The Utopia of Education

 

Kailey Franklin

Dr. Grover Plunkett

American Cultural Heritage

2 April 2024

The Utopia of Education

One must seek the past to be able to understand his present situation. For instance, countless individuals have tried to understand why the modern education system seems to be failing, but they fail to look within educational history. Society is doomed to always make the same mistakes if it does not know or understand the downfalls of previous generations. Unfortunately, few people know how to change the way students are educated today. The concept of education has significantly changed through the years as society transformed through both revolutionary movements and radical theorists, creating the educational system the United States uses now.

During the colonial time period, colonists believed that education must have strong Biblical influences. The goal of education in this age included teaching children how to become morally upright adults. Mabary states, “Early settlers in America believed their moral code was written in the Bible, therefore, children must be taught to read the Bible so they would grow to be moral adults” (45). Colonists constructed an education system with a strong Biblical foundation in order to create a more stable society. They believed educating children with a strong moral emphasis would lead to the children behaving in a more advanced way. In fact, early schools placed a heavy emphasis on learning the Word of God to help their students build a virtuous character. Mabary reveals, “Early public schools, called ‘common school,’ focused on moral education; morality instruction pervaded every facet of a child’s education” (19). Essentially, colonists believed children could become better citizens of the United States when trained to be virtuous and moral through the Bible. When the colonists sought to create a new nation separate from England, the framers of the constitution sought to incorporate these foundational beliefs.

The founding fathers of the United States were persuaded that children must be educated with strong morals in order to keep America a strong democratic society. For instance, the founding fathers believed public education contributed to a young person’s knowledge of the high ideals their country possessed. According to Mabary, “America’s founding fathers and early American political leaders believed public education was the means by which to teach individuals the principles of American democracy and how to be a virtuous, productive citizen of the United States” (19). This view of education led to common schools which taught the homogeneous values every American believed in. Common schools laid a basis of morality and virtues for the new generations of free Americans: “Date suggest common schools were the key to creating and perpetuating the new Democratic society in America” (Mabary 96). In order to keep their new nation free, teachers educated their students in the foundational values on which this country was built. However, the Enlightenment period served to completely transform the strict Biblical education every early American was familiar with.

The Enlightenment period helped society to expand their thinking past a purely theological mindset. Unlike the early colonists, enlightened individuals believed that virtues did not need to be taught from a purely religious standpoint: “The Enlightenment thinkers believed virtues should be taught through rational thinking” (Mabary 22). Students began to glean information from secular philosophers like Aristotle and Plato and tried to build virtuous character through rational thinking. Utterly changing peoples’ view on education, the Enlightenment age combined moral and secular pursuits. Mabary discloses, “Colleges, which had previously based their teachings on Biblical principles and scriptural interpretations, began to focus on more secular subjects, specifically science and politics” (125). The whole atmosphere of society changed when individuals slowly began to replace Biblical morals with secular pursuits.

The Enlightenment era lead to a split in between two sects of people leading into progressives vs. traditionalists. Progressives focused on contributing to the good of society by using rational thinking: “Progressives sought to teach character through knowing what was good. Progressive character education focused on rationality and making decisions for the good of society” (Mabary 32). Progressives fancied themselves open to brave, new ideas while traditionalists remained set in their ways. Whereas progressives welcomed rational thinking and secular pursuits with open arms, traditionalists did not want to change the direction of education. For example, traditionalists followed an extremely strict set of Biblical standards: “Traditionalists who viewed values as a strict set of standards, based on Biblical principles, or doing good” (Mabary 32). To fight against the progressive movement within education, traditionalists sought to create Christian organizations outside of the school in order to continue instilling good moral values within the children. Just like the Enlightenment period significantly transformed education, so did the Industrial Revolution.

Society’s view of education changed through the Industrial Revolution just as society’s view of education has in more recent years through world-changing events such as Covid-19. The Industrial Revolution changed education by converting schools to function more like a business rather than a place of learning. Goodman states, “Both the previous industrial and present third wave school restructuring movements are designed to meet the functional needs of our society’s emerging commercial interests” (4). America, in more recent history, had become more about the amount of products companies could expel rather than the quality of the materials. This same phenomenon can be applied to educational facilities too:

[S]chools in our society have been based upon a model of the efficient and productive business organization. Test scores have become the product of schools, students have become the workers who produce this product using the instructional programs given them by the organization, teachers have become the shop-floor managers who oversee the students to make sure work gets completed correctly and on time, school principals have become “plant” supervisors who manage the school’s personnel, and the emotional concerns of students and their families are addressed by specialists such as social workers and school counselors. (Goodman 11)

Schools have become more interested in the product and results instead of the actual learning process. Teachers became more interested in the grades, and not building the character of future, upstanding citizens. One wise American philosopher named John Dewey compared education as a learning system to create a better future rather than a factory to expel more efficient workers.

