to the floor . Students | |
11:23 | sit in a place that's kind of pre chosen , | |
11:25 | and you can't really move where the seat is . | |
11:27 | And then they created more modern desks , and they | |
11:29 | decided to not built them to the floor . This | |
11:32 | would give teachers and schools a little bit greater autonomy | |
11:35 | in figuring out how many desks each room needs , | |
11:37 | because you can move desks from one room to another | |
11:40 | , and consequences also gave teachers a little bit more | |
11:43 | freedom in terms of how they organize their room . | |
11:45 | So that's interesting , because on one hand you have | |
11:47 | this push towards standardization with scientific management and scientifically designed | |
11:51 | curriculum . But on the other hand , you now | |
11:54 | have greater freedom of teachers to be able to move | |
11:56 | desks around to where they think the desks should go | |
12:01 | . A few other things that happened in the consolidation | |
12:03 | era . First of all , the early 19 hundreds | |
12:05 | high schools became widely attended . High schools existed before | |
12:09 | 1900 but their attendance was really the way colleges today | |
12:12 | . It was for the quote unquote learned professions , | |
12:15 | and if you were going to go into one of | |
12:17 | the learned professions , you might go to high school | |
12:19 | . But otherwise there was really no need . You | |
12:21 | could get several years of instruction in a regular school | |
12:23 | and do most particular jobs . But in the 19 | |
12:27 | hundreds , especially as compulsory education became more prevalent , | |
12:31 | you started to see more people attending high schools , | |
12:33 | and then college in some ways became the new finishing | |
12:36 | school . In the 19 tens , IQ tests were | |
12:39 | introduced in school , so we had this idea that | |
12:42 | while education is being standardized , we also had an | |
12:45 | increasing sensitivity to the idea that different students might demand | |
12:49 | different tracks of instruction . So there may be students | |
12:52 | on the lower end of the educational spectrum who might | |
12:55 | require an education that's catered to a lower level , | |
12:59 | whereas students on an upper level we might call them | |
13:02 | honors are gifted . Today might require a different kind | |
13:05 | of education and take tests were starting to be used | |
13:08 | to help sort students into those groups . Also , | |
13:11 | middle schools became a thing we finally realized , discovered | |
13:15 | or invented , depending on your perspective , the idea | |
13:17 | of adolescence . It's not quite childhood . It's not | |
13:20 | quite adulthood . So we finally gave middle school students | |
13:24 | adolescents a separate school of their own . So grades | |
13:27 | one through five , we're usually primary school . Middle | |
13:30 | school was six through eight . And then , you | |
13:32 | know , uh , nine through 12 would be high | |
13:36 | school in 1926 . Finally , the S A T | |
13:39 | is introduced for college preparation . And if there are | |
13:42 | any high school teachers watching this , you probably can | |
13:44 | figure out pretty quickly that the the S a T | |
13:47 | as a high as a college entrance exam really changed | |
13:51 | how high schools had to teach because now , in | |
13:53 | some ways , they had to teach to prepare people | |
13:55 | who wanted to go to college for college . So | |
13:58 | all of these are kind of ways to standardize , | |
14:00 | even while differentiating the approach . And that's the result | |
14:04 | of the the consolidation era , and that brings us | |
14:07 | to now . So if you think about the one | |
14:09 | room schoolhouse versus the schools that were used to , | |
14:11 | we've come a long way in a short amount of | |
14:15 | time , and it's really a story of not a | |
14:18 | lot of centralization at the beginning , two more centralisation | |
14:22 | at the end . So here the resources that I | |
14:24 | use if you want any further readings , I would | |
14:26 | recommend that you check out some of those , yeah | |
00:0-1 | . |
Summarizer
DESCRIPTION:
In this video, I give a very brief history of K-12 schooling in America, how we progressed from one-room school houses, to 'common schools" to the more standardized public (and private) schools we see today.
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