foundtec

THE SECOND WAVE: Industrial Revolution

2007-08-20T04:36:00.000-07:00

Major Characteristics of the Industrial Age

1. Changing social patterns: increase in population and urbanization. Industrialization called for the concentration of a work force; and the factories themselves were often located where coal or some other essential material was available;the necessity for marketing finished goods created great urban centers where there was access to water or railways; there was a natural tendency for established political centers such as London, Paris, and Berlin to become centers for the banking and marketing functions of the new industrialism

2. The coming of electricity and the steel industry began to grow by leaps and bounds

3. Explosion of technological knowledge and a consequent change in production and labor; application of power-driven machinery to manufacturing

4. Europe moved from a primarily agricultural and rural economy to a capitalist and urban economy, from a household, family-based economy to an industry-based economy

The Prevailing Mindset-Worldview of the Industrial Age

The consequences of the Industrial Revolution hanged irrevocably human labor, consumption, family structure, social structure, and even the very soul and thoughts of the individual. What drove the industrial revolution were profound social changes, as Europe moved from a primarily agricultural and rural economy to a capitalist and urban economy, from a household, family-based economy to an industry-based economy. This required rethinking social obligations and the structure of the family; the abandonment of the family economy, for instance, was the most dramatic change to the structure of the family that Europe had ever undergone—and we're still struggling with these changes.

The bad living conditions in the towns can be traced to lack of good brick, the absence of building codes, and the lack of machinery for public sanitation. But, it must be added, they were also due to the factory owners' tendency to regard laborers as commodities and not as a group of human beings.

In addition to a new factory-owning bourgeoisie, the Industrial Revolution created a new working class. The new class of industrial workers included all the men, women, and children laboring in the textile mills, pottery works, and mines. Often skilled artisans found themselves degraded to routine process laborers as machines began to mass produce the products formerly made by hand. Generally speaking, wages were low, hours were long, and working conditions unpleasant and dangerous.

The European economy, though, had become a global economy. European trade and manufacture stretched to every continent except Antarctica; this vast increase in the market for European goods in part drove the conversion to an industrial, manufacturing economy. Europeans exerted over the global economy. World trade was about making Europeans wealthy, not about enriching the colonies or non-Western countries. The diminished role of the aristocracy in English government and society, however, allowed for a steady shift in values; the values of the mercantile and capitalist classes slowly became the norm—the most important of these values was the pursuit of wealth.

Major Artifacts of this Period

The first major technological innovation was the cotton gin. Cotton is a plant grown in America and India; it was a small industry through much of the seventeenth century but exploded in the middle of the eighteenth.
The first innovation in cotton manufacture was the fly-shuttle, which greatly speeded up the process of weaving cotton threads into cloth.
James Hargreaves, a carpenter, in what is usually pointed to as one of the typological major technological innovations of the Industrial Age: the "spinning jenny." Patented in 1767, the spinning jenny was a series of simple machines rather than a single machine, and it spun sixteen threads of cotton simultaneously.
In 1793, the American, Eli Whitney, invented the cotton gin which mechanized the separating of seeds from cotton fibers.
In 1712, Thomas Newcomen built a simple steam engine that pumped water from the mines.
James Watt added a separate cooling chamber to the machine in 1763; this cooling chamber condensed the steam so the cylinder itself didn't have to be cooled. Patented in 1769, Watt's steam engine had the efficiency to be applied to all kinds of industries.
In 1831, Michael Faraday demonstrated how electricity could be mechanically produced.
The coming of the railroads and advances in transportation like the invention of the internal combustion engine greatly facilitated the industrialization of Europe.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century the steam-driven ship appeared on the horizon. The tremendous growth of steamship traffic in the last half of the nineteenth century was accompanied by significant improvements in hull design, engines, and fuel. By 1839 the propeller had replaced the paddle wheel, steel replaced iron in the hull, and multi-cylinder engines became available. In 1920, the diesel engine, much smaller and lighter than a steam unit of equal power, marked another major changeover.
Alexander Graham Bell in 1876 transmitted the human voice over a wire, although it was several decades before the telephone became popular. At the end of the century the wireless telegraph became a standard safety device on oceangoing vessels. Radio did not come until 1920.
The Industrial Revolution brought with it an increase in population and urbanization, as well as new social classes.

