Before there were children with disabilities in typical schools in North America, there was only hope and need. Before the creation of highly specialized plans of education, individualized instruction techniques, methods of differentiating group instruction or regulations mandating the adherence to government regulations, there were only families,…

In the early 20th century, proponents of the so-called "social efficiency movement" in the United States tried to apply methods and concepts for enhancing efficiency in industrial production to the organization of teaching and learning processes. This included the formulation of "educational standards" analogous to industrial…

This article is a version of a keynote speech presented at the St. Augustine Symposium on the History of Music Education, sponsored by the National Association for Music Education History Special Research Interest Group and held at Flagler College in St. Augustine, Florida, May 28-31, 2014. The keynote was on the first book on the history of music…

This essay tracks the history of teacher preparation, from its origins in the early republic to the present. In so doing, it tells two stories. The first is a story about problems--a linear story in which problems are discovered, potential solutions are generated, and positive results are achieved. It moves from the past to the future and from the…

In nineteenth-century America, students buried their mathematics books. This practice consistently celebrated the milestone of passing through collegiate mathematics, yet it changed due to national events. This article considers the case of Bowdoin College, where students buried their books differently before and after the Civil War. Antebellum,…

The role of nostalgia has been identified by those interested in the unique impact of one-room schoolhouses on historical memory and present-day fascination with the structures. Most notably, educational historian Jonathan Zimmerman explored the issue in "Small Wonder: The Little Red Schoolhouse in History and Memory" (2009). Zimmerman…

Black people all over the world have historically endured slavery, colonialism, racism, prejudice, and discriminatory actions; and they continue to be disenfranchised, disadvantaged, disillusioned, and demeaned by institutions and systems. Of late, Black people in the United States, especially Black males have been encountering blatant police…

The authors describe the politicization of the process to revise Michigan's social studies standards from 2005 to the present. In 2005, critics objected to the omission of topics they considered important, even though the content expectations document was not intended to be an exhaustive list of material to be covered. The latest, more limited…

The cases analyzed in this essay exemplify both the influence of the sexual revolution and the conservative backlash against it. Topics that were once considered obscene were now seen as educational. Without this greater openness, none of these court cases would have been possible. In fact, people fighting against censorship and repression…

This paper examines the impact of war on African-American education. This question is considered in three different periods: the eras of the American Revolution, the Civil War and the Second World War. Large-scale conflict, such as these instances of total war, can afford historical moments when oppressed groups are able take steps to improve…

This article is the first in a series of narrative studies of leaders in the field of multicultural education researched and written by Cheryl Hunter and several of her graduate students at the University of North Dakota. Other articles in the series will appear in future issues of "Multicultural Education." Hunter and her students…

When the New Orleans school board appointed E. J. Edmunds, a light-skinned Afro-Creole man, the mathematics teacher for the city's best high school in 1875, the senior students walked out rather than have a "negro" as a teacher of "white youths." Edmunds's appointment was a final, bold act by the city's mixed-race intellectual…

Concern about Communists in education was a central preoccupation in the U.S. through the middle decades of the twentieth century. Focusing on post-secondary and adult education and on fields related to composition and rhetoric, this essay offers an overview of the surprisingly diverse contexts in which Communist educators worked. Some who taught…

Angie Debo, educator and historian, wrote thirteen scholarly books, which included material representative of the American Indian experience. In one of her later books, "A History of the Indians of the United States," first published in 1951, she wrote that the story of the American Indian shows a "remarkable record of survival ……

During the 1840s and 1850s, members of the Creek Nation rejected schools as a colonial tool and instead experimented with various forms of education to fit their own local and national needs. Diverse individuals and communities articulated educational visions for their nation in conversation with fellow citizens, national leaders, and U.S.…