EDST 200 Rud

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EDST 200 Rud Week 2-4 EDUCATION FROM
1812-1865 WOMEN, TEACHING, THE RISE OF THE
COMMON SCHOOL
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I. Historical and Philosophical Background 1.
Social, Political, and Economic Trends a. How
education became transformed in this era from a
religious enterprise, to a more widespread and
democratic ideal. b. Jacksonian democracy
where education is a basic right. Growth of
education at all levels, even private colleges
and universities. c. The massive changes of this
era NA removal (Trail of Tears), growth.
Emphasis on practical training. McGuffey reader
what was being taught here? d. Often called the
era of the common man.
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e. Whitman read two poems (The Prairie-Grass
Dividing To the East and To the West)
Emerson, recall his famous essay
Self-Reliance and Thoreau. 1."I do not
propose to write an ode to dejection, but to
brag as lustily as chanticleer in the morning,
standing on his roost, if only to wake my
neighbors up." - from the title page of the
first edition of Thoreaus Walden. f.
Industrialization mechanization and the
changing of the agrarian ideal. Material
invention precedes social adjustment. Led to
greater access and demand for education. g.
Westward expansion of country Transport systems
canals, steamships, railroads, and the
communication system (telegraph).
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2. Rapid Changes a. Population In 1790, 4
million people by 1830, 13 million in 24
states. b. Urbanization In 1790, 6 cities had 3
of country's population by 1830, 26 cities,
which had 7 of the population. c.
Industrialization and expansion of middle class,
and creation of a working class by the 1830s.
Many working- class girls work in factories. d.
Delinquency, truancy, poverty, vagrancy and
corresponding creation of laws, penal
institutions, and relief societies.
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e. The Second Great Awakening An increase in
religious sects and denominations. 1.
Revivalism. 2. The Shakers, and Mother Ann
Lee. God is father and mother. 3. The
Utopian community of New Harmony, Indiana. Free
education and abolition of wealth and social
classes. f. Civilization Acts of the 1820s and
missionary work. An annual sum of 10,000 as a
"civilization fund" to teach agriculture,
reading, writing and arithmetic to native
peoples. g. Women's increased involvement in
church affairs, relief societies, and charity
schools.
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II. Three Early Female Educators the
Feminization of Teaching 1. Mary Lyon
(1797-1849) a. Educational background Educated
in academies and a seminary. b. Taught at
Ipswich Female Seminary, which prepared women to
become elementary teachers. Courses Math,
reading, geography, discipline.
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c. Founded Mount Holyoke Seminary opened in
1832. All girls accepted regardless of social
class. d. Three-year curriculum, including
composition, music, logic, theology, geometry,
history, botany, algebra, philosophy, rhetoric
also housework and benevolence. e. Class
discussions recitations oral examinations. f.
Religious conversions. g. Employment Many
became missionary wives out West and in Africa.
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2. Emma Willard (1787-1870) a. Educational
background Educated in a district school and
academies. b. Teacher at Middlebury Female
Academy, VT. c. Taught math, history, language,
music, writing, drawing also recreational
exercises. d. Methods Lecturing, discussion,
recitation, exams. e. Founded Troy Female Academy
in 1821.
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f. Curriculum of math, sciences, and domestic
sciences also art, music, penmanship,
dancing. g. Domestic work should be
professionalized. h. Facilities library,
boarding rooms, classrooms, domestic
department. i. Pestalozzian influence Use of
maps, charts, etc. When teaching geometry,
students should cut out shapes from food. j.
Students From the South, the East, and Ohio. k.
Wrote many mathematic and geography textbooks.
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3. Catherine Beecher (1800-1878) a. Educational
background Daughter of a renowned minister and
schoolteacher sister of Harriet Beecher
Stowe. b. Founded Hartford Female Seminary. c.
Students were mostly upper-class. d. Curriculum
Similar to other seminaries focus on domestic
economy. e. Pestalozzian influence Learn
chemistry through experiments. Used black
boards and maps. f. Wanted to standardize
teaching through Prussian model rigorous
curriculum, teaching as a life profession,
practical methods stressed. g. Like Willard,
wrote many textbooks, especially on domestic
economy.
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• 4. Reflections and Discussion
• of Women and Education
• Think about gender and its role in
• your education.
• b. Recall your experiences with male
• and female teachers.

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5. The feminization of teaching A concurrent
development a. The feminization of teaching
refers to the change in teaching that occurred in
the 19th century. Schoolteachers were mostly
male at the beginning of the 1800s, but were
female by the end of the Civil War. b. By the
1830s, only 40 of teachers were male mostly at
the secondary level.
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6. Rationale The Cult of True Womanhood a. The
ideal of what women are. More virtuous and
nurturing than men. More in connection with
childhood through birthing and raising children.
To be a woman meant to have these certain
capabilities. b. Downside Women were believed
to lack conceptual skills, nonetheless.
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• 7. European Influences
• Kindergarten movement.
• b. The Prussian Model of Education Another View
  on Kindergarten and Schooling. Advocated by
  Horace Mann and others for USA in late 1800s.
• 1. Compulsory attendance.
• 2. National training for teachers.
• 3. National testing for all students
  (relationship to job
• training).
• 4. National curriculum set for each grade.
• 5. Mandatory kindergarten. Break the mothers
  
• influence the state as parent.

