Course Description
The social history of teachers and how they taught from colonial America to the present with an emphasis on how historical forces beyond educational institutions are implicated in changes in who teaches, how teachers teach, learning, and schools.
Athena Title
History of Teaching in the US
Equivalent Courses
Not open to students with credit in ETAP 7550E
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Course Objectives
The overarching objectives of the seminar are: 1. To gain critical distance from current practices to understand their embeddedness in larger historical forces; 2. To replace nostalgic conceptions of teaching and classroom life with understandings of teachers and teaching grounded in historical study; 3. To gain vantages from which to critically evaluate contemporary reform efforts and everyday classroom practices. To achieve those larger objectives, students will: 1. Gain insight into changes in the composition of the teaching force over time, including particularly issues of gender, social class origins, education and professional training, age, and other demographic and social factors; 2. Understand the economic, political, and social factors that have influenced changes in the demography of teachers, including but not limited to the market revolution, the cult of domesticity, the scientific revolution, competing notions of gender destinies, the women’s movement, and other factors; 3. Explore the impact of changes in the teacher corps on classroom practices and pedagogical tendencies; 4. Examine changing popular perceptions of teachers and teaching and gauge the impact of those perceptions and of the media on the recruitment and retention of teachers, classroom life, and pedagogical practices; 5. Study the neglected issue of the history of classroom life in order to understand changes in classroom practices; 6. Analyze classrooms as negotiated spaces; 7. Develop skills in evaluating and utilizing the methodologies of historical analysis in relation to social and educational problems.
Topical Outline
I. Teachers and Teaching in Colonial America Gender Pedagogy Regional differences II. Teachers and Teaching in Early National Schools Market forces and educational development The explosion in women’s education Growth of the academies, appearance of boarding schools Lancaster, infant schools, early Sunday Schools, and other innovations in pedagogy Effects on the teaching force Regional differences III. Teachers and Teaching in the Common School Era The growth of free public education The roots of the explosive feminization of teaching Pedagogical innovations Early movements toward public secondary education Expansion of higher education Early professionalization of teaching Regional differences in school, teaching, and pedagogy. IV. Civil War, Emancipation, Reconstruction, and Education in the American South The myth of the New England school marm in southern black schools Changes in the southern teaching force Gender Race Training Pedagogy and classroom life in northern and southern schools Resistance to public education V. Teachers and Teaching in Progressive Education Public perceptions of public education Roots of progressivism The many faces of Progressive Education Pedagogical innovations The Progressive teaching corps Professionalization of teaching Teaching and teachers in public secondary schools Teaching and teachers in segregated schools VI. Teachers and Teaching in Post-Progressive Schools Changing public perceptions of public education Roots of reaction Pedagogical innovations and changes in classroom life The post-Progressive teaching force Unionization of teaching Growth of higher education and its effects on public school teaching The youth movement and its effects on schools and teaching