Educational reform and the good life

✍ Scribed by Wm. Clark Trow

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1965
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 601 KB
• Volume: 2
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0033-3085
• DOI: 10.1002/1520-6807(196501)2:1<3::aid-pits2310020102>3.0.co;2-g

✦ Synopsis

The so-called "great debate" on education is now fortunately about over. It now appears to be the first of three phases of educational reconstruction following the depression, World War 11, and the Korean War during which reform was virtually at a standstill. A similar, though shorter, resting period during World War I was followed by vigorous activity that included the breakdown of the doctrine of mental discipline, the application of Freudian and of Gestalt psychology to school problems, the establishment of the junior high school, the crack-up of the narrow traditional curriculum, and the introduction of standardized tests and of various schemes to adapt the school program to pupil differences. Now, having been held back for a longer time, education gives promise of even greater gains. But the first phase has not been pleasant. Facile writers, some of them relieved of their war assignments, looked about for new worlds to conquer and discovered the schools. Through the preceding perilous years our educational institutions had done well to keep their doors open to the increasing population, and to migrations away from drought areas and toward military and industrial centers, to keep the wall of separation between church and state from crumbling, and to try to adapt to new demands posed by a war-ravaged world and by the new social and scientific developments. New buildings were needed, and old ones, like the curricula and methods in use, needed repair, so boards of education, workshops, training programs, and summer schools, to say nothing of local, state, and national committees were hard at work making up for lost time.

Then came the deluge of lay criticism. While much of it was something less than 'The Allen S. Whitney Lecture on Education, sponsored by the Omega Chapter of Phi Delta Kappa, July 14, 1964.