Introduction to 20th Century American
Education
The twentieth century was a time when basic
American education was promoted to the next
level. The goal was to improve the quality of
education. During that time the major trends in
American education were:
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John Dewey’s development of experimentalist
educational philosophy;
The rise of progressivism in education;
The transition of high schools being the primary
source of secondary education;
The quality of higher education;
Teacher preparation;
The development of racial integration
Reconstructivism
emphasis on social reform
John Dewey
Progressivism
Experimentalism
emphasis on pedagogy
and experience
Dewey’s Ideas
According to Dewey, human Interaction with the
environment constitutes experience.
People share social and physical environments, and
this association enriches experience by providing
opportunities for increased human interaction where
individual experiences grow more.
Human intelligence is the sum total of this experience.
Education is a form of cultural imposition; and school
is a balanced environment in which children encounter
and solve problems that add to this experience.
http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issues/educatrs/leadrshp/betan2.au
Dewey believed that the scientific method
is the most accurate means of directing
the process of change. His problem
solving method includes five steps:
1. There is perplexity, confusion and doubt by one’s
involvement in a situation whose full character is
undetermined. This situation disrupts the smooth
flow of ones experience because prior experience
of habit is totally inadequate to deal with it. The
situation calls for a complete act of thought, or
stimulate reflective behavior. It should be pointed
out that when there is no determinate or disturbing
state of affairs, there is no thought or reflective
behavior since habit is sufficient to deal with the
situation (which actually is no situation since there
is nothing disturbing).
Dewey’s “complete act of thought”, or problem
solving method became the basis of the activity
method for learning (inquiry approach) in which
students solve problems based on their interests
and needs by using scientific procedure.
2. Dewey calls the second step “ a conjectural anticipation,
a tentative interpretation of the given elements.
Attributing to them a tendency to effect certain
consequences.” In other words, the person involved
perceives the situation in its problematic character; he
thus defines it, and attempts to locate the problem.
3. This phase involves a careful survey including
examination, inspection, exploration and analysis of all
relevant data necessary to define and clarify the
problem. Here, ideas are evolved to guide action that
must be undertaken to enhance the solution of the
problem.
Cont…
4. The tentative hypothesis is subjected to logical
elaboration. This is the effort to determine what
outcomes can be for-seen as probable in
solving the problem.
5. The projected hypothesis is tested to ascertain
or secure the desired result. If the problem is
solved, then the learner resumes activity until
he encounters another problem.
Educational Philosophies
• Experimentalism…the primary purpose of
school is to teach children to think
effectively…analyze, criticize, select between
alternatives, propose solutions.
Experience anything to learn it
Education should be a study of social
problems
Solutions to social problems
• Experimentalism…progressivism…pragmatism
Dewey, Peirce, William James
• Social Reconstructionism…change society
through education…George Counts,Paulo
Freire
Dewey-Key Points
Dewey constantly developed ideas about education
based on an uncanny ability to observe children and
how they learned. Within a few years of starting his
school, he listed a set of beliefs that were to guide his
successors for years to come:
 Students begin learning by experimentation and
develop interests in traditional subjects to help them
gather information.
 Students are part of a social group in which
everyone learns to help each other.
 Students should be challenged to use their
creativity to arrive at individual solutions to problems.
Dewey’s Beliefs on
Cooperation and
Shared Experiences
Dewey’s method of education stresses
cooperative learning, based on shared experience
and the use of democratic practices. The end of
education is simply growth, which leads to the
direction of experience. Growth involves the
ability to relate experiences and use them.
Learning by experience through problem solving
continuous reconstruction of experience. A K.A. Cooperative Learning
From 1896 to 1903, Dewey directed the University
of Chicago Laboratory School’s experimental
setting, Dewey sought to “coordinator the
psychological and social factors” of children’s
education by promoting: informal, interactive,
constructive and social learning.
Confined to a period between the late 19th and mid20th century “progressive education” is generally
used to refer only to those educational programs
that grew out of the American reform effort known
as the progressive movement.
 The sources of the movement, however, partly lie
in the pedagogy of Jean Jacques Rousseau,
Johann Pestalozzi, and Friedrich Froebel.
 Progressive education embraced industrial
training, agricultural education, and social
education as well as the new techniques of
instruction advanced by educational theorists.
 Postulates of the movement were that children
learn best in those experiences in which they have
a vital interest and that modes of behavior are
most easily learned by actual performance.
Progressivism Continued…
The progressives insisted, therefore, that education must
be a continuous reconstruction of living experience based
on activity directed by the child.
 The recognition of individual differences was also
considered crucial.
 Progressive education opposed formalized
authoritarian procedure and fostered reorganization
of classroom practice and curriculum as well as new
attitudes toward individual students.