Dewey described learning as the process to create a utopian thinking within students, not to simply prepare the children for a bleak future. Revealing that schools should be a place where children think about creating a new and better future, Dewey sought to change the concept of education. Each child critically thinks about the role he wants to play in society, and not placed in a career his superiors think him best suited for: “Schools should be locations for utopian thinking, not crystal-ball gazing. In a democracy, children need to be educated in ways that will assist them in creating the future and not merely existing in it” (Dewey as quoted by Goodman 5). Dewey explained students must be prepared to create their own future and not settle for the purpose decided for them in early years. Correlating to the United States’ foundational beliefs about education, both Dewey and early Americans wanted young students to critically think and make the proper changes needed for the good of society. Dewey also explored the industrial concept that education is only a product to be consumed:

What avail is it to win prescribed amounts of information about geography and history, to win ability to read and write, if in this process the individual loses his own soul; loses his appreciation of things worthwhile, of the values to which these things are relative; if he loses his desire to apply what he has learned and, above all, loses the ability to extract meaning from his future experiences as they occur? (Dewey as quoted by Goodman 16)

Dewey maintained that education as a product defeated the whole purpose of learning. Learning is the function of becoming a more virtuous person through rational thinking and strong morals based off of Biblical principles. However, this concept of learning and teaching is often lost on present-day American teachers.

Educators become so wrapped in teaching children how to manage present situations that they forget to pass on the necessary skills for students to manage a flawed society. In light of the Industrial Revolution, teachers must focus on changing the businesslike environment of education to the utopian system each person tries to achieve. Goodman states:

[I]t’s the recognition that school restricting efforts to be built upon an open discourse regarding the type of culture we wish to build and the relationship between schooling and this future society. This approach contrasts with that of the third wave restructuralists who tell us what our future society will look like and then ask teachers, administrators, parents, students, and other interested and involved individuals to transform school in the light of this future. (7-8)

Goodman argues that educators need to stop teaching students only what they are being told to teach, and help students develop rational thought. Schools must start teaching children to think critically so the students can learn how to make the world a more functional and better place. In addition, teachers prominently shape young minds: “Educators construct the future of the world through their work, because they prepare young generations for lives in a world that doesn’t exist yet” (Moisio and Rautiainen 2). Through instilling moralistic and virtuous character within their students, teachers can help them learn to change the world rather than passively existing within it. Sir Thomas More, a European philosopher models this aforementioned behavior by trying to help people understand not only education, but also the functions of society through his writings. He accomplishes his mission by presenting a perfect country with above average citizens who have strong intellects and an overwhelming desire to learn.

More presents several promising ideas on the way students are educated through his book Utopia. According to this manuscript, More appears to believe that most people have a natural, innate desire to learn. He states,

Most people spend these free periods on further education, for there are public lectures first thing, but men and women of all classes go crowding in to hear them—I mean, different people go to different lectures, just as the spirit moves them. However, there’s nothing to stop you from spending this extra time on your trade, if you want. Lots of people do, if they haven’t the capacity for intellectual work, and are much admired for such public-spirited behavior. (56)

In this perfect society, individuals not only consume knowledge from the wonders of formal education, but also from learning a trade. One realizes learning can be both a product of formal education and a result of entering the workforce with the intention to master a trade. More went on to describe education as a life-long process: “But every child receives a primary education, and most men and women go on educating themselves all their lives during those free periods I told you about” (70). More did not believe the educational process stopped after childhood. Rather, elementary education served as a rudimentary foundation of the complex learning to come. Several theorists such as Benjamin Bloom and Howard Garnder have tried to expand education with their innovative ideas to incorporate a more Utopian future of learning.

Benjamin Bloom contributes heavily to the realm of education by introducing his taxonomy. His taxonomy is separated into six levels- the lower three levels establish lower-level thinking while the top three levels establish higher-level thinking. Doughty says, “His influential reforms are rooted in his structural analysis of intellectual development and, in particular, in his theory of types of thinking. He produced a hierarchical taxonomy of thought that begins with the particular and the practical and rises to the abstract and universal” (3). Bloom sought to create more abstract thinking based off of simple ideas and factual evidence. Modern Education notably altered when teachers began applying this research to their classroom. Doughty states: “So, in his view, modestly altering the curriculum and simultaneously teaching problem solving enabled previously elitist postsecondary education to be intellectually accessible to a large proportion of the population” (2). Originally intended for secondary education, Bloom’s taxonomy became more popular in elementary education as teachers tried to help their students to think rationally.

