Tradition and Reform, Chapters 1-5

Fascinating history. I never stopped to think of how we got from there to here. I was also struck by the very prescriptive approach of early English classes - reading lists, the expectation that all themes allusions would be noted and explained. I couldn’t help but grin when I imagined this perfect collection of cookie cutter students who had all read the same literature and memorized the one interpretation of that literature. Given the time and circumstances, surely it was very comforting to have a collection of well-educated white males who could recite sanctioned literature and who could speak with some authority/intelligence of what they had read.

This reading took me back to my Sociocultural Foundation class last fall (Dr. K. Brown). We began with the history of schooling, starting with common schools of the colonial period and ending with the culturally responsive teaching of today. What struck me most about the early history of schooling was this overwhelming sense that, as the population grew, the “citizens/patriots/founders” (What is a correct term here?) began to fear the loss of control and, in turn, began to structure schools in ways that would maintain the status quo. Their goals were, in simplest terms, to unite (and ignore) a disparate society and to sustain an education system that ensured the steady and successful production of American citizens.

This idea of “maintaining the status quo” naturally takes me to where we are today. We are still in the midst of massive immigration, and we still have “citizens” who are trying to shape a common heritage within the education system. It has been proposed that if all students are exposed to the same literature, then they will be united by a common cultural heritage. And guess which culture would be privileged. Think of it like this – If all eighth graders are required to read Pilgrim’s Progress, then that experience and the knowledge gained (or memorized) from that experience will be shared across various cultures and will ultimately unite a diverse society. E.D. Hirsch touts this ideology through his Core Knowledge Network (http://coreknowledge.org/CK/index.htm ).

When I see the connections between the discussions of 1800s and today, I marvel at how far we’ve come and yet how much we still share in common with early educators. We are still engaged in these awful debates around required reading and college entrance exams and the privileges extended to one class and culture. As a state, we came very close to adopting reading lists during the ELA TEKS revisions process. As a nation (excluding Texas and Alaska), we’re moving towards national standards and, some predict, a nationalized assessment program. Will we begin to see national recommended reading lists? Will enterprising publishers produce study guides for literature that will most likely appear on a national test? It’s a lot to think about. Just as with Dr. Brown’s class, I see that we are still struggling with issues that can be traced back to the beginnings of our education system, and that is very disheartening. We’re still searching for answers to 19th century questions.