Notions of Education for Liberation
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George Counts
Paulo Freire
Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.
George Counts (1889-1974)
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Influenced by John Dewey
Accused of being a communist
Writing during the Progressive Era
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Critique of the classical curriculum
Schools as mirrors of society
Primary aim of schooling is to help solve
society’s problems
Paulo Freire (1921-1997)
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Brazilian professor
and head of the
National Literacy
Program
Worked with poor
rural adults
supporting the
active exercise of
democracy
Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.,
(1917-2007)
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U.S. historian and
author
Described as a “lion
of liberalism”
Worried about the
disuniting of
America
In three groups…
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What is the purpose of education as your
author sees it (both individually and
collectively)
What kind of society does your author
envision?
What might the job of a teacher look like?
What role does your author see for the
teacher, and what kind of teacher training
would be necessary?
Your personal reflections…
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What do you make of these authors’ visions
of the purpose of education?
What do you think of the notion of
‘imposition’?
Can you see the tensions between different
goals in schools? What are they?
How should we judge if a person is
‘liberated’? How can you tell?
How should schools create Americans (the
unum out of the pluribus)?
What does “American” mean to you?
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Dictionary: of or relating to the United
States or its people; an inhabitant
Is it also:
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A mindset?
Commitment to a set of principles?
A set of relationships?
Does it demand loyalty (however defined?)
Declaration of Independence
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We hold these truths to be self-evident,
that all men are created equal, that they
are endowed by their Creator with
certain unalienable Rights, that among
these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of
Happiness.
Preamble to the Constitution
We the people of the United States, in
order to form a more perfect union,
establish justice, insure domestic
tranquility, provide for the common
defense, promote the general welfare,
and secure the blessings of liberty to
ourselves and our prosperity, do ordain
and establish this Constitution.
First Amendment
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Congress shall make no law respecting
an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or
abridging the freedom of speech, or of
the press; or the right o the people
peaceably to assemble, and to petition
the Government for redress of
grievances.
Early Education of Domestic
Foreigners
Native Americans and
Mexican Americans
Any idea who said…
“We find ourselves threatened by hordes of
immigrants who have already begun to
flock into our country and whose progress
we cannot arrest.”
“We find ourselves threatened by hordes of
immigrants who have already begun to
flock into our country and whose progress
we cannot arrest.”
Governor of California, Pio Pico in 1846
Common School Reforms
(1830s-1860s)
◊ Demographic changes and patriotic
ambitions
◊ Ideological shift with regard to the
nature of ‘God’
◊ Purpose of education: the great
equalizer, assimilation, morals, and
citizenship
Progressive Era 1880s-1930s
◊ Demographics
◊ Ideology (rise of the IQ)
◊ Purpose of education
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Fit schools to child’s needs
Schools help solve society’s problems
Social stability
Equal educational opportunity
Native Americans-Conditions
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Manifest Destiny
Wars and diseases
Considered domestic foreigners
Bureau of Indian Affairs
Native Americans and Education
◊ White ideas
• Considered educable and salvageable
• Ultimate goal: assimilation and training for
an industrial society
Carlisle Indian School, 1885
Native Americans and
Education
◊ Native Ideas
• To make/enforce contracts; preserve
culture
• Choctaw and Cherokee examples
Chief Sequoyah (1776-1843)
Mexican Americans-Conditions
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Colonization by Spain
Mexican Revolution
Relationship to the United States shifts
Mexican-American War (1846-1848);
Treaty of Guadalupe Hildalgo
LULAC founders, @1929
Questions for Discussion
◊ Is vocational education inherently bad?
◊ How do LULAC and Pratt compare in their
ideas of education for liberation and
assimilation?
◊ How should we judge if a person is
‘liberated’? How can you tell?
◊ How should schools create Americans (the
unum out of the pluribus)?
Women’s Education: Gender,
Class, and Racial Implications
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Three groups of thought on
women’s education
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Conservatives
Liberals
Radicals
Declaration of Sentiments, Seneca Falls
Convention, 1848
We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men and women
are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with
certain inalienable rights…Whenever any form of government
becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of those who
suffer from it to refuse allegiance to it, and to insist upon the
institution of a new government. The history of mankind is a
history of repeated injuries toward woman, having in direct
object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over her…Now,
in view of this entire disfranchisement of one-half the people of
this country, their social and religious degradation…and
because women do feel themselves aggrieved, oppressed, and
fraudulently deprived of their most scared rights, we insist that
they have immediate admission to all the rights and privileges
which belong to them as citizens of these United States.
Colonial Era/Revolutionary Era
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Colonial Era
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Educated to be better wives and mothers
Elite received schools; curriculum (mostly) in the
polite arts
Revolutionary Era
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Worried about race-suicide
Revolution brought questions of what a ‘civilized’
society was
Cult of domesticity
Common School Era
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Co-education catches on
Women as teachers
Worries about race-suicide remained
(though they were countered)
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Edward Clarke
Anna Brackett
Women and Higher Education
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Oberlin
Mount Holyoke (MA) 1837
Vassar (NY) 1861
Bennett (NC) 1873
Wellesley (MA) 1870
Spelman (GA) 1881
Women’s Education in the
Progressive Era
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More girls/women in schools
Gendered curriculum (and race/class
implications)
1920 (19th amendment) women get the
right to vote
Questions for Discussion
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(feminism v. womanism)
How do we understand liberation in the
context of gender?
Should girls/women be educated
differently than boys/men?
What do you think of single-sex
education (for girls OR boys)?
