Reflection 17

In the Early centuries New England education was based on Religion. Everyday they would pray in the morning and evening. In class they would dedicate time to teach prayers, creed, verses, and the gospel. They would make the children recite Gods work until they memorized it. When kindergarten students were taught the alphabet, they would relate it to the bible. For example for the letter A instead of apple like they use now, they would use “In Adam fall we sinned all.” They had a verse from the bible for each letter in the alphabet. In the early centuries they would mostly teach writing and grammar, the sentences that they showed taught them how to better themselves. For example they used “Our weakness and inabilities break not the bond of our duties.” Everyday they would learn numerous terms to better themselves and put it into action. They also took a catechism, which is a test answering questions about the bible, and God. This is a 107 question test, and this was called the “short” catechism. The early centuries New England did not different much from what our private schools offer. In Catholic and Christian schools like Dade Christian offers classes were they have to pray, and read the bible. This is a mandatory class that if you miss you will be punished for. In Dade Christian they also have something similar to the Catechism. Instead of taking the FCAT which is your requirement to pass, you have to take the Catechism. This is a mandatory requirement to pass. In 1852 New England education would change how we teach students today. Froebel was the first to practice and train teachers that they should “be highly respected people with values that the children should imitate. They teacher should also be a sensitive, open, and easily approachable person.” Froebel but his plan into action and opened up a school, for years he had it running training teachers, and giving students the knowledge that they deserved. The government became suspicious about this technique and didn’t believe it was to their beliefs so they shut it down. When German immigrated to the United States after the German Revolutions, they were taught by Froebel teaching. They opened schools with Froebel teaching up again and started teaching his way. Another man who didn’t believe that religion should control our school system was Spencer; he felt that “religion was a pointless attempt to gain knowledge of the unknown.” So his curriculum activities were based on needs to implement in one form or another. After they added different curriculums and taught writing and arithmetic as well as other general subjects the students attendance boosted from 1816 to 1861 by nearly triple the amount from before. This century is what shaped education today, why we teach the way we do and how we act towards our students. Because knowledge isn’t only a physical control, but it is also a mental one.