Michael Cook
Pat Lewis
Peggy Smith
AGRICULTURE PRIMARY
SOURCE OF INCOME FOR
90% OF AMERICANS
NORTH: SMALL CASH CROP
FAMILY WORKED FARMS.
SOUTH:
(1) large estates – worked
by slaves and
indentures servants
(2) small farms – family
worked or possibly a
few slaves.
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Travel was human, animal
or river current based.
Total Population 6 million,
mostly rural
New York City 50,000
people , 5 others with
10,000.
Structures
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Democratic Localism: Local
communities should be selfgoverning with little rule by state
and national governments.
Colonies: colonial legislature,
British-appointed governor with
veto-power, final authority was
the British crown.
Confederation of States: limited
national government, state
legislators with an elected
Governor.
Constitution: greatly increased
power of centralized national
government.
Commonalities
1.
Representation in government
2.
Male citizens’ liberties could be
infringed upon only for serious
reasons of state.
3.
Education was important for all
white men, colonial and state
governments had ultimate
authority in this area.
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The importance of individual liberty
Rejects many of the foundational assumptions of previous governmental
systems such as the Divine Right of Kings, hereditary status and
established religion.
John Locke Two Treatises of Government “no man ought to harm another in
his life, health, liberty, or possessions.”
Jefferson, Declaration of Independence: “all men are created equal; that
they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that
among these rights are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; that to
ensure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving
their just powers from the consent of the governed.
Republicanism: the right of individuals to govern themselves through
representative government.
What is the difference between the writings of Locke and Jefferson?
Faith in Reason
2. Natural Law
Republican Virtue
4. Progress
5. Nationalism
6. Freedom
1.
3.
 Language:
- work of memory and the literature
they contained offered excellent models of
writing
 Mathematics: exercises our reason, contain
truths which are useful in other branches of
science
Elementary Schools
1.
2.
3.
Divide into small districts
“all free children, male and
female” attend for three years
for free, or longer at private
expense.
Learn necessary life skills.
1. Reading
2. Writing
3. Common arithmetic
4. History
1.
Who is included at
this level of
education, and why
are these skills
important for all
members of society
to possess these
skills?
Grammar Schools
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Approximately 20 per state.
Six year school.
Each student required to
pay tuition, room, board, and
other necessary expenses.
Languages the center of the
school, Greek, Latin, and
English Grammar
Advanced arithmetic,
geometry, navigation and
geography.
School Function
1.
2.
3.
Graduates would become
the local “district” leaders,
or university students.
Provide leadership in
business, local militia, local
government.
Would become the teachers
of the elementary schools.
University Education
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
“our institution will proceed on the
principle…of letting everyone
come and listen to whatever he
thinks may improve the condition
of his mind.”
Study of ancient languages,
advanced mathematics, law,
ideology, and philosophy.
Also available for study were
religion, gymnastics, fine arts.
All students specialize within
these “sciences.”
University graduates would
become legislators, governors,
provide governmental
leadership.
1.
2.
Self-Education
The most important form
of education.
Jefferson believed that
the development of
reason, the expansion of
intellect, and inquiries
into the mysteries of the
universe were
fundamental to human
happiness,
“knowledge is power…
knowledge is safety, and
that knowledge is
happiness.”
“in general, their existence appears to
participate more of sensation than
reflection…Comparing them by their
faculties of memory, reason, and
imagination, it appears to me that in
memory they are equal to whites: in
reason much inferior…in imagination they
are dull, tasteless and anomalous”
-Thomas Jefferson 1781
 What is Jefferson implying about
African Americans?
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Positives
Advocate for abolition of
slavery
Offered a bill allowing for
the emancipation of slavery
Included African Americans
as “men” in the Declaration
of Independence
Unsuccessfully proposed
the Northwest Ordinance
Believed the weaknesses
possessed by African
Americans could be
improved through education
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Negatives
As President he did not support
abolition
None of his legislative proposals on
education included African
Americans
Continually bought more slaves when
