Thank you for your attention!
Why did Counts believe that education should lead society?
"Industrialism, having swept away the material foundations of the ancestral order, is now fast destroing the entire system of morals and beliefs which taht order nourished and supported. The American people are consequently between two civilizations and are the inevitable victims of doubt and uncertainty." -Counts on industrialization 1930
In particular, the dictatorships of the USSR, Japan, and Nazi Germany scared Counts because each had incredibly high literacy rates. Thus for Counts, education alone was not enough to stem suffering. Education, according to Counts, must encourage “knowledge, understanding, and critical thought on the part of all of our people…necessary to the preservation of our basic values as we are confronted with the task of making the great decisions of domestic and foreign policy from which we cannot escape.” -Counts, 1954
What is the social recontructionist movement?
It is the theory that society can be recontructed through the complete control of education.
What political theories does this sound similar to?
What relationship could exist between this view of education and society?
Works Cited
George Counts Dares the Schools to Build a New Social Order
Counts, G. S. (1954). Freedom of Teaching. Vital Speeches Of The Day, 20(21), 659.
Counts, G. S. (1949). The End of a Myth About Education and Democracy. Vital Speeches Of The Day, 15(9), 266.
Crutchfield, C. (n.d.). George Sylvester Counts. George Sylvester Counts. Retrieved May 15, 2012, from www2.selu.edu/Academics/Faculty/nadams/educ692/Counts.html.
Keenan, C. J. (2002). The Education of an Intellectual. Kansas History, 25(4), 258.
Kridel, C. A., & Bullough, R. V. (2007). Stories of the eight-year study: reexamining secondary education in America. Albany: State University of New York Press. 170.
George Counts and the Social Reconstructionist Educational Movement
In his 1931 treatise on the role of education in society, Dare the School Build a New Social Order, he challenged that teachers “cannot evade the responsibility of participating actively in the task of reconstituting the democratic tradition and of thus working positively toward a new society.”
Thus, teachers must LEAD society instead of FOLLOWING.
What issues could arise as a result of this philosophy?
How and why did this philosophy develop?
Think about the tumult of the first half of the 20th century.
What major events were happening that had profound affects on society?
- World War I- 15 million dead.
- The Great Depression- Unemployment reaches 25% in the U.S.
- The rise of dictatorships in the 1930s in Central Europe, Japan, and The Soviet Union.
- World War II- 60 million dead.
- Then just a few small trends such as:
- The growth of Communism around the globe after World War II and growing fears in the U.S.
- And the change of the U.S. from an agricultural and rural based society to an industrial and urban one.