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Religion and Education:
Jews and Catholics
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Colonial, Revolutionary, and
Common School Era Conditions
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Colonial Era
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Revolutionary Era
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Rural; Protestants outnumbered others; worried
about “wilderness” of the soul
Jefferson’s bill for religious freedom
Common School Era
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Loosening of family ties/national loyalty; Uncle
Sam created; increased Irish immigration
Religion in Textbooks
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Catholicism
Catholics need the
Pope while
Protestants rely on
Bible as guide
A danger to the
state
Sample texts
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Judaism
A religion or a race?
Associated with
greed (contrast with
Franklin)
College admissions
becomes HUGE
issue (progressive
era)
Court cases
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State v. John Scopes (Monkey Trial)
(TN), 1925
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Evolution v. Creationism
Science in the classroom
Inherit the Wind
Pierce v. Society of Sisters (OR) 1925
Compulsory education=public education
Anti-Catholic intentions
Questions for Discussion
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How do groups “get ahead?” Inside or
outside the system?
Can we teach morals without religion?
How do/should groups balance
uniqueness against “American-ness?”
What do you think of public money for
private education?
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How to Educate ‘New’ Citizens:
African Americans after the Civil War
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Political History
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13th amendment, 1865 (abolishes slavery)
14th amendment, 1868 (equal protection)
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No State shall make or enforce any law which
shall abridge the privileges or immunities of
citizens of the United States; nor shall any State
deprive any person of life, liberty, or property,
without due process of law; nor deny to any
person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of
the laws.
15th amendment, 1870 (franchise)
Reconstruction (Hayes-Tilden Compromise)
Rise of Jim Crow laws (Birth of a Nation)
Plessy v. Furguson, 1896
Black Educational Conditions
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Black education in the
North
Access to grammar
schools
Access to high schools
Access to college; the
creation of Historically
Black Colleges and
Universities (HBCUs)
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Debate in the history of education:
What to make of Booker T. Washington
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Questions for Discussion
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How were Washington and DuBois treated in
your history classes?
Separation v. segregation issues
Differentiated education: how much is too
much, and when is it OK?
What do you make of vocational training? Is it
inherently bad?
Language Issues:
Does an American Have to Speak
English?
Ingles
Englisch
英語
Inglese
‫إنجليزي‬
Bilingual Education in Politics
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Meyer v. Nebraska, 1923
Lau v. Nichols, 1974
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Question: equal or equitable treatment required by
schools?
Critical mass necessary
Language rights now a civil rights issue
English Only Movement/US English, 1983
Proposition 227 (CA)
Questions for Discussion
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Reflect on the purpose of education as we’ve
discussed it; how does bilingual education fit?
How does bilingual education fit with our
discussion of integration/assimilation/
acculturation/separation/segregation?
How do we reconcile Lau with Brown?
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Achieving Quality Education
through Desegregation
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Chinese/Chinese American
Conditions
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Population increase during Gold Rush
Likened to blacks
Considered an economic threat/
proposal that they should have
permanent laborer status
CA school code
Chinese Exclusion Act, 1882
Tape v. Hurley, 1885
Chinese Canadians
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The only non-British settlers
Moved north to Canada during/after
Gold Rush
Built Trans-Canada railway
“Oh! Law, they are coming in
their own teapots now!”
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Harper’s Weekly, March 6, 1886
A deliberate and determined
effort was made to expel the
Chinese from the town of
Seattle, Washington
Territory; a mob invaded the
Chinese quarter and
marched them toward a
steamer. The mob was
thoughtful enough to provide
wagons to convey the
baggage of its victims.
(allowed to return home,
mob tried to persist but were
disbanded by federal troops)
Japanese/Japanese American
Conditions
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Treaty between US and Japan, 1854
Seen as better than Chinese (more
educated)
Anti-Chinese sentiments spread to
Japanese
CA school board violates treaty;
President steps in; Gentlemen’s
Agreement reach in 1907
The Brown Decision, 1954
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Briggs v. Elliot (SC),
1950
Belton v. Gebhart;
Bulah v. Gebhart (DE),
1951
Brown v. Board of
Education (KS), 1951
Davis v. Prince Edward
County SB (VA), 1951
Bowling v. Sharpe (DC),
1952
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Questions for Discussion
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How do the courts/readings define ‘good’
education?
How do you define ‘good’ education? What
does education for liberation look like with
regard to the issues on the table for today?
What do you make of Bell’s claims of rewriting Plessy? Are you convinced?
Which comes first, a change of laws or
attitudes?
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College Students Defining Education
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Expanding Access
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Civil Rights Act, 1964
Higher Education Act, 1965
Campus-based affirmative action
programs
Vietnam veterans and the GI Bill
Black Student Activism
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The rise of Black
Power
Demands for Black
Studies, professors,
more black students
Administrative/police
response
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White Student Activism
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Students for a
Democratic Society
formed 1959
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Attacked university
complicity in American
social ills
Free Speech
Movement, 1964
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Influenced by work in MS
Issue: politicking on
campus
Called for a strike
Administrative/police
response
Chicano/a Student Activism
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High school student
walk-out in Los
Angeles, 1968
Created collegebased organizations
Conferences
organized and
manifestos issued
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Questions for Discussion
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What is the purpose of college? How is it
reflected?
How do we reconcile ‘separation’ with the
mission of the common school?
Can/should SNCC’s vision for education be
realized?
Who is ‘qualified’ to teach Black studies?
Chicano/a studies? Women’s studies? Etc?