            Although Bloom opens up wonderful concepts to multiple people with higher order thinking, his theories include a few failures. Booker states, “Critical reasoning is not about blind disbelief any more than it is about blind belief. It requires a solid understanding of fundamental facts, and those facts cue us to patterns of assent or skepticism” (355). In order to think abstractly, one must have a solid understanding of the basic factual information first. Often, educators skip basic understanding and use the more complex questions. Booker makes an excellent point when he mentions, “Bloom’s Taxonomy fuels the belief that higher order thinking can exist in isolation from specific content” (352). An educator may hold the misconception that higher order questions can be asked without addressing the simpler questions and ideas. Therefore, one must know if the student truly understands the content before more intricate questions are introduced. Bloom focuses on learning at basic to abstract levels, but Howard Gardner argues that every person learns differently.

            Gardner reveals every person has a different kind of intelligence. These intelligences include a wide variety of talents including visual-spatial, verbal-linguistic, musical-rhythmic, logical-mathematical, interpersonal, intrapersonal, naturalistic, and bodily-kinesthetic. Teachers emphasize certain intelligences while permitting other equally important intelligences fade into the background. Alpay infers: “It has been suggested above that schools in general have honored linguistic and logical abilities but have given relatively small recognition to other abilities” (2). Students with linguistic abilities shine within the school environment, but students with other natural abilities may have harder time learning how to grapple with education in the limited educational facility. Teaching each student how to use their intelligence leads the whole class to learn how to manage the real world better. Lunenburg suggests, “The multiple intelligences classroom acts like the “real’ world. For example, the author and the illustrator of a book or the actor and the set builder in a play are equally valuable creators. Students become more active, involved learners. You and the students come to view intellectual ability more broadly” (8). Every learning style is different, and it is crucial to teach students how to mange their own type of intelligence while appreciating other people’s different intelligences too.

            Education has progressed through American history. In some ways, it has also significantly regressed due to revolutionary events. However, if every educator works for a utopian future of education for their students, learning can change for the better.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Works Cited

Alpay, Esat. “The implications of Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences for education.”

Booker, Michael. “A Roof without Walls: Benjamin Bloom’s Taxonomy and the Misdirection of American Education.”  Academic Questions, vol. 20, 2007, pp. 347-355, doi: 10.1007/s12129-007-9031-9.

Doughty, Howard. “Blooming Idiots: Educational Objectives, Learning Taxonomies and the Pedagogy of Benjamin Bloom.” College Quarterly, vol. 9, no. 4, 2006, pp. 1-23, https://collegequarterly.ca/2006-vol09-num04-fall/doughty.html

Goodman, Jesse. "Change without Difference: School Restructuring in Historical Perspective." Harvard Educational Review, vol. 65, no. 1, 1995, pp. 1-29, ProQuest, https://go.openathens.net/redirector/faulkner.edu?url=https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/change-without-difference-school-restructuring/docview/212250368/se-2.

Lunenburg, Fred C., and Melody R Lunenburg. “Applying Multiple Intelligences in the Classroom: A Fresh Look at Teaching Writing.” International Journal of Scholarly Academic Intellectual Diversity, vol. 16, no. 1, 2014, pp. 1-14, https://www.nationalforum.com/Electronic%20Journal%20Volumes/Lunenburg,%20Fred%20C%20Applying%20Multiple%20Intelligences%20IJSAID%20V16%20N1%202014.pdf

Mabary, Teresa G. Values, Moral, and Character Education in Colonial America through the Nineteenth Century: A Qualitative Historical Study, E-book. Southwest Baptist University, United States -- Missouri, 2017, ProQuest, https://go.openathens.net/redirector/faulkner.edu?url=https://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/values-moral-character-education-colonial-america/docview/1897041207/se-2.

More, Thomas. Utopia. Translated by Paul Turner, Penguin Books, 2003. 

Moisio, Olli-Pekka, and Matti Rautiainen. "Utopian Education: May the Hope Be with You." The Revival of Political Imagination: Utopia as Methodology. Ed. Teppo Eskelinen. London: Zed Books Ltd, 2020. 97–112. Bloomsbury Collections. Web. 23 Mar. 2024. http://dx.doi.org/10.5040/9781350225633.ch.006.