William Heard Kilpatrick
He taught at Teachers College, Columbia, from 1909,
becoming professor of the philosophy of education in
1918. Acclaimed as the great popularizer of the
philosophy of John Dewey, Kilpatrick rejected organized
subjects; his child-centered emphasis, however,
represented a sharp divergence from the position of
Dewey. Kilpatrick developed the project method. Basing
his method on active-based learning, he distinguishes
four classes of projects:
1. Constructive/creative project (formulate
or design a plan)
2. Appreciation project (aesthetic enjoyment)
3. Problem project (problem solving)
4. Drill project (learning a skill)
CLASS DISCUSSION
• How did the ideas of the above mentioned
educational philosophers impact today’s
classroom practices?
• Can you identify some practices that are
implemented in today’s classrooms that
may have rooted from the philosophies
previously discussed?
The High School
The high school had become the dominant
institution of American secondary education in
the years from 1880 to 1920. In 1918, The
National Education Association’s Commission
issued its “Cardinal Principles of Secondary
Education” which listed seven goals of
secondary education:
4. Vocational
Education
1. Health
2. Command Of Fundamental 5. Civic Education
Processes (reading, math, etc.)
6. Worthy Use Of
3. Worthy Home Membership Leisure
7. Ethical Character
High School
• Though attendance had increased between 1880
and 1920, George S. Counts concluded that high
schools were selective institutions that served the
upper class.
• By 1930 students from diverse socioeconomic
backgrounds began to enroll, and a wider range of
curricula was introduced.
• High school has always been subjected to the
demands of the political realm (ie. World War I and
II, Sputnik, etc…)
The Conant Reports
• In 1958 James B. Conant claimed that the
high school had three major functions:
provide a general education; provide elective programs
for terminal students; offer college prep programs.
• In Slums and Suburbs 1961, Conant found that schools
in the suburbs emphasized academic preparation for
college admission, while economically disadvantaged
schools in the slums offered inadequate vocational
programs (claiming that particular high schools were
based largely on socioeconomic class/ race.
• During the mid 60’s the high school curriculum in
response to Sputnik-generated reforms moved in the
direction of emphasis on academic disciplines.
Conant Reports Cont..
• Along with curricular innovations, new concepts of
organizing schooling such as team teaching, modular
scheduling, and individualized instruction became
popular in the 60’s.
• In 1970, secondary educators were warned by Charles
Silberman (Crisis in the Classroom) that “schools had
once again become too formalized, inhumane and
controlled by mindless routines.”
• He suggested that schools should allow more student
options and choices, and reconstruct the curriculum.
• By the late 70’s education shifted back to the basics-a
common core of subject matter.
• In the 80’s, the ideas of a common curricular core
(Conant and Ernest L. Boyer) was a persistent theme.
High Schools
• According to educational critics, high school
curriculum in the 60’s was too formal and remote
from students’ needs.
• In the 80’s critics claimed that high school curriculum
was too weak and there needed to be an emphasis
on fundamental academics.
• The report A Nation at Risk claimed that the U.S.
was losing its competitive edge in international trade
because of declining academic achievement in high
schools-high school curriculum should stress the
basic five.
• Throughout the twentieth century, American high
schools have been subjected to political change and
cycles of criticism and response.
Higher Education
• The 2 major developments in American higher ed in
the 20th century were the rapid increase in enrollment
and the extensive expansion of the curriculum (with
the greatest increase coming after WWII)
• Robert Hutchins claimed that “the modern university
had degenerated into a service station by catering to
vocationalism and money-making.”
• 20th century higher ed in the U.S. has experienced
numerous changes and the historic decentralization of
American higher education produced variations in
size, organization, programs, faculties and standards
among schools, colleges and universities.
20th Century Universities
• Clark Kerr wrote that universities had experienced 2 great
transformations: “at the close of the19th century, when the
land grant movement and German intellectualism
produced alterations; and after WWII, when the university
began to educate masses of students and engaged in
federally sponsored research.” He coined the term
“multiversity” a collection of communities united only by a
common name and governing board .
• He found several competitors for power in the multiversity
students demanded a greater voice in university affairs;
the faculty gained some authority over admissions,
curricula, degree planning, etc.; public authorities such as
board of trustees , legislatures, governors etc. came into
play; pressure groups developed (ie. trade unions,
business organizations, mass media, etc.; and the
university administration itself.
Junior Colleges
• First Junior college was established in 1901
• Began as an extension of high school
• After 1920 the number of junior colleges increased with
the greatest growth coming after WWII
• During the depression of the 30’s some 4 year colleges
reduced to 2 year colleges due to financial pressures
• Evolved into the community college-a multifunctional
institution providing the first 2 years of study
• It has responded to the need for technically trained
subprofessionals
• Relatively inexpensive education
• Vocational and liberal arts courses for adults
• Serves as a cultural, educational, and civic center for the
community
Two African American
Educational Views
Booker Taliaferro Washington
• Was born a slave.
