Timeline of notable dates for those interested in curriculum

 

Adapted from Curriculum Essentials: A Resource for Educators

Jon W. Wiles, University of North Florida

 

Western History

US History

Date

Event

Ancient

Pre Conquest

400 BC

Classical Age of Greece.  The Ancient Greeks formulated ideas for the training of elites and leaders.

Medieval

500 AD

The Dark Ages.  Knowledge was treasured and preserved by isolated individuals and monasteries.

1200

Flowering of Medieval Culture:  Early Universities were founded in Italy, Spain, France, and England

Renaissance

1456

Guttenberg Printing Press made text (and therefore literacy) more widely available

Age of Exploration

1492

Voyages of Columbus

1500

First Latin Grammar Schools in England

1536

First Gymnasium (classical secondary school) established in Germany

Colonial

1629

Massachusetts Bay Colony founded as an English Colony by religious Puritans

1635

First Boston Latin grammar school

1636

Harvard University founded in Cambridge, MA

1647

"Old Deluder, Satan Act" in Massachusetts required towns with 50 or more households to establish schools

Enlightenment

 

Federal

1789

Constitution of The United States ratified

Industrial

Revolution

1821

Boston English Classical School is the first tax supported secondary school

Civil War and Reconstruction

1852

Horace Mann helps pass the first laws making schooling compulsory for minors

1862

Morill land Grant Act sets aside land in all states for public colleges and universities

1874

“Kalamzoo” Michigan Supreme Court Decision – established states’ rights to impose taxes to fund secondary education

Progressive Era

1883

First "subject matter" groupings by Francis Parker are an early form of a formalized curriculum

1896

John Dewey begins demonstrating alternative teaching methods at the University of Chicago Laboratory School

Recent

Modern

Times

1905

Alfred Binet publishes first Intelligence Measurement scales

1919

Progressive Education Association founded

Post War

1946

GI Bill passed to further the education of Veterans

1954

Brown v Board of Ed, Topeka requires  US public schools may not be racially segregated

1958

National Defense Education Act passed in response to Sputnik provides substantial federal funding for education

1964

Civil Rights Act

1965

Elementary and Secondary Education Act initiates "titled" programs into the American public school systems.  This bill has been amended and reauthorized many times – most recently in 2001 as “No Child Left Behind”

1972

Title 9 is an amendment to the above act outlawing discrimination based on sex.

1975

Education of All Handicapped Children Act (Public Law 94-142) guarantees rights for handicapped children and initiated an expansion of Special Education

1979

US Department of Education established

1983

“A Nation at Risk” – a report released by business interests that sparked the current round of education reform.

1990

Goals 2000 Education Summit super-intensified the push for education reform when President George Bush I and all fifty governors (lead by Governor Bill Clinton of Arkansas) formulated the first ever set of goal targets for the “national” education system.  One of these goal targets was “Adult Literacy and Life Long Learning”.

1990

Americans with Disabilities Act.

1992

SCANS  “School to Work” competencies for workplace skills promulgated by the Department of Labor

1995

GAO report  “Adult Education: Measuring Program Results has been Challenging” prompts National Institute for Literacy (NIFL) to begin Equipped for the Future (EFF) initiative.

 

For a more jaundiced view of the history of forced schooling look at Mr. Gatto's "The Makers of Modern Schooling"

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.coe.uga.edu/reading/faculty/dreinking/ONG.html

 

Writing Restructures Consciousness

 

Pre-Literacy and the Pre-Socratics