Compare And Contrast Traditional Education And Public Education

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America’s public education is in the process of being changed because groups wish to insert their lifestyle, their wants, and their ideas into the public education system. Public education was created as a systematic method of teaching and training to acquire knowledge with the ability to use knowledge wisely. To quote Benjamin Franklin from Education and Public Health: Natural Partners in Learning for Life; “Nothing can more effectively contribute to the cultivation and improvement of a country with wisdom, riches, strength, virtue, welfare, and happiness of a people than a proper education of the youth.” (qtd. in Smith 1) Education is not just getting prepared for life; it is life itself. John Dewey said that “intelligence plus character …show more content…

Which was free the pupil from regulations and authority in the schoolroom. By doing this the dread of failure was eliminated; the curriculum was adjusted to match the mental thought power of the average student. Classes were grouped by age, social status rather than by mental preparedness and also allowing classes to advance at their own rate of progress. Traditional education states school is a preparation for life, whereas Progressive Education says school is only a part of life. Teachers have different roles to perform in each type of educating. Progressive Education declares teachers are leaders that guide the students to do their own thinking of a situation through play and social interaction. Traditional Education implies teaching consists of lectures, worksheets to be informative with strict discipline. Students are required to sit and listen while the teacher discusses the text. Progressive Education is driven by inquiry generated by the student and assessed mainly by benchmarks. The contrast is the traditional way that is straight-forward; based solely on correct answers and is grade oriented. The results of both types of education produced controversial dispute. Both approaches produced some failure. However, new and better ideas were tried. The country has gone mainly with Progressive Education with the idea of producing free and original productive citizens contributing to the good of the country. This thought pattern removed all restrictions from the lives of public school students. It gave the teachers the responsibility of developing the curriculum. Teachers are split on which way of educating is the best. According to William Owen, a lifetime teacher, “Under Progressive Education, authoritative sources and control were lost.” He also said “Original thinking came first over textbooks which became second and discipline became a problem.”(14-15, 53-55)

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