Historical Foundations of Teaching and Learning

 Curtis - "The State of Tutelage in Lower Canada, 1835-1851"

Curtis (1997) reading opened my eyes to the role of education in colonial control. Following the 1837-38 Rebellion, the British government attributed the cause to defective political education and resolved to put residents under much broader relations of tutelage than attending school (p. 25).To be innovative, Curtis demonstrates that authorities continued to enact laws Municipal Acts in 1840, 1845, 1847, 1850, and School Acts in 1841, 1846, 1849. According to the Durham Commission, citizens required a gradual learning of their social obligations in the school of practical citizenship (Curtis, 1997, p. 32). However, this innovation was not an improvement but an imposition of liberal democracy on unwilling people.The only source of creativity was the resistance to “la guerre des eteignoirs”. Residents resorted to seizing and burning school records, murdering or crippling the horses of local authorities, and burning tax rolls (p. 40). In St. Gregoire, January 1851, a large body of men arrested men and deprived them of their assessment rolls (Curtis, 1997, p. 41). Two hundred men seized the Grand Constable prisoner and cried out, “point de conseil, point d'ecole.”Reformers thought that "all the world's a school" (p. 31). Chauveau remarked that the purpose of the municipal law is to reform manners and institutions (Curtis, 1997, p. 39). Education was expanded outside the classrooms into all spheres of life.In learning, property assessment, taxation, and elections were the ways through which people were expected to learn citizenship. But Dr Laterriere said that people had better things to do than squander their time in municipal meetings in the hope of political education (p. 39).

This throws my glossary definitions into question. Education became a tool of colonial rule, where it was to be learnt through submission to authority, not through building independence. Innovation was in the service of the colonialists, suppressing local innovation.

My question: Curtis demonstrates "central authorities attempted to force liberal freedoms onto a population in large measure opposed to them" (p. 43). When a new approach to education needs military action and then compromises with the old systems of power it was designed to supersede, is that really innovation, or is it merely control in new clothing?

Cuban - "Can Historians Help School Reformers?"

Cuban's (2001) reading raised a very interesting question: Can historians really assist school reformers? In the Gulf War, Bush and supporters likened Saddam Hussein to Adolph Hitler. However, critics in Congress equated the deployment of troops in Kuwait to American participation in Vietnam (p. 453). Historian Otis Graham writes that it is simply embarrassing... to see policymakers gagging in bad history classes (as cited in Cuban, 2001, p. 453). Cuban notes that most policy-oriented reformers in education can go out daily without a glance back at historians (p. 454).To be innovative, Cuban reformers commit the same errors, overlooking the past. Innovation that lacks historical memory is a repetition of unsuccessful methods. In the case of creativity, he condemns presentist history, "read the present into the past, find 'golden ages' and...distort history to fit contemporary situations" (p. 455). Creative work embodies the ambiguous situations faced by previous generations of policymakers, including the options they had (and disregarded) (Cuban, 2001, p. 464).Historians build a chronological narrative that reveals similarities and differences between past and present situations (p. 454). They can redefine existing issues and solutions by examining how a past generation thought about similar situations (Cuban, 2001, p. 454). Neustadt and May assist those who attempt to govern in thinking in their own terms (p. 454).In learning, it occurs when reformers build a deeper understanding rather than finding straightforward teachings. Tyack observes that modern decision-makers already have a vision of the past, and whether they are right or wrong will shape policy based on foggy pictures (Tyack, as cited in Cuban, 2001, p. 456). Learning is about helping them make sense of it (p. 456).

This relates to my glossary: teaching is facilitative, not prescriptive. Education builds up knowledge. History informed innovation is contrasted to innovation that does not take history into account.

My question: Cuban admits reformers largely overlook historians but fails to clarify how this should be reformed. When reformers want easy tales to favour their schemes, why should they want difficult historical views which are quick to call them into question?

Cuban, L. (2001). Can historians help school reformers? [Review of the books The Failed Promise of the American High School 1890-1995 by D. L. Angus & J. E. Mirel, Moral Education in America: Schools and the Shaping of Character from Colonial Times to the Present by B. E. McClellan, & Schooled to Work: Vocationalism and the American Curriculum, 1876-1946 by H. M. Kliebard]. Curriculum Inquiry, 31(4), 453-467. doi: 10.1111/1467-873X.t01-1-00207

Curtis, B. (1997). The state of tutelage in Lower Canada, 1835–1851. History of Education Quarterly, 37(1), 25-43. doi: 10.2307/369903