On EDUCATION: Agricultural Age vs. Industrial Age

Industrial Age Education

Small student/teacher ratio
Intensive student/teacher contact
Standardized

content
delivery
schedule

Agricultural Concepts

Industrial Concepts

9 month school year
(kids had to help farm during the summer)

7 hour school day
(kids had to be home before dark to do their farm chores)

50-minute class periods
(modeled after a moving assembly line)

Grade levels
(modeled after stations on an assembly line)

Industrial Age Classroom vs. Our Classrooms Today

Another worldview took over the curriculum during the Industrial Revolution: Education for the masses. Universal schooling was mandated and schools were seen as meeting the needs of the children of ordinary citizens. The new generation of schools for the masses was housed on the buildings designed on the logic of industrialization: of the modern factory , in the way they were organized and run, and in the way they treated their staffs and students.

Characteristics of Industrial Revolution classrooms which are still seen in our classrooms today:

1. Standardization: Heavily content-based syllabus

2. Specialization: batches broken up into subjects, year groups, classes and sequencing

3. Synchronization: promotion was a year-by-year progression through primary, secondary and tertiary

4. Concentration: School/classrooms

5. Maximization: Efficiency and economies of scale

6. Centralization: standardized curriculum, centrally prescribed and policed

Highlights

2007-08-19T21:40:00.001-07:00

Envisaging Education in the 21^st Century

THE MEDIEVAL IMAGINARY

Learning is the act of systematically acquiring authorized knowledge.

The two key authorities in European society for over 100 years were the government (temporal power) and the church (spiritual power). The patterns of authority of knowledge and the class structure inherent in the medieval imaginary still exist in school today. It explains the existence of the rich private schools and universities. The school teachers were the working elite, the intellectuals and the professionals. Curriculum was appropriately intellectual, straight jacketing from subject specializations. Schools modeled on the archetypal monastic community, surrounded by large estates and playing fields.

THE INDUSTRIAL IMAGINARY (19^TH CENTURY)

Learning constructs knowledge by fabricating simple components together into complex and finished pieces, and which likens schooling to a mass production exercise.

The Industrial Revolution in the 19^th century social imaginary grew alongside the medieval imaginary. This is a new hierarchy which came to power based on wealth. Education for the masses were patterned on the logic and linearity of the industrial process: a standardized and centrally prescribed and policed curriculum; a standardized heavily content based syllabus; students were grouped into classes and year levels; content were broken down into subjects with proper sequencing; synchronized promotion or year-by-year progression; students were concentrated inside the classrooms; the 19^th century imaginary defined the role of the teachers in a manner directly parallel with the pattern of the factory workers.

The 21^st CENTURY SCHOOL

Schools as interactive network of learners.

The advance economies of the 21^st century are overwhelmingly dependent on information and telecommunication. They are international in orientation, borderless and participants in the world trade organization. Knowledge economy is unimpeded by distance, time zones or geographical boundaries. When learning and knowledge production are enhanced by technology, it inevitably involves a lot of spontaneous search, and is partly serendipitous. In a networked learning, emphasis is placed on learning how as much as learning what. Teachers will metamorphose into educators, and more like mentors to a group of learners directing them and keeping track of their progress. This kind of multilayered learning is called a thinking curriculum and networks creatively a number of disciples and areas of knowledge.

Comment on Badeth's Foundation

2007-07-16T09:11:00.000-07:00

I have just finished posting (I didn't know that I have to click 'publish' last friday)when I opened Badeth's Foundation. I was awed by the technology---indeed, it was a state-of-the art...I was mesmerized.
I hope I could learn the craft.

I agree with Badeth's notion of being a teacher. As teachers, we don't just bring in the "goods"... we touch 'peoples' lives...not just our students' lives but the lives of their children and their children's children. The extent of what we can do is immeasurable. We inspire or destroy people. We can make or break them. We help shape them--socially, intellectually and morally.

