EDUS 202 Diversity, Democracy and Ethics in Education

Great work on Wednesday...y'all dug in and talked through the big ideas in  Knight-Abowitz and Stitzlein's  argument about why public schools matter and what the public part is all about. With your comment to this post, please take a little time to think about where this kind of work fits into a teacher preparation program. Obviously, learning to become a teacher requires developing skills and methods to teach well as well as teh cultivation of content knowledge. So, does/how does thinking about the purposes and contexts of education contribute to learning to be a teacher? Note: Of course, I am on record as believing that this work does matter very much, but you don't need to agree with me...

Share and discuss something new that you leaned from the Knight-Abowitz and Stitzlein reading. It can be something surprising, disturbing, hopeful, etc. Also feel free to address the question of whether it is important for teachers/future teachers to know about the wider contexts within which there work sits (hint: Stemhagen definitely thinks it is important!).

I hope you enjoyed the "This American Life" podcast about the Brooklyn Free School. There is a lot of conjecture about whether it is a good example of Deweyan educational principles in action or if it fails to capture thew spirit of his progressive education. What do you think about it?

This space is for a volunteer from each group to provide a short description of the latest on your group's ideas for a service learning project. Note: if you are the volunteer for this, then you don't have to post a comment in response to my prompt on the readings.

Please use this space to make progress with the Service Learning project. You can propose ideas, ask questions, add to the ideas of others, etc. If you are lacking inspiration, feel free to look at the stuff I shared on Friday (it's located in the "Class Notes" folder in Course Documents).

Comment on one of the following two prompts (you do not need to comment on both): 1. Why do you think Mann's Common Schools were successful and Jefferson's plan was not? 2. What do you make of Mann's use of the Prussian system as a blueprint for his system?