Drawing upon history, sociology, philosophy, cultural anthropology and other research, this course examines four key questions:
 

1. What are the purposes of education in a democracy?
2. What are the kinds of knowledge students and teachers and citizens need to have and how do students and teachers arrive at these kinds of knowledge?
3. What sort of expectations can individuals and groups legitimately have of the schools and what demands can they legitimately make?
4. How should we understand teaching as a profession? What are teachers’ responsibilities, what is their sphere of autonomy, and what is their claim to decision-making power?

1. Class attendance and participation;
2. required readings as assigned in the syllabus;
3. written homework and articles assigned in your discussion group; all written assignments assigned in advance (i.e. not including in-class assignments) must be typed and must be turned in on time;
4. unannounced quizzes and process writing exercises assigned in lecture; no make-up work will be allowed for missed or failed in-class written work — however, students may choose to drop their two worst grades for any missed or failed in-class written exercises. Please note that this includes writing activities missed due to illness;
5. a midterm paper (approx. 6-8 pp., typed, double-spaced) that draws upon course lectures, readings, and discussions (topics to be assigned); and
6. a final paper (approx. 7-10 pp., typed, double-spaced) that draws upon course lectures, readings, and discussions (topics to be assigned)

Note: Students attending fewer than 75% of the lectures and discussion meetings will not pass the course. Attending only lecture or only discussion section counts as 50% attendance. Adequate performance on reading and written assignments, regular attendance and class participation are minimal requirements for passing the course; excellent work is required for the higher grades. Written work must demonstrate understanding of the arguments and counter-arguments raised in the texts, lectures, and discussions, as well as the student’s own critical/appreciative response to the issues.

This is a writing emphasis course. The take-home written work that students will be assigned may include some or all of the following: 1) weekly or bi-weekly: short analyses of reading assignments, position papers, comparison/contrast exercises, identification of a paper’s argument and its foil(s), discussion questions, summaries, and/or journal entries, 2) a take-home midterm essay, and 3) a take-home final paper. In addition, students will be given regular in-class written assignments, including quizzes and process-writing exercises.

The University of Utah and the Department of Educational Studies seek to provide equal access to their programs, services, and activities for people with disabilities. Reasonable prior notice is needed in order to arrange accommodations.

Grading of pre-assigned written work will be rigorous, but there will be opportunities for rewrites on the midterm and (in some cases) on weekly, out-of-class written assignments.
 
 

•  All pre-assigned (as opposed to in-class) written work is to be typed. It must be turned in on time.
• Your written (and spoken) contributions should demonstrate that you have read and understood the readings; however, they are not expected to give an exhaustive summary of the readings, but should bring to bear whatever is relevant in the readings to the topic or question assigned.
• Feel free to study with other students and to work out ideas together; however, your phrasing in your written work should be your own, and your papers should demonstrate a distinctive working-through of the material, rather than a mere paraphrasing of others’ work.
• We expect that you will have proofread your pre-assigned papers for spelling, punctuation, grammar, and usage. When explicit instruction has been given on particular issues of usage or spelling or grammar (whether in lecture, in discussion, or in comments on your papers), you will be held responsible for that information in your writing.
• All quoted material must be identified by quotation marks and by the author’s or authors’ name and a page number. Failure to identify quoted material as quoted material is plagiarism and is a very serious scholarly offense, subject to institutional sanctions. Beware of paraphrasing too closely — for example, don’t just change a word here and there. This is also considered plagiarism. When in doubt, quote the text exactly and put the material in quotes. Some degree of quotation is usually helpful in making your claims specific, but do not rely too heavily on the author’s own phrasing; we are not looking for a “digest” version of an article. It is usually best to be able to summarize an author’s position in your own words. It is often helpful, but not always necessary, to give page numbers for claims about an author’s position even if you are putting the claim in your own words.
• You are not required to use any formal system of citation in the course; it is sufficient to indicate the source by author and page number in parentheses, if it is a course reading (e.g. Rose, p. 112). You are welcome to use outside materials in addition to course readings (although not instead of them); if you do refer to or quote outside readings, you should provide a full reference (author, title, date, place, and publisher; also, the edition or volume number, if applicable). Even in the latter case, it is not necessary to use a formal citation system, but if you expect to do further work in which you will use citations (such as a master’s thesis or an article to be submitted for publication), then we encourage you to familiarize yourself with and to use the citation system preferred in your area. (For example, educational psychologists prefer APA style, educational historians tend to prefer Chicago style, and research on children’s literature often uses MLA style or Turabian. Check the scholarly journals in your field.) You will not be graded on this, but it is helpful to get enough practice at using such systems that they become second-nature.
• Class participation involves attentive listening not only to the discussion leader but to fellow students; spoken contributions to discussion that are informed by the readings, films, lectures, and class discussion itself; regular attendance; useful contributions to small group work; and a willingness to engage and draw out other students. Students are welcome to contribute personal stories that speak to the issues raised in the class but need to be careful not to treat the classroom as a stage; instead, the telling of stories should be an invitation to a conversation through which all students (including the original storyteller) can learn. Be prepared to be challenged and be willing to rethink your ideas as other people raise new points and questions.
• All students are asked to think like educators: you should be concerned not only with your own learning but with that of others in the class. You may be asked to move out of your comfort zone, therefore, and talk, if you are accustomed to being silent or to withhold contributions at times, if you tend to talk a good deal. We do not expect everyone to talk the same amount; in principle, it is fine if some people talk more than others. However, if one or two people are dominating class discussion and/or silencing others, we may ask them to spend more time listening and less time talking. Conversely, if some students never talk, we may ask them to work on contributing more. We are looking for a balance in which all students have the opportunity to learn from one another, and this is only possible if everyone contributes at least a little and if no one dominates the discussion.
• How you talk and listen is more important than how much you talk. Class contributions can be argumentative but should not be disrespectful, for example, and students can remind classmates of important points from the readings but should not hold forth with mini-lectures. Learning to make contributions that are engaging and involving for other students rather than self-indulgent or undisciplined is a key part of learning to teach; we will be taking into consideration how you participate in discussion, in evaluating class participation.

