first post - what would Andrew Carnegie say?

Well, I missed writing on my marygoestoindia blog, so I thought I would start a new, more general one. I am a glasses fan. Being myopic myself, I depend on glasses and contact lenses all the time. I think glasses frames are really fun. In fact, when I was a kid I wanted to be the person at the eye doctor's office who helped people pick out frames. I also like the glasses metaphor... hence my blog title. For now. The blog will probably be a lot about education, but also about current events in the world and in my life.

I'm taking a couple of classes on Tuesday nights towards my EdD. This is proving to be a lot of work, but very interesting. Tomorrow night we are doing a role playing exercise where I am assigned to be a White philanthropist (ie Andrew Carnegie). I've been trying to read up on Andrew Carnegie and develop a position. We're supposed to respond to a "school board president" who proposes the following changes to a school. I'll respond as if I'm Andrew Carnegie...

• I propose segregating students into four tracks, each with a different curriculum: Track #1: Feeble-minded; Track #2: Dull; Track #3: Average; and Track #4: Superior. This will allow us to adapt a given course of study to students’ individual needs. As suggested by one California school administrator, the lower tracks will naturally train students for “definite hand occupations as opposed to brain occupations.”

• There will be no guess work placing students in different tracks. They will be placed scientifically, on the basis of test scores. I want Central City high schools to use the Mental Ability Test developed by the top psychologists at Stanford University. I’ve handed out a sample of questions from that test, which have helped psychologists differentiate dull students from average ones. A system of guidance counseling will assist students in the interpretation of test scores, and to help them plan a personally rewarding and socially useful occupation.

• Lots of the people entering Central City schools are immigrants and ex-slaves from the South. These newcomers are worrisome for a number of reasons. Instead of identifying themselves as Americans, they see themselves as Hungarians or Italians. Some of them identify with the working class against the owners, or even with radicals, people who want to overthrow our form of government. Some of these newcomers are backward and need to be helped to learn good work habits in order to further develop themselves and their race. In order to ensure that all children become loyal Americans and hard workers, I’m proposing the following: To encourage students to learn about democracy, all schools will have student councils, and everyday all students will pledge allegiance to the flag. In all classes we will teach that our system of government is the best in the world. Through clubs, athletics, school assemblies, school newspapers, and the like, we will encourage students to identify not with their social class, racial group, or radical groups, but with their school. We will teach them to be patriotic to their country and patriotic to their school.

• Finally, in order to maintain the most efficient school in which teaching and learning proceed like clockwork, we will hire policemen to patrol the schools and to keep order so teachers can turn their full attention to teaching.

Interesting activity. I still have to do all the reading in order to be able to answer it. But so far I know that Andrew Carnegie supported the Tuskegee-Hamilton Model - which were vocational schools for African Americans. He also supported the idea that African Americans should not vote or run for office, at least during the 1920's. Very racist and alarming. He also had a "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" kind of mentality.

I didn't know previously that he funded our public library system as well.