(I was looking for the other half of my comment...It must have been lost somewhere! Perhaps, I should have saved it first. There I go again...could I ever learn this technology??? I guess I have to retype it again.)

I'm one with Badeth in saying that we are teachers as well as students. We learn while we teach. The more we teach, the more we learn. As we guide our students, we are guided by them. We become better educators because of our students.

..........and YES, we must always remember to treasure every encounter with our students, whose lives we have touched and influenced, in one way or another, and who have been part of our meaningful existence.

Insight

2007-07-14T05:36:00.000-07:00

Insight

It was quite (un)fortunate that Socrates chose to drink the hemlock rather than abandoning his philosophy. Socrates’ most important philosophy: “ The necessity of doing what one thinks is right even in the face of universal opposition; and the need to pursue knowledge even when opposed”, is quite disturbing. He has shown that he can stand by what he believes in, no matter what it takes.

This is one virtue, that I think, is fast becoming unpopular these days. Now, it all depends on “the conditions” set. Consistency is a forgotten word. Principle has become a fashion. Now, it’s the end that justifies the means.

But on what do we believe in? Do we really believe in something that is good and true? Socrates (Socratic Method) has thought us, therefore, to look deeper within ourselves, with the spark of Divine reason within us, and contemplate…..it is only understanding that comes from within that leads to true insights.

Implication on Education. As teachers, it is important that we should know our subject matter. The questioning of the whys I believe is a test whether or not the topics have been fully understood. By Socratic method, there is a joint exploration of the subject matter, by the teacher and the learner. It emphasizes collective activity. As Plato said,“Knowledge will not come from teaching but from questioning”.

Application to Current Practice in Education

2007-07-14T05:29:00.000-07:00

How the Principles are Applied in Current Practice

Idealism

Idealism is a philosophy that was based on the philosophies of Socrates and Plato. It is a philosophy that is seen as a world within a person’s mind. Truth is to be found on the consistency of ideas. Goodness is an ideal state---something to be strived for. Idealism is practiced in areas teaching subjects of the mind like literature, philosophy, religion, and other social sciences. Teachers, for the idealist, are models of moral and intellectual excellence. They exercise great creative skill in providing opportunities for the learner’s mind to discover, analyze, unify, synthesize and create application of knowledge. They provide opportunities to think and apply criteria of moral evaluation to concrete evaluation, encourage acquisition of facts and skills in stimulating reflective thinking and moral choices.

For idealists, like Socrates and Plato, the school’s function is to sharpen intellectual processes, to present the wisdom of the ages and to present models of behavior that are exemplary. Curriculum following their principles consists of subject matter content that provide for culture which are essential for mental and moral development.

Their philosophies’ relevance to modern day informal educators can be seen in the way educators care for the well-being of those they have a responsibility to teach. The use of the “questioning” or Socratic teaching method also reveals their influence on current education practice. The differing of educational requirements with different emphases at different ages also manifests their philosophy that learning is happening through life.

Realism

For the realist, like Aristotle, the world is as it is, and the job of the schools would be to teach the students about the world. Goodness for the realist would be found in the Laws of Nature and the order of the physical world. As such natural laws determine and regulate existence. A school dominated by subjects of the here and now world, such as math and science follow Aristotle’s principles. Students are taught the factual nature of the natural world. The teacher imparts knowledge of this reality to students or display such reality for observation and study in experimentations. Classrooms would be highly ordered and disciplined like nature. There is linearity in the way everything is organized. Change in the school is perceived as a natural evolution toward perfection of order.

Curriculum is subject-centered, organized from simple to complex. The most important area of learning is math and science, that stresses scientific objectivity and critical analysis which enables mankind to adjust to the natural world. Classes are classified according to levels. Syllabi are standardized and the subjects follow sequencing.

The method of teaching for a realist is authoritative. The teacher is objective and impersonal and relates lesson to pupils experiences to make subject matter concrete. The methods of teaching require recall, explanation, comparison, interpretation and inference. Evaluation is an essential aspect.

