Spring 2003 Tuesday 6:00 - 8:40 Prestonsburg

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PREREQUISITES: none

COURSE DESCRIPTION: Beginnings of the American system of education, survey of theories of

education; factors and forces changing American education philosophies of learning applied

to contemporary educational problems.

PROGRAM REQUIREMENTS: EDEL 680 is required as one of the core courses that must be

taken by a student who is pursuing a graduate degree in elementary education.

COURSE GOALS: This course is designed to provide students with historical and philosophical

contexts for understanding contemporary educational practices and issues. This will be

done by exploring some major movements in educational thought from classical Greece to

the present.

EXPERIENCED TEACHER STANDARDS: While a foundational course of this nature will

contribute indirectly to all of Kentucky's Experienced Teacher Standards, it most heavily focuses

on issues related to:

Standard 7: Reflects/Evaluates Teaching/Learning

Standard 9: Engages in Professional Development

Standard 3: Designs/Plans Instruction

Standard 4: Creates/Maintains Learning Climate

The parallel New Teacher Standards are:

• Standard 1: Designs/Plans Instruction
• Standard 2: Creates/Maintains Learning Climates
• Standard 5: Reflects/Evaluates Teaching/Learning
• Standard 7: Engages in Professional Development

COURSE ACTIVITIES: Students will listen to lectures, participate in discussions, do informal

writing in and out of class, create and present an artistic expression of ideas studied, do formal

writing, and complete written examinations.

RESOURCES: Textbooks: Maxine Greene, Releasing the Imagination

Joel Spring, The American School 1642 - 2000

(See: http://www.mhhe.com/socscience/education/spring/spring05as/)

A bibliography is included below. For web sites of interest, see links on the instructor's web page.

TECHNOLOGY: Students are expected to be able to use email, to access their MSU email

accounts, and explore Internet web sites. To access their university email accounts, students

should be able to access their MSU email accounts from any browser by typing

"http://mail.morehead-st.edu/" on the address line.

DIVERSITY: The conflict between freedom and conformity as it manifests itself in schooling is

one of the more prominent themes in this course, particularly in the study of the history of

American education. We will explore diversity issues particularly in the context of early

nationalism; treatment of European immigrants, women, African-Americans, and Native

Americans in nineteenth century schooling; the history of African-American education; and current conflict over bilingualism.

*Students with special needs should see the instructor the first week of the semester to discuss any special accommodations that may need to be made.

COMPETENCIES: Of its very nature, this course focuses on reflection rather than performance.

Therefore, the competencies are harder to define and measure than those in a methods course.

Minimally, students ought to be able to describe a historically and currently important educational

issue from multiple philosophical perspectives, explain how that issue has been dealt with a key

points in western educational history, find historical antecedents for their own professional

practice, and evaluate their own teaching in light of insights gained.

ASSESSMENTS: A variety of assessments are used to determine the degree to which goals of the

course are achieved. Formally, students will take conventional paper/pencil tests, write test items,

keep a log of their opinions on issues raised in class, write book reviews, and create an imaginative

expression of an important concept from the course. Informally, the instructor will monitor class

progress through student's written and oral responses to questions posed in class.

LECTURE/DISCUSSION TOPICS

Platonic Idealism: Education for Intellectual Transcendence

The Pragmatism of Isocrates: Education for Success

Aristotelian Realism: Education for the Sake of Education

Tertullian vs. Origen: What Hath Athens to Do with Jerusalem?

Liberty vs. Uniformity: The Dilemma of Jefferson and Webster

The Common School Movement: Mann and McGuffey

Rousseau and Romantic Naturalism: The Natural Development of the Whole Child

Progressivism: The Marriage of Pragmatism and Romanticism

The Perennialist Response to Progressivism: In Search of Truth

The Essentialist Response to Progressivism: Back to Basics

Social Reconstructionism: Repairing a Broken World through Education

Analytic Philosophy: Philosophy as Linguistic Analysis

The Existential Posture: The Teacher as Stranger

REQUIREMENTS:

1) TEXTBOOK - Read carefully the assignments in the textbook and come to class prepared

to discuss them.