10,000 slaves were freed by
plantation owners
Believed that African Americans
lacked the intellectual endowment for
self-governance
Belief in racial inferiority led him to
argue against intermarriage,
“amalgamation with the other color
produces a degradation to which no
lover of his country no lover of
excellence in the human character
can innocently consent.”
 Equal
to whites in intellectual endowment
 Inferior in culture, forced to become
“civilized” or driven west of the
Mississippi River.
“A plan of female education has
never been a subject of
systematic contemplation with
me. It has occupied my
attention so far only as the
education of my own daughters
occasionally required.”
“might enable them, when they
become mothers, to educate
their own daughters, and even
to direct the course for sons,
should their fathers be lost, or
incapable, or inattentive.”
 Everyday
requirements for literacy less
demanding
 Literacy not so essential to employment
or conducting everyday affairs,
employers feared an educated work
force
 Women, African and Native Americans
had no voice in government and could
not vote
 Socioeconomic
marginality of illiteracy
 All powerless groups in U.S. History have
desired access to literacy for economic
and social advancement
 Conventional
 Functional
 Cultural
 Critical
 Defined
literacy as “ the ability to ready
and write a simple message in any
language.
 Literacy rate determined by latest
completion of grade level.
 Findings were based on written
questionnaires and telephone interviews.
 Does not account for levels of literacy.
 Simplest
form
 Definition:
The ability to read and write
 Emphasizes
social and educational
progress and obscures the social and
educational inequalities .
a conception that emphasizes the level of
ability to read and write necessary to
function well in a particular society.
 Kozol’s
objection is that it denotes as a
goal “the competence to function at the
lowest levels of mechanical performance
 Lankshear adds the tendency to blame
the victims of social inequity for
illiteracy.
What, in your view, does the functional
literacy perspective contribute to our
understanding of the political of literacy in
the US?
 Best-selling
book Cultural Literacy
 His conception of cultural literacy goes
beyond the technical reading of
functional literacy to embrace the
democratic ideals of Thomas Jefferson
and Martin Luther King, Jr.
 What
do you think?
 Draws
attention to power relations in
society by focusing on oppression
 Attends to how knowledge and power are
interrelated
 The capacity to think and act reflectively,
not the ability to read lines on a page.
 Simply it’s the ability to understand and
act against the social relations of
oppression.
 Hierarchical
distribution of power in the
schools
 The nature of student work
 The social stratification within the school
structure.
 Which
of the perspectives of literacy
presented do you think is the most
important for individual teachers and for
schools in general to embrace in the US
today?
 G.E. is
not alone in its power to
manipulate the way news is distributed.
As 2007 began, eight media giants
dominated the American news business:
Disney, TIME Warner/ AOL, Yahoo!,
Viacom, G.E. (NBC News), News
Corporation, Microsoft, and Google .
 Knowing this, how do you think the bias
from those people in power manifests
itself? Two examples follow:
Overall, reports on domestic issues in
America, such as job cuts, the economy,
& what ails American schools are told as
bad news.
 The flip side of the issue is the
American public usually learns no way
of understanding the bad news is the
pre-determined outcome of the structure
of corporate capitalism itself.
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It is not just the news on television and the
internet that affects people’s ability to think
for themselves about their way of life. The
technology itself affects people’s ability to
develop literacy skills and to think critically.
One government study showed students
who watched three or less hours of
television a day showed higher levels of
reading skills than students who watched
six hours or more a day.
In middle class schools, the number of
computers is substantially more than in
working class or inner city schools
populated by African Americans.
According to researcher Michael Apple,
“These more economically advantaged
schools not only have more technical and
teacher support , but the very manner in
which the computer is used is different
from what would be found in schools in less
advantaged areas.
If the hegemony theories are accurate, they
have a lot of implications for education, the
two most basic say:
 1.) It appears society is educating in
profoundly contradictory ways . On one
hand, citizens are taught in the schools and
through the media that we live in a
democratic society.
 2.) On the other hand, they are taught
through daily experience not to expect to
take part in basic decisions that affect their
lives.

