Horace Mann's Expectations For Education In The United States

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Historians claim that Horace Mann’s expectation for education in the United States was to create a universal standard for state education because states were characterized by their regional and communal differences. I would like to add that differences do not go very far in having a United States education system. Mann began his efforts for developing a universal standard to influence and educate the public by publishing annual reports and founded the Common School Journal to report on Massachusetts' schools. There are six basic tenants of Mann’s philosophy of education in the formation of the common school. First, Mann expected the common school to be extended to “everyone” despite their financial status. Second, Mann wanted “everyone” to be educated at schools. Mann expectation of “everyone” did not include the African Americans or the Native Americans. It was also Mann’s expectation that these schools were run long enough to allow students to learn and develop relationships. Mann’s felt that because women were better nurturers, they made better teachers and that women were to be trained as teachers. …show more content…

Therefore, it is not likely they shared or continue to share his expectation for public schools. Based on what public schools are today, it is my opinion that, there has been challenges to fully implementing Mann’s philosophy through the United States. The United States being a democracy, allows for free thinkers and as such, no philosophy of education, even the most prolific or renown individuals of their era have not had their expectations for public schools shared by all the people. This is due to the diversity in faith of Americans their individual belief of who should educated their children and how should their children be

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