Fall 2002

This information effective for Fall 2002.
Check with instructor the first day of class for any changes.

Education

[EDUC-092A]

92A. The Evolution of Education

Fall 2002
Instructor: David Swanger

Prospectus

I. What kinds of questions and issues will be pursued in the course?

• how and why formal, public education developed in Western societies;
  
• the relationship between public education and the state;
  
• the history, purpose, and controversial nature of compulsory public education in America;
  
• the status of children in American society;
  
• the role and status of teachers in American education;
  
• what is considered worth knowing; how curriculum is established;
  
• education and democracy in a pluralistic society;
  
• forces for and against change in education;
  
• moral education in schools;
  
• the arts in schools;
  
• the relationship between religious and secular, private and public education.

II. How does the course work?

This course provides a survey of these and other major topics in educational philosophy and practice. The lectures and readings are chronologically comprehensive, beginning with Plato and culminating in the work of contemporary thinkers; at the same time, the lectures and readings are issue oriented and mildly idiosyncratic. That is, they reflect the professor's intellectual priorities, rather than a strict historical progression in the study of educational thought.

Furthermore, given the number of questions and authors considered in the course, both the lectures and the readings are introductory; it will be up to students to pursue in greater depth topics they find of particular interest.

The lectures, for the most part, do not interpret the readings, but provide a conceptual framework within which they may be explored. Occasionally, and, in particular, when a given author is especially difficult, the lecture will offer a gloss on the reading; but otherwise, it is your responsibility to understand and analyze the readings, bringing questions to section meetings, if you wish.

III. What are the course requirements?

The course meets twice a week in lecture and once a week in section. Additionally, there may be optional exam review sessions.

There will be a midterm and a final exam: everything that transpires in the course—lectures, section discussion, reading—will be covered in the exams. Also, there will be one brief three- to five-page term paper required.

To do well on the exams, lecture attendance is essential; and section attendance is required. Your narrative evaluation and grade, if appropriate, will be based on exam performance, the quality of the essay you write, and section particpation.

Generally, the course requires that student commute, conceptually, across centuries of educational thought, analyzing current thought and practice in terms of their history.

IV. What are the course readings?

All required readings are in the anthology The Evolution of Education, available at the Bay Tree Bookstore.