2) LOG - Keep a learning log consisting of two separate and clearly identified sections:

• SECTION 1- In-Class Writing: This section will consist of in-class writing assignments given by your instructor. Allow about the first ten pages of your log for these entries. (Use tape or some sort of tab to make it clear where Section 1 ends and Section 2 begins.)
• SECTION 2 After-Class Reflections: This informal writing assignment will record your day-to-day reflections on various issues raised in class. Log should have at least 150 words of material for each class period, and these entries should mainly consist of your opinions about topics discussed in class. Each entry should include the date of the class meeting about which you are writing, and entries should be numbered. The log should be kept in a bound composition book or spiral notebook and submitted as originally written.

3) INTELLECTUAL AUTOBIOGRAPHY - Write an essay about those life factors that have

most affected your worldview. Include people, events, and ideas that have most shaped

your philosophy of life and show how those influences have worked their way into your

teaching. This is a formal writing assignment which should reflect not only your best thinking

skills, but your best writing and editing skills as well. Suggested length: 1200 - 3000 words.

4) CREATIVE PROJECT - Select an important thinker in the history of education and do a

creative project to express key features of that thinker's worldview. You may paint a picture,

write a song, make a sculpture, produce a music video, or write a short story or play.

Students should seek instructor approval of their plan before investing significant amounts

of time in any of these projects.

5) BOOK RESPONSE - Read a book on the supplemental reading list and write a 1000 - 1500 word response it. The response should identify the central themes of the book, explain how they might be significant for education, and explain how they are relevant to you personally. This is a formal writing assignment that should reflect not only the student’s own thinking but his/her very best writing and editing skills as well. The student may be asked to read his/her paper to the class and should write at a level appropriate to that audience.

6) EXAMS - Perform successfully on two professional literacy exams covering important terms,

topics, and people from the history and philosophy of education.

7) PARTICIPATION - Attend class, take careful notes, and participate in discussion. Students

who miss more than two class meetings (for any reason) can expect their final grade to suffer.

8) OCCASIONAL ASSIGNMENTS - Students may occasionally be given short term in-class or

out-of-class assigments in addition to the larger projects listed above.

GRADING:

To determine the course grade each of the following activities will be evaluated and awarded

points. Maximum possible points for each activity is indicated below.

Learning Log 30 points Grade Scale

Creative Project 20 points 90 -100% A

Book Response 80 points 80 - 89% B

Intellectual Autobiography 50 points 70 - 79% C

Exam #1 100 points 60 - 69% D

Exam #2 100 points 00 - 59% E

Occasional Assignments varies

ATTENDANCE POLICY:

Should a student miss class, it is his/her responsibility to make up for everything missed. Should a

student miss class on the day an assignment is due he/she should send the assignment to class with

a classmate or call the instructor before class and ask permission to turn it in late. Legitimate

absences do not excuse the student from class responsibilities. Examples of reasons that might be

excused by the instructor are illness, accident, personal emergency, death in the immediate family,

special academic programs, or an authorized university function for which the student's presence is

required. If a student has an excused absence on the day of a test, he/she will be allowed to take an

alternate make-up exam.

Class participation is a central part of the learning experience in this course, therefore, students are

expected to attend class, arrive promptly, stay for the whole class period and participate in class

discussions and activities. Since graduate classes meet in concentrated format (two and a half

regular class meetings per session), one absence is the equivalent of missing two and a half regular

classes. A student who misses more than two graduate class meetings or repeatedly misses part of

a class period (for any reason), can expect to have his/her final grade lowered.

SUPPLEMENTAL READINGS

Be able to describe the following terms as they relate to the history and philosophy of education:

1.metaphysics, epistemology, axiology, relativism, absolutism, idealism, pragmatism, and realism

2.5th century B.C., sophists, Pericles, Protagoras, Man is the measure of all things, Peloponnesian Wars, Golden Age, causes of end of Golden Age

3.Socrates, Socratic method, trial of Socrates, Plato, Academy, Republic, allegory of the cave, dualism, dialectic, midwifery, innate ideas, Plato's ideal society, Knowledge equals virtue.

