Chapter 2 of Salman Khan’s “The Broken Model” explains how the idea of the modern school came to be. It begins with Khan posing the question of why we do the things that we do, such as eat three meals a day. It then transitions into the idea of why schools were created they way they were. The United States took their education model from Prussia in the mid 1800s. It was designed to create a large workforce, with some students excelling and becoming highly intelligent leaders and innovators while most students became middle class factory workers or worked other menial jobs. Schools were also used to “Americanize” immigrant children. Schools taught all students the same subjects and at the same levels, giving all students a baseline level of knowledge. Early schools in America wanted to remove creativity from students and give them structure and discipline, something that we can still see remnants of in our schools today. The chapter also discusses testing, and why it should not be used to determine a students intelligence. It argues testing can be good to see where students are at a certain point in time, but they cannot be determining factors in how “smart” a child really is.
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I like how you pointed out that schools were meant to Americanize immigrants. Looking at history, this is so true and so important. Instead of celebrating other cultures, the United States just tried to focus on American cultures only. It is so important that we stop focusing on only Americanizing immigrants and instead start celebrating their cultures as well in the classroom!
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