The elements of his thoughts that continue to play a key part in theorizing current educational practice are as follows:

a) Our thinking and practice as educators must be infused with a clear philosophy of life. We should act to work for that which is good or right, rather than which is merely correct.

b) He placed a strong emphasis on all round and “balanced” development. Play, physical training, music, debate and the study of science and philosophy were to all have their place in the forming of body, mind and soul.

c) He looked to education through both reason and habit. Learning by doing is complemented by reason which involves teaching the causes of things.

d) Categorizing disciplines into the technical, theoretical and practical.

Great Greek Masters of Education

2007-07-13T08:39:00.000-07:00

Education 531 FOUNDATIONS of INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN

Summary of the Fundamental Principles on Education

Socrates

...........wisest is she who knows what she doesn’t know.........

Socrates’ main mission is to educate the citizens of Athens. Basically, his philosophical inquiries consist of questioning and cross examining the people on the positions they held on certain ideas. He believes that will not come from teaching but on questioning. He believes in trying to figure out things together with them.

Socrates believes in the necessity of doing what one thinks is right even in the face of universal opposition, and the need to pursue knowledge even when opposed. For him, knowledge was something to be gained by living and interacting with the world. He felt that it was necessary to establish a solid foundation for our knowledge. He believed that this foundation lay in man’s reason. With his unshakable faith in human reason, he was decidedly a rationalist.

He believed in the existence of eternal and absolute rules for what was right or wrong. The ability to distinguish between right and wrong, lies in people’s reason and not in society. By using our common sense, we can arrive at these immutable norms, since human reason is eternal and immutable. Only understanding that comes from within can lead to true insights. Right insights lead to right action.

Plato

…………a longing to return to the realm of the soul………..

Plato believed that education is a “moral enterprise” and the duty of the educators is to search for truth and virtue and guide those they have a responsibility to teach. He conceptualized the differing educational requirements associated with various life stages. He saw education as a lifelong pocess and the learning society, the polis, can exist as a rational form if its members are trained and continue to grow.

We see in his work the classical Greek concern for the body and mind. For him, exercise and discipline, story telling and games are important. He theorizes that the highest degree of reality was that which we think with our reason. He thought that all things we see in the natural world was purely reflections of things that existed in the highest reality of the world of ideas in the human soul. According to him, there is noting in the natural world that has not first existed in world of ideas.

The best known aspect of Plato’s educational thought is his portrayal of the ideal society in The Republic. He set out in some detail, the shape and curriculum of an education system. He believed and demonstrated that educators must have a deep care for the well being and future of those they work with. He believed in the Socratic teaching method of questioning where the power of dialogue is seen, the joint exploration of the subject matter.

Aristotle

.............a meticulous organizer who wanted to clarify concepts.........

He was Europe’s first great biologist. He was the great organizer who founded and classified the various sciences. He founded the Science of Logic.

He believed that the highest degree of reality was that which we perceive by our senses. He thought that the things that are in the human soul were purely reflections of natural objects---nature being the real world. He pointed out that nothing exist in consciousness that has not yet been experienced by the senses. All our thoughts and our ideas have come into our consciousness through what we have heard and seen. We have the innate faculty of organizing all sensory impressions into categories and classes. It is precisely reason that is man’s distinguishing characteristic. But the reason is completely empty until we have sensed something.

For him, reality consisted of various separate things that constitutes a form of unity and substance. The substance is what things are made of while the form is each thing’s specific characteristics. He believed that every change in nature is a transformation of substance from the potential to the actual---that everything in nature has the potentiality of realizing, or achieving a specific form. The form of a thing says something about its limitation as well as its potentiality.

Aristotle had a remarkable view of causality in nature. He held that there were four types of causes in nature: material cause, efficient cause, formal cause and final cause. According to him, everything in the world can be divided into categories or criterion which is the object’s characteristics or more specifically what it can do or what it does. At the top of this scale is man who has specific characteristics peculiar to humans and that is the ability to think rationally. Man has a spark of Divine reason---there must be a God who started all movement in the natural world. God must be at the very top of nature’s scale.

He believed that education was central—that the fulfilled person was an educated person. According to him, our thinking and practice as educators must be inferred with a clear philosophy of life. He believed that learning happens through life---with different emphasis at different stages. He looked to education through both reason and habit. He categorized discipline into theoretical, practical and technical.