Horace Mann Research Paper

A paradigm shift is defined as a time when the usual and accepted way of doing or thinking about something changes completely. Today, most lessons are taught through experience and hands on learning, a drastic shift from the early 1900’s. Many believe in the 21st century that the classroom is not just divided between the teacher and students, but that everyone has the ability to bring new insights to lessons and that everyone in the classroom is learning from each other. In the early 1900’s, education focused on exchanging information between the teacher and the student, whereas today’s teaching method is taking information and applying so it can be understood. People who understood that education wasn’t just an exchange of information, like

Known as the Father of the Common School, Mann believed that to have a better, more intelligent society that citizens should be educated in even the most rural and poor of communities. Having schools that were public and paid by taxes was, “central to good citizenship, democratic participation and societal well-being,” (Horace Mann). The secretary of the Massachusetts board of education, Mann stated that political stability and social harmony depended on education, which would provide a basic level of literacy and inclination of common public ideas. This shift from having only higher class people being able to go to school to having almost all children going to school had a significant impact on society and how we view it. With more information about the world and the inner-workings of things like government and politics, more people were able to understand the events going on around them and in turn be able and willing to make changes in their society. With literary levels rising, more people could go and seek information for themselves. Not having to rely on other people giving them information meant that opinions were less likely to be skewed and people could form their own ideas as they read. Though Horace Mann did not live in the 20th century, his ideas about education and public schooling greatly impacted education in the 1900’s and how people think about education