Boy, have schools changed since the 1920's!

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Forum -> Chinuch, Education & Schooling

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↑ healthymama

Fri, May 11 2007, 12:35 pm

Quote:

I don't think so. I think it had a lot to do with no TV, no computers, no electronic games. A climate in which school was serious business, no fooling around. A time when adults were respected. You didn't talk back to your parents. You weren't searching for yourself. The focus was not on feeling good about yourself but on doing your work, in the case of children - schoolwork. Standards were high. You copied something over again and again until it was done well.

There are plenty of schools like the ones you describe in third world countries.

Those lucky students whose parents can afford to have them not work, go to school and are taught in one-room school houses by a teacher whose main concept of education involves having the students copy and repeat sentences for hours at a time. Those students come out literate. And so?

I wouldn't call that good education and I also wouldn't be think that the percentage of students that come out reading has any correlation to the national literacy percentage.

Kids who were not a.)rich or b.) interested in sitting and copying handwriting for hours c.) were not smart at a time did not go to school. They went to work in the factories in the 1920s. That is a simple historical fact.

If you feel like using Beverly Cleary's memoirs as a reason to go off on everything that you think is wrong with schools nowadays, feel free, but the national educational outcomes are really not connected.

↑ Motek ↓

Sun, May 13 2007, 12:55 pm

healthymama wrote:

There are plenty of schools like the ones you describe in third world countries.

That's pretty funny Tongue Out

(do you smile as you post comments like these?)

You seemed to have understood that school in the US entailed hours of copying. If you wrote your essay properly the first time, you didn't have to copy it! Students in in American schools were average Americans of the time, many were children or grandchildren of immigrants. They studied algebra, geometry, Latin, English lit, History, the sciences, as well as home economics, public speaking. One did not need to be lucky to attend school as most children went to school. One would have to be unlucky not to attend. I call it a good education in and of itself, and certainly in comparison to a huge number of students who somehow were accepted in college but must take remedial composition since the cannot write on even a high school level.

Quote:

I also wouldn't be think that the percentage of students that come out reading has any correlation to the national literacy percentage.

why not?

Quote:

Kids who were not a.)rich or b.) interested in sitting and copying handwriting for hours c.) were not smart at a time did not go to school. They went to work in the factories in the 1920s. That is a simple historical fact.

Not simple, not historical and not a fact. My grandmother, to speak about someone I know personally, was an immigrant child and was definitely not rich, but she and countless other children attended school. They were not all smart (you still haven't defined it).

I found this:

Quote:

The overall enrollment rates for 5- to 19-year-olds rose from 51% in 1900 to 75% in 1940.

↑ HindaRochel ↓

Sun, May 13 2007, 1:13 pm

[url]This link http://www.hoover.org/publicat...../url] contains relevant material.

In 1920 only about 30% of the total USA population were enrolled in secondary schools, and about 18% graduated.

I am trying to find breakdowns of race/religion/gender/ethnic background, but it is a bit time consuming. Haven't found anything that easily broke the information down with a table or such...and I'm not in the mood to read a whole article on the subject at the moment...

↑ HindaRochel ↓

Sun, May 13 2007, 1:16 pm

Here's an article, with tables, including one on pre1970 educational levels of immigrants vs. natives.

http://www.cis.org/articles/2001/back101.html

↑ Mrs.Norris ↓

Thu, Jun 14 2007, 10:03 am

Motek, in the 1920's (which you make it sound like you were living then) most children were illiterate. They had child labour for the working classes and if you got into school you were one of the elite.
I like to see how you think that the reason there are any illiterates now, is because there are games and TV, rather than the fact that not every child learns at the same pace and govt schools are for all children.
Due to multi cultaralism today there are children from all backgrounds and no one is segregated. So you will see that some kids are not doing as well as others.
As you can tell the kids of the 1920's didn't really agree with the whole 1920's being a good thing, because then nothing would have changed.

↑ Motek ↓

Thu, Jun 14 2007, 1:50 pm

Mrs.Norris wrote:

Motek, in the 1920's (which you make it sound like you were living then) most children were illiterate.

Most? in the US? Source?

Quote:

They had child labour for the working classes and if you got into school you were one of the elite.

Beverly Cleary was not upperclass. My grandmother certainly wasn't. She was an immigrant girl who went to public school, like countless other poor people and they learned to read and write English quite well.

Quote:

[As you can tell the kids of the 1920's didn't really agree with the whole 1920's being a good thing, because then nothing would have changed.

Makes no sense to me.

↑ Mrs.Norris

Sun, Jun 17 2007, 10:06 am

Motek wrote:

Makes no sense to me.

it's quite simple really - if education in the 1920's was so fantastic and good nothing will have changed since, as you don't mend what isn't broken.

↑ Motek

Sun, Jun 17 2007, 12:01 pm

Mrs.Norris wrote:

it's quite simple really - if education in the 1920's was so fantastic and good nothing will have changed since, as you don't mend what isn't broken.

If only ... lots of things were better decades ago, yet things have deteriorated!

↑ HindaRochel

Sun, Jun 17 2007, 12:24 pm

Way back somewhere along the line I posted statistics on school and education and literacy.

http://www.cis.org/articles/2001/back101.html

↑ bashinda

Sun, Jun 17 2007, 4:39 pm

Mrs.Norris wrote:

This sounds like maybe the 1820s not the 1920s. Certainly not in the United States at any rate. Maybe things were different in England. People did not have to be rich to be in elementary school then. My grandmother went to college even and my great grandparents were hardly rich.

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