Tag Archives: Compulsory education

What Can We Learn from the History of Education?

Posted on by

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Poem: Choruses from the Rock VI, by T.S. Eliot 

Statement of the Whole: Steve and Jason look at the last 250 years of education in America in a brief survey format.  Gleaning a few lessons only whets the appetite to dig in deeper.  Join them for this quick flight through the fancies of American education and where all the past might be taking us in the future.  

Notes: 

Coming soon: Steve’s full presentation of A History of Education in America.  A series of monologues in which Steve outlines the history of education in America and traces the roots of where we are today.  This will be available behind our paywall soon, once we open up our shop, The Sideporch. 

Black·board /ˈblakbôrd/ noun.  a large board with a smooth, typically dark, surface attached to a wall or supported on an easel and used for writing on with chalk, especially by teachers in schools. 

Books mentioned: 

Marrou, Henri Irenee. A History of Education in Antiquity. Univ of Wisconsin Press, 1982. 

Ravitch, Diane. Left Back: A Century of Battles over School Reform. Touchstone, 2001. 

What Can We Learn from the History of Education?

Posted on by

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Poem: Choruses from the Rock VI, by T.S. Eliot 

Statement of the Whole: Steve and Jason look at the last 250 years of education in America in a brief survey format.  Gleaning a few lessons only whets the appetite to dig in deeper.  Join them for this quick flight through the fancies of American education and where all the past might be taking us in the future.  

Notes: 

Coming soon: Steve’s full presentation of A History of Education in America.  A series of monologues in which Steve outlines the history of education in America and traces the roots of where we are today.  This will be available behind our paywall soon, once we open up our shop, The Sideporch. 

Black·board /ˈblakbôrd/ noun.  a large board with a smooth, typically dark, surface attached to a wall or supported on an easel and used for writing on with chalk, especially by teachers in schools. 

Books mentioned: 

Marrou, Henri Irenee, and Henri Irénée Marrou. A History of Education in Antiquity. Univ of Wisconsin Press, 1982. 

Ravitch, Diane. Left Back: A Century of Battles over School Reform. Touchstone, 2001. 

Can You Compel a Student to Learn?

Posted on by

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

The compulsory schooling issue 

Poem: Something For Hope, by Robert Frost 

Statement of the Whole:   

The common notion is that a democracy demands a well educated populace, thus all American kids must go to school.  Given that they won’t show up on their own, we have made it compulsory so as to ensure a good voting citizenry.  Has that logic held?  Is compulsory education even possible?  Jason and Steve run down the many issues of this challenging question of compulsion in education.  

Resources: 

Macdonald, Kerry. “Compulsory Schooling Laws: What If We Didn’t Have Them?” Intellectual Takeout, 8 Oct. 2018, www.intellectualtakeout.org/article/compulsory-schooling-laws-what-if-we-didnt-have-them. Accessed 8 Sept. 2019. 

‌Ravitch, Diane. Left Back: a Century of Battles over School Reform. Simon & Schuster, 2001.