Educational Reform as a Blast From The Past: The Ideas of Horace Mann Compared to Today’s Educational System

Educational Reform as a Blast from the Past:

The Ideas of Horace Mann Compared to Today’s Educational System

            Society today exists as a mass of criticism and calls for reform as people feel they can better run “things,” whether it be government, military, businesses, or education. In a time where educational reforms are called for an a regular basis, the obstacle arises of how, exactly, to remedy the problem and award every child in America a diploma, or at least arrive at some level of achievement. In the late 19th century, Horace Mann published his work The Goals of Education in which he details his plans for the perfect, or nearly so, educational system. In comparing it to the American system of today’s society, not only does one discover huge differences but similarities between the two.

            In Mann’s ideal school a strict system is in place for students to be constantly at work. He even describes this system as being “conducted with such military formality” so that pupils are forced to cooperate in this rotating system. If this system were to cease, even for a moment, Mann warns, “the school will temporarily converted into a promiscuous rabble,” in which students would not only lose focus but lose interest in whatever was being said. Meanwhile, in today’s society it seems the problem is bringing the students out of the perpetual “promiscuous rabble” that they seem caught in. A modern idea as come about in which students need breaks, hence longer breaks between classes, “rest periods” between major testing and other important events. The idea exists that students need time to unwind and relax from the harsh lives they lead. While in very rare and minimal cases this may be true, these breaks become disruptive to learning and the educational environment as students become harder to control in the classroom. Rather than silencing themselves and listening to the instructor, they chat noisily about the latest gossip or sleep in the classroom. Though some attempts have been made to “work bell to bell,” due to both the teachers’ tiresome task to occupy a class for that long and students’ inability to listen for such a long period of time, these attempts have often failed.