The Story of School Part 2

This part of the PBS series covered 1900 to 1950 and it was really wild, for lack of better words. From John Dewey's attack on the traditional education system came the ideas of movement in the classroom and learning by doing and practical applications. This was furthered by the Gary system and while watching this, I thought the Gary schools were really neat. I can't understand how these principals could be bad. I started thinking about it and I wonder if, because it was difficult to pass information with the efficiency we have today, it was easier to persuade people as a political figure. It was hard for people to do their own research, especially poor immigrants and people who did not speak English very well. Maybe that is why the Gary system was overthrown.

I found the ethnic education pretty disturbing. It seemed especially dangerous to combine the use of IQ scores and ethnicity to determine one's track in life. It seems so wrong and yet we still do it today, in different ways. It's sad that this tracking started so long ago and we haven't changed the education system enough to stop predetermining people's worth. I couldn't believe that tracking effected schools to the point where they became social hangouts rather than places to learn and challenge oneself. The so called "life adjustment education"? Ridiculous. That's why home-economics gets a bad reputation. Students need to learn life skills, but some things should come from the home or from being a general member of society. I'm all for teaching students how to manage money, basic first aid and resume skills, but dating advice? It's crazy. The education system seems to leap from one extreme to the other, over and over again. It's frustrating to watch and realize we still do a lot of the same things today.