Educational Philosophy

Educational Philosophy

Throughout the years the topic of an American public education has been a very controversial subject. Since the time of the early Massachusetts Bay Colony, many have been divided on the role, if any, the government should play in educating America’s children. There has also been debate on the type of education American children, and teachers should have. Although, there has been tremendous progress in creating an “ideal public education”, there is still an ever-evolving need for change in America’s public educational system. This paper strives to focus on this matter. First, it will look at the history of American education, beginning with colonial America to the present day. It will also examine America’s philosophy of education over the years. And lastly, it shall give insight on my personal views of an ideal educational system.

The New World was grouped in three geographic categories, consisting of the southern, middle and New England colonies. Since the southern colonies depended on an agrarian economy dominated by a plantation system based on slavery, there were great distances between each house and plantation; making it was rather difficult to establish schools for all. For this reason learning occurred mostly in the home, by parents or tutors. For the slaves in the southern colonies, there was very little education because their lack of education was used as a to maintain their present state of ignorance. Most of the settlers in the southern colonies arrived as indentured servants, and were of English lower or middle-class background. However, once arriving to the New World these same English men became the new aristocrats of the southern colonies. S. Alexander Rippa notes, “family fortune and great wealth were accumulated by land acquisition and tobacco growing…these were the quickest ways to prosperity” (Rippa, 6). In the southern colonies, religion was not a focal matter as it once was in England. The Anglican Church was a primary institution were governmental matters were handled instead of religious matters. Therefore, we see that religion was not as important to the southern settlers and it did not serve as an “instrument of civic discipline” as it was for the other colonies. In the other colonies, religious matters was the main reason for education, however,

“education in the southern colonies was considered to be a private and individual concern instead of a civil or religious matter. The Anglican Church, to which the southern colonists officially adhered, was not indifferent toward education.