The Way We Learn · Episode 1 of 8 · 21 min
The Factory of the Three Rs
The rows of bolted desks, rote drills and Three Rs of the American classroom were engineered over about a century. The design drew on a Prussian template, Horace Mann's European tour, the first age-graded school, and administrators who called schools factories. A Soviet satellite in 1957 first made the system's makers admit it might need to change.
Who's who
- Horace Mann+4 more episodesFirst Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education; championed the common school
- John D. PhilbrickBoston educator who led the Quincy Grammar School, the landmark age-graded school
- Charles W. Eliot+2 more episodesHarvard president who chaired the Committee of Ten
- Ellwood P. CubberleyStanford dean who wrote the schools-as-factories passage in 1916
- Edward L. ThorndikeColumbia psychologist and architect of educational measurement and testing
- John Dewey+1 more episodePhilosopher and progressive reformer who argued school should be experience and inquiry
Where it happens
- PrussiaModel of compulsory, state-funded, age-organized schooling
- Quincy Grammar School, BostonOpened 1848 as the landmark age-graded school
- Massachusetts+3 more episodesMann launched the common-school movement as state board secretary
Timeline
- 1837Horace Mann becomes Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education
- 1843Mann tours European schools, Prussia foremost, and later praises Prussian methods in a report
- 1848Quincy Grammar School opens in Boston with separate same-age classrooms
- 1892-1893Committee of Ten standardizes high-school subjects and the 8+4 structure
- 1916Cubberley's Public School Administration frames schools as factories shaping raw products
- September 2, 1958Congress passes the National Defense Education Act after Sputnik's 1957 launch
Still debated
Historians dispute how literally Mann and Cubberley meant their words, and whether Prussian influence is overstated as a plot to produce obedient workers. Dewey's real influence versus Thorndike's, and the claim to "first graded school," are also argued.
Connected episodes in other series
The PaycheckWho Taught the Teachers · Episode 9Also features Horace Mann, John Dewey
When U.S. Public Schools Were Quietly Protestant — and Catholics Fought BackA Wall of Separation · Episode 3Also features Horace Mann
How Eugenics Was Born: Galton, Darwin & the Dream of Breeding Better HumansEugenics: The Well-Born Science · Episode 2Also features Charles W. Eliot