• Eventually became
President of Tuskegee
Institute.
• Educator, reformer and one
of the most influential black
leaders of his time.
• Preached a philosophy of
self-help, racial solidarity
and accommodation.
• Urged blacks to accept
discrimination for the time
being and concentrate on
elevating themselves
through hard work and
material prosperity.
1856-1915
Washington Facts
• Believed in education in the crafts,
industrial and farming skills and the
cultivation of the virtues of patience,
enterprise and thrift.
• This he said would win the respect of
whites and lead to African Americans
being fully accepted as citizens and
integrated into all strata of society.
William Edward Burghardt DuBois
• Black intellectual, scholar and
political thinker.
• Said Washington’s strategy
would only serve to perpetuate
white oppression.
• Advocated political action and
a civil rights agenda.
• Helped found the NAACP.
• He argued that social change
could be accomplished by
developing the small group of
college-educated blacks he
called “the Talented Tenth”.
1868-1963
DuBois Facts
• Attended college at the age of 16.
• First black to receive a PhD from Harvard
• One of the leaders of the “Niagara
Movement”
• In his early nineties, DuBois renounced his
American citizenship and became a citizen
of Ghana, as well as an official member of
the Communist Party.
The Debate
10-15 minute discussion
1. Which of these two strategies promised more
immediate gains for the Negro? Why?
2. Why would Washington’s program be rejected by
many blacks today? Do you think that one can better
his condition in American life without political and
social rights?
• Laredo and Heather will discuss (answer) question
#1.
• College Station and Rebecca will discuss (answer)
question #2.
• We will then come together as a group and have one
spokesperson share what was discussed.
How Some Presidents Impacted
Education
How Some Presidents Impacted
Education
Do You
Believe In
EVOLUTION?
•
President Dwight D.
Eisenhower
1953-1961
Eisenhower’s Educational
Relevance
• Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas
(1954)—U.S. Supreme Court decision in which
segregation (“separate but equal”) schools were
ruled unconstitutional.
• Civil Rights Acts of 1957 & 1960— constituted
the first significant civil rights acts since the
1870’s.
• Little Rock Central H.S. crisis of 1957— involved
state refusal to honor a federal court order to
integrate the schools. He sent Arkansas
National Guard and Army troops to escort nine
black students into the all-white school.
Eisenhower’s Educational
Relevance
• The National Defense Education Act
(1958)— was designed to improve
education in science, foreign languages,
and mathematics. The Act supported
guidance, counseling, and testing
programs and vocational education. It
also provided funds for research, student
loans, and graduate fellowships. Also
provided funds for summer institutes at
colleges and universities.
The “New Frontier”
Kennedy’s Domestic Policy
President John F. Kennedy
1960-1963
Kennedy’s Educational Relevance
• Promised Federal funding for education, medical care
for the elderly, and government intervention to halt the
recession. Also promised an end to racial
discrimination.
• Few of Kennedy’s major programs passed Congress
during his lifetime, although under his successor
(Lyndon Johnson), Congress did vote them through in
1964-65.
• One of the most pressing domestic issues was the
turbulent end of state-sanctioned racial discrimination.
• Many schools in the southern states, did not obey the
Supreme Court’s 1954 court decision. Segregation on
buses, in restaurants, movie theaters, bathrooms, and
other public places remained.
Kennedy’s Educational Relevance
• In 1962, James Meredith tried to enroll at the
University of Mississippi, but was prevented from
doing so by white students. Kennedy responded by
sending some 400 federal marshals and 3,000 troops
to ensure that Meredith could enroll in his first class.
• Also assigned federal marshals to protect the
Freedom Riders.
• He initially believed the grassroots movement for civil
rights would only anger many Southern whites and
make it even more difficult to pass civil rights laws
through Congress, which was dominated by Southern
Democrats, so he distanced himself from it. As a
result, many civil rights leaders viewed him as
unsupportive of their efforts.
Kennedy’s Educational Relevance
• National Defense Education Act (1958 and
extended in 1964)
• June 11, 1963—Kennedy intervened when
Alabama Governor George Wallace blocked the
doorway to the University of Alabama to stop two
black students, Vivian Malone and James Hood
from enrolling. Wallace moved aside after being
confronted by federal marshals, the Deputy
Attorney General and the Alabama National
Guard. That night, Kennedy proposed what
would become the Civil Rights Act of 1964
during a national television and radio address
• There were 16,000 American military advisors in
Vietnam at the time of his death.
