Quote by: Athena  Keith and I disagree about the role government should play in education, but we are sure what that disagreement is.
I understand an essential purpose of education is to transmit a culture that protects our liberty. This education does what religion does, only it does not define God. It prepares citizens to be independent thinkers, and to be moral, responsible citizens. It teaches a set of principles upon which to base judgements of right or wrong. This is how our liberty is protected. What defines right or wrong, is not personal desires, but a principled decision.
Not until the US mobilized for the first world war, did it include vocational training. Also, not until did this time, did the federal government do more than mandate communities provide free education to all children. Only shortly before WWI were laws passed preventing factories from hiring children and working them so many hours, they could not attend school.
Child labor laws, and the precieved importance of education are two sides of the same coin.
Why did schools include vocational training with education for citizenship? Because Industry wanted to close the schools, claiming the war caused a labor shortage. This would have ended the child labor laws. Also Industry claimed they were not getting their monies worth from public schools, because they still had to train new employees. Vocational training was added to appease industry, and it was reasoned being a productive citizen is part of being a good citizen, so it is a good thing to provide vocational training.
Teachers argued, it was our nation's best, who understood our democracy and its unquic relationship of citizens to democratic institutions, because of their education, who signed up to defend our democracy in a time of war. They argued, even if we won the war, if we did not replace them by educating the young to take their places as doctors, lawyers, teachers, political leaders, etc. then our country would be devastated by the lose of these men. Finally, they argued, an education for making good citizens, is good for making patriotic citizens.
Do you see the shift in the purpose of education? First citizenship and to protect our liberty, then to mobilize the nation for war, than to prepare products for industry, and the economic driven purpose of education that dominates today.
WWI was the first time Industry, National Defense and Education sat on the same board, and until 1958 citizenship training was the priority purpose of public education. People's complaints about government involvement in public education comes after 1958, when military and industrial powers got full control of education and instead of preparing our young for citizenship and life, it began preparing them to be products to serve industry, and a technological society with unknown values.
Our democracy was not an unknown value but today it, and it is being destroyed. |