Patricia Albjerg Graham

This book traces the history of what is taught in schools and why, and how schools shaped themselves around what the public wanted for their children. Some interesting things to me were how cyclical some of these trends seem to be. For example, in the 1920's there was an idea that all children should have a general base of knowledge. Because this was the age of immigration, that base was a knowledge of English and American values of hard work, etc. Sounds pretty similar to the No Child Left Behind standards that now push for every child to have a basic knowledge base.… (more)