“Common school reformers emphasized political education as a means of making individuals worthy of democratic rights and as necessity of education for equal sharing of power and the protection of rights.” (Spring 91) This passage opened my eyes to a period of history that had been previously idealized. My group discussed the political, social, and overall attitudes of both the Horace Mann and workingmen. To my disbelief, the Horace Mann did not have any misgiving about accepting the idea that workingmen did not deserve an education. The Horace Mann knew the key to success, power, and control was through education. “Knowledge is power”. (Spring, 90)
Workingmen wanted the same rights as other men. Not having the ability to vote takes away a person’s freedom, livelihood, and voice. As our discussion continued, I correlated this event with the Holocaust. Individuals of Jewish decent were not allowed to own property, or vote. They were forced to close their stores due to lack of sales. People boycotted Jewish shops because the government told them that Jews were unclean and unworthy of success. This is the same mentality of Horace Mann.
I would also like to address part of the quotation in the first paragraph of this paper” political education as a means of making individuals worthy of democratic rights.” This statement implies that only educated people are worthy of democratic rights. Does that mean that illegal immigrants are not worthy of democratic rights? Every individual should be given equal opportunity regardless of their religion, race, sex, heritage, etc. Harriet Tubman led hundreds of slaves to freedom. How would our world be different if Harriet Tubman had received a proper education? Every child has the right to first class education!
Gina, I was in your group and you know I totally agree with your comments. Every child, no matter what race, gender, SES, or whatever other classification you can think of should prevent them from a high quality educational experience. As we are reminded through reading Spring and in present day, that is not always the case. So how do we make it equal and fair? How do we ensure that a kid in Cleveland public schools is getting the same opportunity as a kid in Rocky River?
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