Reflection on School: The Story Of American Public Eduacation

An assignment was given to the class to pick a word, phrase, and sentence that was meaningful to us as we read part one: 1770-1900- The Common School in the book School: The story of American public education. The class grouped up in 3 parts and had to pick three categories, the first category being the most important to the third being the least important based off what each student chose that was relatable to part one of the reading. In my group, I found this assignment was very tricky because everyone had their own opinion of what was more relatable to understand part one of the book. Even through everyone had chosen different words, phrases, and sentences, a lot of the contexts were very close to understanding what The Common School was about.

          

New Jersey City University

Department of Literacy Education

Going Public: Literacy and History of American Education 

Class Assignment

All the words that were chosen had its own importance to what part one of the book was about. Just to focus on the most importance category that each group thought as a team, words such as foundation, literacy, and equalizer, these word set a powerful tone to the section of the book. In the past, people had to create a foundation of what a school should entitled so that they can get some form of education to learn to read and write. Then eventually as time went on people wanted an equal school system that would work for all citizens. During the mid- nineteenth century, the common school was just for all white children and eventually changed over time to make an equal education for all children’s. The common school was a challenge struggle for many African Americans and for many people that were poor to get admitted into school. Diving into the phrases such as free common school the most American thing about America, all citizens have an obligation, and the educated citizen. I realized what all these phrases had in common is having the word “citizen” in each phrase. People in America wanted to make sure that all those who were citizens of America had rights to a free education or even some form of education. Whether you are rich or poor, all citizens had the obligation to go to school on their own will to brighten their knowledge to create a better world for the future and even for themselves. Finally, all the sentences that each group came up with together I felt that each one had its own importance to what part one section was about. America wanted to create free schools for all children and map out the educational needs to build a better school system for all. People such as Thomas Jefferson, Horace Mann, Catharine Beecher, and many others who helped out with making the school system free for all knew the importance to having an education and wanted to help out to make that change for all citizens. These people strive to create a balance to have liberty and equality. They wanted all diversity to have an educational track and create a path to pave the way for everyone to be educated from then till forever.