History of the American Classroom

As I was talking to an acquaintance from another country, I was asked how and why the current American system of classrooms had come about.  In particular, this person was curious as to why American children in the elementary grades are sent to a new teacher at the beginning of each grade.  In his background, young children remain with the same teacher for approximately four years.  Since I am interested in the how and why of the current American educational system and how it is similar and/or different from other educational systems, this question has been bugging me to find an answer.  Herein are my findings to date.  If you have any suggestions for further research on this subject, or comments on this site, please contact me at bennettak@uindy.edu.

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Contents

• Brief History of Public Education  in the United States
• The Beginning of Teacher Specialization
• Current Multi-Age Classroom Trends
• A Wide Range of Paradigms and Pedagogies
• Glossary
• References

A Brief History of Public Education in the United States

• Latin Schools
• The first Latin Grammar School was established in Boston in 1635. These schools were originally designed only for sons of certain social classes who were destined for leadership positions in church, state or courts. The study of Latin and Greek and their literature was blended with the religious heritage of the Protestant Reformation. The purpose of these Grammar Schools was to prepare the boys for the entrance test for Harvard College.
 
• Dame Schools

• Common Schools

• Early Laws Regarding Education (Massachusetts)
• The Law of 1642 required that parents and master see to it that their children knew the principles of religion and the capital laws of the commonwealth. It stated that parents and masters of those children who had been apprenticed to them were responsible for their basic education and literacy. The law also stated that should the above mentioned parents and masters grow lax in their

responsibility and their children not be able to meet basic criteria it would be the government's right to remove the child from the home and place him or her in a place where he or she could receive adequate instruction.
• The Law of 1647, also known as the Old Deluder Satan Act, was born out of this above-mentioned parental negligence. The Law of 1647 required that towns of fifty families hire a schoolmaster who would teach children to read and write. Towns of a hundred families must have a grammar schoolmaster who could prepare children to attend Harvard College.
 
• The One Room School House
• We are all familiar with the image of the one room school with its headmaster/headmistress and desks and students of many sizes.  This type of school is probably most closely associated in our minds with the pioneers who moved west, rather than those settlements on the east coast.  Here in Central Indiana a good example of a one room school can be experienced at Conner Prairie in Noblesville.
 
• >From colonial times, America has recognized the value, both individually and collectively, of a basic education. By the time of the first national surveys of education statistics in 1869-70, millions of young people were enrolled in public elementary schools.

• Education Ordinances for the Territories
• In an effort to consolidate schools and make education mandatory, Congress enacted the Land Ordinance of 1785. This ordinance set aside a section in every township in the new Western Territory for the maintenance of public schools. Public schools were organized to corral the best minds for training for public leadership.
• The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 provided land in the Great Lakes and Ohio Valley regions for settlement. (It eventually broke into five states: Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, Ohio, and Illinois).  Article 3 of this ordinance reads in part:
Religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.
This document reflected the belief that education is necessary to become a good citizen and to have a strong government. Children were encouraged to go to school, however religion was not specifically to be part of the curriculum.

Contents 

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 The Beginning of Teacher Specialization

• Teacher Colleges vs. Universities
• On July 3, 1839, the first state funded school specifically established for public teacher education (what were then referred to as "normal" schools) opened in Lexington, Massachusetts. The normal schools attempted to provide the prospective teacher with a laboratory for learning, using model classrooms as a place to practice their new skills. The emphasis was on common everyday learning. The colleges, with their classical curriculums, looked down on the normal schools. The normal school crusade advocated teaching as a profession.
 
• Supply and Demand
• As more and more children were attending school, in part the result of new federal and state education requirements, the traditional one room could no longer handle the demand for education of so many children had at different levels and ages.  The easiest way to overcome the crowded and run down buildings was to build new buildings with many different classrooms,  some of which even had lunchrooms and gymnasiums.
• Guidelines for teachers began to become evident as well. Teachers were receiving training to teach certain subjects and levels. At this time it was decided to use age as the determining factor in dividing children into groups.  At different ages, the students had different needs, and the best way to meet these needs was to group everyone of similar age brackets together. Initially, many of the small schools grouped them together with several ages in one room. Grades 1,2, and 3 would be together, while grades 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 were in another area. If the students moved on past this level, they would usually attend colleges or universities. Eventually, the grades were separated into their own levels, and mandates were set for what had to be taught at each grade.

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Current Multi-Age Classroom Trends

Contents

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A Wide Range of Paradigms and Pedagogies

• Monitorial Instruction
• Monitorial instruction, widely recognized as a Lancasterian monitorial instruction, was a practice-centered approach through group activity to handle large numbers of students at one time in a huge classroom with few teachers. Lancasterian monitorial instruction was widely operated in the early  1800s in the US, where rapid growth of cities due to industrialization led the public to become desperate for mass education. Lancasterian monitorial instruction met the public need by solving the school-financial problem with the systematic method of classroom organization, economic management, and grade-planed subject matter instructions.  Although the monitorial instruction contributed to the development of mass education in the United States, the mechanical nature and the lack of concerns with the psychological impact on learning were its major shortcomings. As financial resources become more available to public education, new instructional reform emerged to provide more attention to individual students.
 
• The Montessori Method 1907 - present
• The Montessori Method was developed by Dr. Maria Montessori, an Italian physician and educator. The goals of the Montessori Method are to develop independence, responsibility and respect for others. Much like Piaget, Montessori believed that there are stages or "planes" in the development of the child. These stages are enhanced by giving the child freedom to explore and learn by manipulating materials, developing concentration, and using the child's personal interest in learning and achieving competence as reinforcement for success. The Montessori classroom schedule also must be one that allows for freedom and uninterrupted time periods that may be used to solve problems and work together with other children. The Montessori teacher is trained to stimulate the child's curiosity and guide the child through experiences. The Montessori philosophy believes that the child learns best by doing and interacting, not by passively listening to the knowledge of others.
 
 

Glossary

Contents

References

History of American Education Web Project  http://oit.iusb.edu/eduweb01/

This History of American Education Web Project was originally undertaken as a class assignment by members of an undergraduate Foundations of Education class in the Summer of 1996. Students in subsequent sessions of this class have continued to contribute material to the project.
 

 http://www.socsci.kun.nl/ped/whp/histeduc/

international archive of links and source materials  about the history of education & history of childhood

 

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Cogito: the Cognitive Paradigm.  http://www.educ.drake.edu/romig/cogito/cognitive_paradigm.html
This page briefly compares some of the main paradigms (such as idealism, realism, humanism, behaviorism, cognitivism) that dominated Western education from antiquity until now.

 

Instructional Technology Foundations: Historical Timelines by Date http://education.indiana.edu/~istcore/r511/datelist.html This is the result of a 1996 course at Indiana University  about the history of methods in education. It contains many brief student papers which by assignment all were written directly on the Web. Emphasis is on 20th century subjects, but the site covers many earlier topics, too.