In “Tinkering Toward Utopia”, and our class discussion and reading a point was brought up that I would like to further address concerning faith and our basis on public education. A large part of why I believe we have moved so far in education from where we first began concerns religion. Our nation, as a whole, once embraced the idea of democracy and public education that was based highly on Biblical principals. Years later, the mention of God, Bible and religion has been taken out of schools. The basis of our public education was founded on Biblical principals. A large part of the faith we had for public education stemmed from the Democracy. What was the foundation of the Democracy? Was it not the Bible, Faith in God that our Democracy would operate successfully? My point being, I see trend beginning to unfold in my mind that public education without this foundation will continue to struggle. I am skeptical to think that only man has all the answers for our educational progress because of where it has led us.
We further discussed in class about our faith in education dwindling in the 1950’s, and how our society as a whole became more worried about what others thought of us. This notion led us to change or add other dimensions to our educational systems. The myth of progress seemed to change the outlook and unsettle our educational systems to a point where we felt the need to want more out of life, the need to move or travel. This I believe has helped us because of the experiential learning factor tied in with our education gives us a deeper understanding of who we are as individuals, thus helping us accomplish more.
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I realize that this is a sensitive subject. I do feel that at times a "squeaky wheel" out here in our land of opportunity gets oiled at the price of my right to freedom of religion. I am not sure, however, that it impacts education at its very core. Math is math and an adjective is an adjective, no matter what one's belief system. Perhaps it is not the religion, but the ethics and values of our society that are affecting education. If a little less emphasis were placed on popularity and status, and a little more on learning, a middle ground might be found. Our country is so afraid of damaging egos and losing funding that students get promoted that have not accomplished learning goals for the age group. Discipline also seems to be a thing of the past. American Idol or American history? The easy track to fame and wealth would be great, but maybe students should be reminded that out of the 10,000 people who auditioned for Idol in Charleston, only 23 were chosen to get the opportunity to be the 1 winner.
I agree, to a large extent with this post. The education system we have today is broken, because so many of the things it was founded upon have been taken out if it. Among them are prayer in schools, the pledge of allegiance, the mention of God, and so on and so forth. As far as the impact of religion upon education I agree that has a certain amount of impact as far as discipline, ethical behavior and values are concerned. As we know those are all biblical principles that society no longer seems to deem valuable. We worry too much about being politically correct and offending people, that's true. We need to get back to making our top priorities educating students in the proper subject matter and impressing upon them the values and morals that will make them good responsible citizens of society.
This is a Good post in that it captures what I believe is a common idea -- that our skepticism about public schooling over the last 30 years is due to our schools (and society) becoming more and more secular and, therefore, declining as a result. It reflects the common idea that a principle purpose of schools is to provide moral instruction and equates moral instruction with religious beliefs.
This idea is based on a narrative, one in which schools (and our society) were based on "Biblical Principles". The issue is that the actual narrative is much more complicated. Three examples:
1. The predecessor to the public schools (the town schools of New England) were explicitly religious, but very narrowly so. The promoted the Puritan strain of Protestantism and excluded Catholics and most other Protestants (Quakers, Methodists, etc).
2.Thomas Jefferson was instrumental in the formation of the Republic and an early advocate for public schooling. Yet he was, at best, ambivalent about religion's place in either. A Deist, Jefferson was famous for "editing" the Bible by taking out most of the supernatural parts and leaving in the moral advice. The University of Virginia was explicitly secular, with no chapel and the library (not a church) at its center. His proposal for public schools in Virginia also has those schools being secular in nature.
3. Horace Mann, a key figure in the establishment of public schooling, felt the right to an education was God-given and displayed some messianic zeal in his arguments for the necessity of public schooling. Yet he also forcibly argued against religious education, claiming it interfered with the freedom that was necessary for democracy.
My point is that the narrative is complex, with the tension between religion and public education being played out in a number of ways.
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