1. Mike Rose, Lives on the Boundary: A Moving Account of the Struggles and Achievements of America’s Educational Underclass (New York: Penguin, 1989). [available at the University Bookstore]
2. George H. Wood, Schools that Work: America’s Most Innovative Public Education Programs (New York: Plume, 1993). [available at the University Bookstore]
3. Readings on electronic reserve at the Marriott Library

The books will also be available at the reserve desk of the Marriott Library.
 

READING/LECTURE/DISCUSSION SCHEDULE:

Tues. 9 Jan. Introduction/Democratic Education

(today, class meets only for the first hour)
 

Thurs. 11 Jan. The Environment of Schools

Reading:

Rose, Lives on the Boundary, 1-83

(class meets from 11:50 to 1:45; however, from 12 to 1 we will be attending the Morris Dees Martin Luther King, Jr. Keynote address in the Olpin Union Ballroom. After the speech, we will return to OSH 202. During the class time following the Dees lecture, you will be asked to respond in writing to his talk.)
 

Tues. 16 Jan. The Institutional, Administrative, and Textual Environment

Reading:

Rose, Lives on the Boundary, 85-165
 

Thurs. 18 Jan. Inclusion and/vs. Excellence

Reading:

Rose, Lives on the Boundary, 167-242

Electronic Handout: Case study questions for “We Are Chauvinists” (see readings for next session)
 

Tues. 23 Jan. Inclusion and the School Climate

Readings:

Jones, “‘We Are Chauvinists’: Sexual Entitlement and Sexual Harassment in a High School”
Friend, “Choices, Not Closets: Heterosexism and Homophobia in Schools”

Case Study Activities and Process Drama with Professor Dave Dynak, Theater Dept.

Written assignment due (see electronic handout on case study from last session)
 

Thurs. 25 Jan. Revolutionary Education for White Women

Readings:

Burgess, “A Plan that Worked: Emma Hart Willard” (children’s biography chapter)
Willard, “A Plan for Improving Female Education”

Electronic Handout: Written assignment on an American Indian’s children’s biography (see readings for next session)

Handout: Classical and modern liberal ideologies

Timeline Question: What was happening between 1810 and 1830 in U. S. politics, science, culture, industry?
 

Tues. 30 Jan. American Indians and Educational Assimilation

Readings:

Perdue, “Southern Indians and the Cult of True Womanhood”
Slapin, Seale, and Gonzales, “How to Tell the Difference: A Checklist”
A children’s biography about an American Indian born before 1850 (see last week’s electronic handout)

Optional reading: Reese, “Authenticity and Sensitivity: Goals for Writing and Reviewing Books with Native American Themes”

Film: In the White Man’s Image

Written assignment due (see electronic handout on biographies from last week)
 

Thurs. 1 Feb. The Purposes of Public Schooling in the 19th Century

Readings:

Katz, Doucet, & Stern, “Early Industrial Capitalism”
 

Tues. 6 Feb. The Centralization and Professionalization of Schooling

Readings:

Mann, 12th Annual Report
Brownson, “Decentralization: Alternative to Bureaucracy”

Electronic Handout: Midterm essay topics
 

Thurs. 8 Feb. The Standardization and Feminization of Teaching

Readings:

Lerner, “The Lady and the Mill Girl”
Beecher, “The Education of Female Teachers”

Electronic Handout:Written assignment on an African-American children’s biography (see readings for next week)
 

Tues. 13 Feb. Reconstruction, Redemption, and Racism

Readings:

Washington, “The Atlanta Exposition Address”
Du Bois, “Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others”

Film excerpt: W.E.B. Du Bois
 

Thurs. 15 Feb. Vocational Education for African Americans

Readings:

