Education & IM

Side Reference: What did I do to be so Black and Blue?

Actually a song written by Andy Razaf that became an overt protest song about racism. Louis Armstrong recorded many versions.

Razaf (whose father was from Madagascar) wrote other songs, some that attacked racism and lynching

Lyrics

"When you are near, they laugh and sneer, Set you aside and you’re denied, What did I do to be so Black and Blue?"

"How sad I am, each day I feel worse, My mark of Ham seems to be a curse."

"How will it end? Ain’t got a friend, My only sin is my skin, What did I do to be so Black and Blue?"

History of Education

An overview of the changing focus in Education

Pre-1890’s

Puritinism fades, the ideal becomes the Renaissance Man
An Upper Class Luxury
Helped teach running of the Estate
Appreciation for Arts and Knowledge
Classics were central (Greek, Hebrew)

Late 1800’s to early 1900’s

Progressive reformers influence education
Education seen as tool to teach children proper values needed to be a productive American citizen
Society's ills could in part be alleviated for all classes
Would fit children for their proper role in society.
Public education seen as a way to "Americanize" the vast number of immigrant children

Industrial Age

High schools attended by middle- and upper-class students who aspired to white-collar jobs or a higher academic education.

Improved economy higher wages after 1900, more working-class families send children to high schools

Vocational and industrial programs were meant to entice the working class and poor to stay in school and to prepare them adequately for what the reformers thought was their appropriate role in society.

Before & During World Wars

Education opens more doors for women and minorities esp. during war
Education becomes a State responsibility
Universities offer graduate programs
Minority Groups suffer worse deprivation than immigrant groups
Segregated Schools
Indian Schools fashioned to Assimilate to "Western-European Culture."

Children sometimes removed forcibly from homes

School Reform 1960’s on

Desegregation in terms of minorities
More diverse theories in terms of learning
Progressive Educational Reform on all levels
Programs put in place to reduce inequities (Upward Bound)
Self-Perception

Booker T Washington

Alabama embarked on training teachers to educate African Americans

Booker T, a self-educated "mulatto" and ex-slave, was chosen to lead the new "Normal School" in 1881 (Tuskeegee)

He was 25 and highly honored by the nation after his death in 1915

Major Moton was selected by the board of trustees to take over from Washington in 1931

Tuskeegee

Major Moton was full blooded African American

Main points of Tuskeegee’s Educational Creed

We believe in the dignity of labor
We believe in doing what we do well
We believe in the power of education
We believe in the life of service
We believe in the spirit of cooperation between al individuals and groups
We believe in fitting all men to exercise the responsibilities of American citizenship.

Group Discussion:

Discuss your own position in terms of where you would have fit in during the beginnings of education. Based on your current family class, would you have been one of the privileged? Or Working Class?