 1.)
They decide which stories get covered
in terms of which will and which will not
serve their interests.
 2.) As news gets reported, their criticisms
address problems in American institutions .
However, they do not usually address how
those institutions are structured. The media
may criticize how a game is played, for
instance, but they do not question the rules
of the game.

The fourth branch would be represented by the
free press, and other forms of the media. A lot of
historians as well as people in government
believe the American way of life could not be
sustained without the fourth branch. The free
press is needed to attack suspected government
corruption and to report on any political whose
integrity appears questionable.
Jefferson had said he would rather live in a
country with no government but with
newspapers than a country with a government
without newspapers.

Jefferson believed there was no democratic
justification for a ruling class that monopolizes
decision making. A democracy stripped of
substantial participation by people in the basic
decisions affecting their lives is not a democracy
at all. Those who do not participate in the
decision making process are not required to
learn, an if what hegemony theorists believe is
accurate, the educational gap between the
powerful and powerless grows greater with each
passing year.
 G.E. owns
the National Broadcasting
Network (NBC). Because G.E. has a large
number of revenue sources, some of which
are defense contracts, how do you think this
may affect the way news is reported on
NBC?
• G.E., as most any corporation in the United
States, seeks to gain profit by eliminating
jobs. It would also tend to seek advantage by
encouraging the dissemination of
information consistent with its military,
global, and international interests.

Students are not taught by school or
society to examine and question
decisions between what they are told and
the reality they experience every day.
Instead, they are taught in schools to
tolerate such contradictions if they
recognize them at all. They are taught
that democracy is working well.
Unemployment is built into the capitalist
system since it benefits the stockholders.
Investing in profits such as the less
expensive workforce in a foreign land
instead of investing in American workers
is but one example.
 As television news tells stories of our
national interests, usually what get
portrayed as news was determined by
those interests of corporate directors.

 In
New York State, as you interview for a
job to teach in a school, one thing you
will need to show will be a philosophy of
education. How will you articulate your
beliefs as they will manifest themselves
in the classroom? Would such a
philosophy of education reflect how you
would impart teaching of values, and
character education?
 Jefferson
said a society cannot be
ignorant and free; but did he understand
that education is not guarantee or
freedom?
Think back to the analogy of four legs
of the stool, and the fourth leg of
government represented by journalism.
 Also, think back to an idea brought up
earlier by Jefferson. He said he would
prefer to live in a country where there
were newspapers and no government as
opposed to a government but no
newspapers.

 We
will return to Jefferson and his vision for
America.
 Let’s consider who influences the
American press. . .
 General Electric (G.E.) is the ninth largest
corporation in the world. Its revenues are
equal to the gross national product of
Norway. If G.E. would be a national
economy, it would be larger than 130
countries.

What if the people who write columns on the
internet, for instance do not tell the truth. On the
conservative side, we have Rush Limbaugh, and
on the liberal side, we have Arianna Huffington.
Both routinely distort the facts to make a point.
This leads to a discussion question: Could
Jefferson have foreseen multinational
corporations controlling the public’s perception
of the media and politicians? Those newspapers
without a corporate connection are rare today.
What would Jefferson think of newspapers today?
Consistent with his vision, a lot of historians
use the following analogy to explain the
value of newspapers in America:
 Imagine a stool that needs four legs to
stand. Each leg of the stool represents a
branch of the United States government.
One branch of the stool represents the
judicial branch, a second represents the
legislative branch, and a third represents
the executive branch.

During those times when an
understanding of critical literacy
must come to the fore, the teacher
must understand a connection to
liberty must exist. Teachers must
impart that students’ knowledge,
skills and dispositions reflect
critically on their experiences and
their relationships with those in
power in their lives.
The concept of literacy has evolved as American
society has evolved. As future teachers, will
you all understand which definition of literacy
needs to take precedence during one
interaction and how another needs to manifest
itself during another? Functional literacy,
cultural literacy and critical literacy each points
to a different direction as literacy is embedded
in separate teachable moments.

How will your personal philosophy of
education manifest itself? Will you teach
your students to be inquisitive? Will you
teach them that there are no dumb
questions? Will you teach them that
unfairness against a person of a different
social class, gender or race affects them
all? Will you teach them to value
education, and to continue learning for
the rest of their lives?