Education in the 20th Century: A Reflection
Last week, a friend of mine came across a film in the archives called “Stand And Deliver.” This film from 1988 was curious: the schooling system found in the film is radically different from our own system, but as we watched the film, we got the impression that the teacher who was leading change in his classroom was presented by the filmmakers as a radical reformer. My friend wondered what had changed in education over the past seventy years that would make this schooling system seem so foreign, even to a couple of Canadian students. As she wanted to continue her line of inquiry at the time, I decided to take a break from my own studies in Renaissance literature and briefly examine the differences between schools then and now.
In the 20th century, according to my research, schools were a much different place than they are today. A small
Helping Students Live Big Lives
Award-winning educator and educational revolutionary, John Taylor Gatto, wrote in his book, Weapons of Mass Instruction:
“Being a mature being means living with a purpose, your own purpose: it’s about welcoming responsibility as the nourishment a big life needs: it’s about behaving as a good citizen – finding ways to add value to the community in which you live; it’s about wrestling with your weaknesses and developing heart, mind, and spirit – none of them properties of the spectator crowd.”
What I love most about this quote is its underlying call: choose to