Originally Posted by Richard (Post 462706)

Originally Posted by Richard (Post 462706)

The model, as instituted in Prussia, was a tax-funded and generally compulsory primary education, comprising an eight-year course of primary education. It provided not only the skills needed in an early industrialized world (reading, writing and arithmetic), but also a strict education in ethics (IAW the state sponsored religion), duty, discipline and obedience. Affluent children often went on to attend preparatory private schools for an additional four years, but the general population had virtually no access to secondary education. It instituted compulsory attendance, specific training for teachers, national testing for all students (used to classify children for potential job training), national curriculum set for each grade and mandatory kindergarten. The purpose of the system was to instill loyalty to the Crown and to train young men for the military and the bureaucracy by replacing local control over schooling with a centralized, uniform system administered by the state under which all schools and universities were made institutions of the state.

Although we have adopted certain components of the model, we have retained a much greater decentralization in methodology, and have neither sought to institute such a system nor for such a purpose.[/COLOR]

Originally Posted by Richard (Post 462706)

YGBSM – an evolved ‘Luther’ model whereby people need to read so they can study the ‘word of god’ expanded to add an 'industrial needs' component - serving the ‘educational’ needs for whom?

The Sunday ‘schools’ were organized by people who found that working-class children required some form of discipline, and evening schools were established to teach reading, writing, arithmetic, and catechism to the 'deserving' poor where enrollment was decided upon by visits with parents, nominations from subscribers, and individual student applications.

The Sunday school also developed into a hub of social interaction for a class of children and parents who were rapidly moving away from small, close-knit, rural communities to large, over-populated, urban centers where catechism could be preached and taught to a population that, until that time, only learned it via a rote memorization system. As the ‘schools’ gained in popularity and effectiveness, the churches started to actively provide them with facilities and finances, giving them a tighter control over their management and curriculum.

The only formalized moral instruction I’ve encountered in public schools is based primarily upon the universally recognized ‘golden rule’ and not a specified or state sponsored religious belief. Private and parochial schools, as well as home schools, however, are different and have the latitude to espouse whatever moral instruction they choose to adopt for their curriculum.

Originally Posted by Richard (Post 462706)

Perhaps the desire and design of the American system (which is similar to but quite different from the model found in Germany which remains much closer to the original Prussian methodology) is to benefit both, not merely one or the other.

However, YMMV.

Richard :munchin