Three Assassinations
Would Our World Be Different If
They Had Lived?
John F. Kennedy’s Assassination
• On November 22, 1963, when he was hardly past his
first thousand days in office, John F. Kennedy, the
thirty-fifth President of the United States, was
fatally wounded by gunshots while riding with his
wife in a presidential motorcade through Dealey
Plaza in Dallas, Texas. He was the fourth U.S.
President to be assassinated and the eighth to
die while in office.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Assassination
“I Have a Dream!”
1929-1968
• At 6:01 p.m. on April 4, 1968, King was fatally shot at the
Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee.
• Violence and controversy followed. The FBI investigated
the crime, but many believed them partially or fully
responsible for the assassination. James Earl Ray was
arrested, but many people, including some of Martin
Luther King Jr.'s own family, believe he was innocent.
Bobby Kennedy’s Assassination
• On June 4, 1968, Kennedy scored a
major victory when he won the
California primary. He addressed his
supporters in the early morning
hours of June 5 in a ballroom at the
Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles.
He left the ballroom through a
service area to greet supporters
working in the hotel's kitchen. In a
crowded kitchen passageway,
Sirhan B. Sirhan, a 24-year-old
Jordanian, opened fire with a .22
caliber revolver. Kennedy was shot
in the head at close range. He was
rushed to The Good Samaritan
Hospital where he died, at the age
of 42.
Would Our World Be Different
If They Had Lived?
Discussion Question: (5-10 minutes)
• Would there have been an impact on
education had they lived?
Brown v. the Board of Education of
Topeka, Kansas
• The first step towards white-black equality
during the 1950s was the Brown v. the
Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas
decision. In 1954, the United States
Supreme Court ruled that segregated
schools were unconstitutional. The
unanimous opinion of the court partly read:
Court’s Ruling
• “Does segregation of children in public schools solely
on the basis of race, even though the physical facilities
and other "tangible" factors may be equal, deprive the
children of the minority group of equal educational
opportunities? We believe that it does...We conclude
that in the field of public education the doctrine of
'separate but equal' has no place. Separate
educational facilities are inherently unequal.
Therefore, we hold that the plaintiffs and others
similarly situated for whom the actions have been
brought are, by reason of the segregation complained
of, deprived of the equal protection of the laws
guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment.”
A CENTURY IN REVIEW
• 1900-1909 Model-T, First Flight, Einstein's Theory of Relativity, First Silent
Movie
• 1910-1919 World War I, The Titanic, Russian Revolution, Prohibiton
• 1920-1929 Women's Suffrage, King Tut's Tomb, Mussolini, J. Edgar Hoover,
Mein Kampf, Monkey Trial, Charles Lindbergh
• 1930-1939 Great Depression, Mohandas Gandhi, Empire State Building,
Amelia Earhart, Nazis, "Monopoly," the Hindenburg
• 1940-1949 World War II, Adolf Hitler, Pearl Harbor, Manhattan Project,
Chuck Yeager, Berlin Airlift, Apartheid, Communist China
• 1950-1959 Hydrogen Bomb, McCarthyism, Korean War, Color TV, Polio
Vaccine, Mt. Everest, Disneyland, Rosa Parks, Sputnik
• 1960-1969 JFK, Martin Luther King Jr., Eichmann Trial, Berlin Wall, Cuban
Missile Crisis, Draft Protests, Charles Manson
• 1970-1979 Vietnam War, Munich Olympic Games, Watergate, Abortion,
Patty Hearst, Pol Pot, Margaret Thatcher
• 1980-1989 Mikhail Gorbachev, Mount St. Helens, AIDS, Personal
Computers, Ethiopian Famine, Exxon Valdez
• 1990-1999 Internet, Nelson Mandela, Operation Desert Storm, Waco, O.J.
Simpson, Oklahoma City Bombing, Princess Diana, Y2K
A Century in Review
50 Years Later
• Discussion questions:
• Is resegregation occurring in our schools
today?
• Is the Academic Achievement Gap a “Civil
Rights” issue today?
• Is history repeating itself?
References
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Booker_T._Washingt
on
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W.E.B._DuBois
• http://www.americanwriters.org/classroom/videol
esson/vlp18_washdubois.asp
• http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/ayton2.htm
• http://www.nea.org/brownvboard/index2.html
• Du Bois, W.E.B. (1903). The Souls of Black Folk.
New York. Barnes and Noble Publishing, Inc.
(reprinted 2003).
• Washington, Booker T. (1901)Up from Slavery:
An Autobiography. New York. Barnes and Noble
Publishing, Inc. (reprinted 2003).
References
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwight_D._Eis
enhower
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Kenne
dy
• http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issues/env
rnmnt/stw/sw0goals.htm