4.Isocrates, Rhetorical School, panhellenism

5.Aristotle, Lyceum, Golden Mean, form-matter hypothesis, Alexander, education vs. training, intrinsic vs. extrinsic values

6.rise of Christianity, parousia, catechetical school, catechumenal school, the great dilemma of early Christian education, Tatian, Tertullian, Origen, Clement of Alexandria

7.Augustine, City of God, Christian idealism, Ambrose, bishop of Hippo, Christian idealism, Justinian, 529 A.D.

8.Nestorius, 622 A.D., Hegira, Averroes, Muslim contributions to medieval European education and culture

9.Thomas, Christian realism, effects on education, Renaissance, major effects of Renaissance on education

10.Reformation - 5 major effects upon education

11.Latin grammar school

12.Martin Luther, John Calvin, 1517, Wittenberg Door, 95 theses, Calvinism

13.Counter-reformation, educational impact of Counter-reformation, Council of Trent, Loyola, Jesuits

14.John Locke, tabula rasa

15.Puritans and Puritan educational thought, city upon a hill, Jonathan Edwards, Harvard, Ole Deluder Satan Act of 1647, Latin grammar school, hornbook

16.Thomas Jefferson, Bill for the More General Diffusion of Knowledge

17.Noah Webster, American Spelling Book, William Holmes McGuffey, McGuffey Eclectic Readers, national mythology, Protestant ethic, social class issues

18.Horace Mann, common school movement, history of education of European immigrants, native Americans, African-Americans, Hispanics, women

19.Du Bois, Booker T. Washington, the Atlanta Compromise, NAACP, separate but equal, Brown vs. the Board of Education, 1954

20.romanticism, Rousseau, Emile, Pestalozzi, How Gertrude Teaches Her Children, Froebel, kindergarten, negative education, Montessori, Edward Sheldon, Oswego Movement, Charles

Darwin, On the Origen of the Species

21. Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto

22. progressivism, Francis Parker, PEA, Dewey, 1859, Democracy and Education, 1916, William James, William H. Kilpatrick, A. S. Neill, Summerhill

23. social reconstructionism, George Counts,Dare the School Build a New Social Order, Theodore Brameld essentialism, Herman Horne, William Bagley

24. perennialism, Robert Hutchins, The Higher Learning in America, Great Books, Mortimer Adler, The Paideia Proposal

25.Maxine Greene, Martin Buber, Soren Kierkegaard, I-Thou/I-It, wide-awakeness, teacher as stranger

26.Ivan Illich, Deschooling Society, Allan Bloom, Closing of the American Mind, E. D. Hirsch, Jr., Cultural Literacy, John Allen Paulos, Innumeracy

GUIDELINES FOR CREATIVE PROJECTS

You may paint a picture, write a song, make a sculpture, produce a music video, or

write a short story or play. Students should seek instructor approval of their plan before

investing significant amountsof time in any of these projects.

Project will be evaluated primarily on the basis of how much of yourself and your time seems to

invested in it. Note: The technical refinement of the project is not as important as the personal

investment; therefore, it is absolutely necessary that the student do all of the work on the project

him/herself.

Paintings: Should be done with acrylic, alkyd, oil, or watercolor paints. Must be at least 18" x 18."

Must be rigid - either done on a rigid surface, like illustration board or stretched canvas, or mounted

on something rigid. (No posterboard, please!) May have a title, but should not have other explanatory text.

Songs: Student must write all of the words, but may use an existing tune. Song must be performed

either live or on tape, but does not have to be performed by the student.

Sculptures: Must be structurally stable, convey a sense of permanence (not a temporary assembly).

May have title, but no explanatory text. Suggested materials: wood, metal, plaster, plexiglass, concrete.