EDF1005-Reflection #20

Education in Europe was different and was influenced by many people. Jan Amos Comenius believed that the educational system should have teachers treating their children kinder and that they will learn better through visual things such as pictures. He wanted colleges to have labs in their school and for knowledge to be available to everyone. He actually believed in women when no one else did. Freidrich Wilhelm Froebel was a person who believed that religion was the center of all things. God knew the plan for everyone and everything was surrounded around him. This is how much of the schools were in the colonial times. The Puritans believed in God and would go to church almost all the time. Froebel was the one to invent kindergarten. He wanted to foster the care for children that were four through six years old. Most of his ideas are still being used today in U.S. public schools which is playing in groups, goal oriented activities, play time outside, etc. Herbert Spencer brought about the quote “survival of the fittest”. He believed in individualism, hence he didn’t agree in public schools, but private schools. U.S. public high schools gave students entrance exams to get into the schools. They gave students goals in order to graduate. Democracy in public schools has helped diversity to be able to live happily in one society. Since public schools are for everyone, regardless race, skin, economic status, or disabilities they have to remain democratic and serve an education for all types of people including the service we give. Instead, they are putting a monopoly of different powers in a couple of hands, different from the democratic beliefs. The European high schools have four levels of education and they are way harder than ours here in the United States. The European democracy helps students explore the different principles of a society that is all about this. It gives them the rights and responsibilities they need to experience. They are both pretty similar to each other but of course have their differences. Most of our customs came from them. The acceptance of public schools did confirm the system of democracy. But, many things have also changed since the mid nineteenth century. The school system has changed and has its democratic and undemocratic traits just like everything else. Everything just seems to improve as time goes by but we always carry something from the past, and where it came from.