Most Likely To Succeed
What
This week we discussed the movie/documentary “Most Likely To Succeed”. The movie touches on the historical context of our education system and offers a new and different framework for modern education and how it could be re-designed to better fit our current modern culture.
It is hard to not go down the rabbit hole with this video. It scratches the surface on some key historical elements that have shaped our current situation. This reflection is the beginning of a much larger possible discussion that I am admittedly not prepared for……..In terms of reconciliation, sexism and racism we talk a lot about “un learning” or “re learning” in order to move forward. So, now, in terms of our education system, and with some understanding of how we got here, how do we “un learn” within our system to help us, and our students, break free and move forward.
For anyone who hasn’t seen the movie “most likely to succeed” here is the “thesis” of the movie.
So……How did we get here? What is the true history of our education system and the “philanthropists” behind its design.?
What is our role now as educators?
Our Education System:
Who Were The Big Players
Well, there were some big players, very big, Elon Musk big, and under the guise of philanthropy the fathers of the Industrial Revolution set out to make a new education system.
John Davison Rockefeller Sr. (July 8, 1839 – May 23, 1937) was an American businessman and philanthropist. He was one of the wealthiest Americans of all time[1][2][3][4] and one of the richest people in modern history.[5][6][3] Rockefeller was born into a large family in Upstate New York who moved several times before eventually settling in Cleveland, Ohio. He became an assistant bookkeeper at age 16 and went into several business partnerships beginning at age 20, concentrating his business on oil refining. Rockefeller founded the Standard Oil Company in 1870. He ran it until 1897 and remained its largest shareholder. In his retirement, he focused his energy and wealth on philanthropy, especially regarding education, medicine, higher education, and modernizing the Southern United States. (wikipedia)
John Pierpont Morgan Sr. (April 17, 1837 – March 31, 1913)[1] was an American financier and investment banker who dominated corporate finance on Wall Streetthroughout the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. As the head of the banking firm that ultimately became known as J.P. Morgan and Co., he was a driving force behind the wave of industrial consolidations in the United States at the turn of the twentieth century. (wikipedia)
Henry Ford (July 30, 1863 – April 7, 1947) was an American industrialist and business magnate. As the founder of the Ford Motor Company, he is credited as a pioneer in making automobiles affordable for middle-class Americans through the system that came to be known as Fordism.[1][2] In 1911, he was awarded a patent for the transmission mechanism that would be used in the Ford Model T and other automobiles. (wikipedia)
Andrew Carnegie (English: /kɑːrˈnɛɡi/ kar-NEG-ee, Scots: [kɑrˈnɛːɡi];[2][3][note 1] November 25, 1835 – August 11, 1919) was a Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist. Carnegie led the expansion of the American steel industry in the late-19th century and became one of the richest Americans in history.[5] (wikipedia)
Horace Mann (May 4, 1796 – August 2, 1859) was an American educational reformer, slavery abolitionist and Whig politician known for his commitment to promoting public education, he is thus also known as The Father of American Education.[1] In 1848, after public service as Secretary of the Massachusetts State Board of Education, Mann was elected to the United States House of Representatives (1848–1853). From September 1852 to his death in 1859, he served as President of Antioch College. (wikipedia)
Arguing that universal public education was the best way to turn unruly American children into disciplined, judicious republican citizens, Mann won widespread approval from modernizers, especially in the Whig Party, for building public schools. Most U.S. states adopted a version of the system Mann established in Massachusetts, especially the program for normal schools to train professional teachers.[2] Educational historians credit Horace Mann, along with Henry Barnard and Catharine Beecher, as one of the major advocates of the Common School Movement.[3] (wikipedia)
All of these men, and more, contributed to our current education system.
Now What
So the challenge as I see it, to us as school teachers, is how do we put the student first in a system that is designed top down?
Can you imagine if the founding fathers of “education” built Hi Tech High as their first school. If they invested in the student in a different way? How different would our culture be 100 years later? How different would our brains, and our society, be if we were raised in families that generation after generation were trained to think, and learn for the sake of learning, to problem solve, to focus and to be critical thinkers, to question authority?
I do not pretend to know much about this topic, it is far too large and confusing and there are many opinions, but it is interesting and it is hard to ignore the fact that our education system was heavily influenced by very rich, very old, very powerful white men. Some pages talk about these men as fore fathers, as philanthropists but what was their agenda? What agenda to modern philanthropists have under the guise of helping? What truths will be realized 100 years from now?
Anyways, some thoughts to ponder…..