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8. Social Factors a. Need to provide public
education for all children for two reasons.
1. Religious Indoctrinate with religious
teachings recall Old Deluder law of 1647 (one
chief object of that old deluder, Satan, to keep
men from the knowledge of the Scriptures)
2. Social, Economic, Democratic, and National
Need to forge a new country that was growing and
becoming very diverse. Daniel Webster Make
them intelligent, and they will be vigilant
give them the means of detecting wrong, and
they will apply the remedy.
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b. Salaries In the 1840s, teachers paid only 39
cents more than factory girls in MA. c. Average
weekly salaries, 1841 to 1855. Rural City
Year Men Women Men Women 1841 4.15 2.51
11.93 4.44 1845 3.87 2.48 12.21 4.09 1850
4.25 2.89 13.37 4.71 d. Teacher Training
Institutes in rural areas. 1. Growth and
changes at Ball State University. e. Normal
Schools in cities. 1. Start of Normal School
movement in Massachusetts. 2. Three-year
curriculum more of an emphasis on pedagogy, not
subject matter. A laboratory for learning (the
laboratory school) a model place to practice
skills. 3. Great proliferation of normal
schools after the Civil War, to meet the demand
for teachers. f. Teacher/administrator split by
gender.
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9. Bitter Milk Then to Now a. Bitter Milk
Women and Teaching by Madeleine Grumet (1988). b.
Grumet asks how did teaching become
overwhelmingly a female occupation and what
impact does this have on the roles of
teachers? c. Grumet notes the need for teachers,
and to pay them less thus women were employed at
a reduced salary. d. An unlikely proponent of
this Catherine Beecher in 1853. Women can
afford to teach for one half, or even less the
salary which men would ask, because the female
teacher has only herself she does not look
forward to the duty of supporting a familynor
has she the ambition to amass a fortune. (cited
in Grumet, 1988, p. 39). e. Womens roles to
transmit knowledge (not create it) discipline
and mold and care and nurture the young. f.
Rules for Teachers, 1872.
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10. In Class Activity Discuss how gender may
have affected your schooling among yourselves,
and then report out.
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III. The Rise of the Common School 1. Way to
reform society, mold future citizens a. The new
industrial economy in the Northeast promoted
the need for vocational skills as well as
citizenship skills to mold a unified country.
1. Urban problems with industrialization and
immigration. Great numbers of children in urban
areas what do you do with them? a. What
about your ancestors? Any stories here? Any
Gangs of New York?
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2. Child labor in factories present, but
schooling seen as better way. a. Clock
time over family time. 3. Cheap labor
available in women. Also, argued, by Horace
Mann and others, that women were better teachers
than men. b. Ideological factor Common schools
allow the dominant group, English speaking
Protestants, to mold immigrants to maintain
social control and the dominance. 1. Schools
could instill the industrial morality and way to
order society. 2. Like today, how are schools
used to respond to similar issues?
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2. Key figure Horace Mann (1796-1859) a. His
changes, and improvements in schooling. 1.
School buildings talk about what they are
like, your experience, and how this affects
education. Mann improved such. 2. Moral
values Common school can mediate strife of
immigrants and a melting pot. Did not fully
work, as Catholics sensed a Protestant emphasis
and established their own schools.
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3. Prussian values strong emphasis on
education. 4. Discipline Not fear or beating,
but love and emphasis on intelligence. 5. Improve
teaching through normal schools. a. Isolated
teacher education from rest of university.
Teachers as technicians and intellectual go-fers
rather than scholars and discoverers in their
own right. We are still recovering from this!
b. Feminization of teaching. Women are better
suited for teaching, especially for young
children. 6. Economic value of schooling
Schooling can make you wealthy, and we still have
this connection between schooling and the economy.
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b. Reasons for the Common School 1. Bring
everyone together, in theory. 2. Prevention of
crime and alcoholism. 3. Assimiliation of
immigrants make sure they become part of the
country. Mostly German, Irish, Scandinavian.
Many started their own language religious
schools. Much discrimination. 4. Reduce
social class tensions. 5. Prepare citizens to
vote. 6. Expand state control over education.
7. Iron and wax metaphor of Horace Mann.
Adults were iron, children still wax and could
be changed.
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c. Reasons against common schools. 1. would
destroy class differences. 2. childless people
would have to pay taxes. 3. certain religious
groups would proselytize. 4. private schools
would have to close The concern here is that
common schools are paid for, and therefore free
to the public. Privates would lose many of
their students. 5. eradication of linguistic
cultural diversity. Is it possible for the
common school to work and maintain diversity?
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3. Common school curriculum a. "Common"
language, Protestant ideology, curriculum. b.
Curriculum math, grammar, geography, reading,
writing, spelling, physiology (hygiene), vocal
music (an opportunity to learn and practice
music). c. Christian principles should be taught
to teach people how to behave. Should use a
nonsectarian Bible.
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d. Should use a reward system but not corporal
punishment. Mann believed in a pedagogy of
love. 1. Evolution from the Puritan god, angry
and demanding justice, to a more humane religion
and view. 2. Compassion for mental illness.
3. Use of affection in teaching, rather than
punishment, and beating the devil out of
children, as did the Puritans. e. Standardization
of grades and curriculum, and yet lesson should
be adjusted to different abilities so that no
matter where you go, you would get the same
curriculum. 1. How this suits a mobile,
industrial economy.
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4. Inside the country schoolhouse a. Students
local, different ages and abilities thus
individualized assignments. b. Organization of
class divided class into primary, intermediate,
and grammar. Teacher worked with different
groups separately. c. School year varied by
state, county, rural and urban differences.
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5. In-class activity, on common schools Imagine
a common school during this era. There will be
different kinds of students present. Immigrants
recently arrived, from Ireland and Norway, as
well as girls and boys. How would you teach
these students, given what you have learned
about common schools?