Woodson, The Mis-education of the Negro (excerpt)
Read a children’s biography (or a chapter from a young adult biography) devoted to one of the following African Americans from the Civil War and/or Reconstruction period: Robert Smalls, Harriet Tubman, P. B. S. Pinchback, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, Booker T. Washington, George Washington Carver, Harriet Jacobs, Blanche K. Bruce, Charlotte Forten Grimké, Lewis Latimer, Biddy Mason, Nat Love, or Jan Matzelinger [both the Marriott and the local libraries have books or collections of young adult essays on these figures]

Written assignment due (see electronic handout on biographies from last week)
 

Tues. 20 Feb. Written assignment: Take-home midterm due at beginning of class

Lecture/film activity: Deconstructing film biography
 

Thurs. 22 Feb. Progressive Ideology and Schools as Sorting Institutions

Readings:

Violas, “Progressive Social Philosophy: Charles Horton Cooley and Edward Alsworth Ross”
 

Tues. 27 Feb Social Classification and the Role of Women

Readings:

Ehrenreich & English, “The Century of the Child”
Seller, “The Education of the Immigrant Woman, 1900-1935”
 

Thurs. 1 March The Hidden Curriculum

Reading:

O’Hanlon, “Interscholastic Athletics, 1900-1940: Shaping Citizens for Unequal Roles in the Modern Industrial State”
 

Tues. 6 March Gender Learning Differences, Pt. I

Readings:

Houston, “Gender Freedom and the Subtleties of Sexist Education”
Gilligan, “Teaching Shakespeare’s Sister”

Timeline Question: What were the demands of the women’s movement in the 1960s? in the 1970s? in the 1980s?
 

Thurs. 8 March Gender Learning Differences, Pt. II

Readings:

Bardige, “Things so Finely Human: Moral Sensibilities at Risk in Adolescence”

From 12 to 1 we will be attending the Angela Davis Women’s Week Keynote address in the Olpin Union Ballroom.
 

Tues. 13 & Thurs. 15 March No School Sessions: Spring break
 

Tues. 20 March Inclusion Revisited

Readings:

Rofes, “Opening Up the Classroom Closet”
Kissen, “Forbidden to Care”

Film: Out of the Past
 

Thurs. 22 March Deficit and Difference Theories: African American Vernacular, Pt. I
Guest Lecturer: Troy Richardson

Readings:

Labov, “Academic Ignorance and Black Intelligence”
 

Tues. 27 March Deficit and Difference Theories: African American Vernacular, Pt. II

Reading:

Swisher & Deyhle, “The Styles of Learning are Different but the Teaching is Just the Same”
Delpit, “The Silenced Dialogue”

Film: Oprah Winfrey Show: Black English Vernacular vs. Standard English
 

Thurs. 29 March Cultural Learning Differences

Readings:

Padden & Humphries, “Living in Others’ World”
Morrison, “Everyone Here Spoke Sign Language”
 

Tues. 3 April Resistance and Accommodation

Readings:

Anyon, “Intersections of Gender and Class”
Ogbu, “Societal Forces as a Context for Ghetto Children’s School Failure”
 

Thurs. 5 April Three Approaches to Inclusion:  Social Conscience, Melting Pot, and Culturally Conscious Books

Readings:

Kohl, “The Story of Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott Revisited”
Manzo, “Flap over ‘Nappy Hair’ Book Leads to Teacher’s Transfer”

Optional reading: Lester, “Nappy Edges and Goldy Locks: African-American Daughters and the Politics of Hair”

Electronic Handout: African-American Biography Project

(Bibliography of African-American Histories, Biographies, and Fictionalized Biographies for Children and Young Adults can be found on Audrey’s website or on reserve at the library)

Timeline Question: Which social movements flourished in the 1960s?
 

Tues. 10 April Deconstructing Biographies, Pt. I

Reading:

Thompson, “Harriet Tubman in Pictures: Cultural Consciousness and the Art of Picture Books”
Reading for small-group activity on African-American biography (see electronic handout)

Thurs. 12 April Deconstructing Biographies, Pt. II

Reading:

Sarris, “Keeping Slug Woman Alive: The Challenge of Reading in a Reservation Classroom”

Small-Group Project: Readings in African-American Children’s/Young Adult Biography (includes individual written assignment)
 

Tues. 17 April Transmittal Pedagogies

Readings:

McNeil, “Defensive Teaching and Classroom Control”
Anyon, “Social Class and School Knowledge”

Electronic Handout: Final paper topics
 

Thurs. 19 April Nurturance Pedagogies

Reading:

Wood, Schools that Work, xiii-119
 

Tues. 24 April Craft Pedagogies, Pt. I

Readings:

Wigginton, “Some Overarching Truths”
Wood, Schools that Work, 120-164
 

Thurs. 26 April Craft Pedagogies, Pt. II

Reading:

Wood, Schools that Work, 165-266

Film: Mahalia Jackson Elementary School/2nd Grade, Harlem, New York
 

Tues. 1 May Final papers due: 6:00 p.m. in our offices or in our 307 MBH mailboxes; there is no class meeting (you may turn in your paper earlier, if you prefer)