PBS Documentary Part 1

I wondered why we were watching the episodes of this series out of order, but in the end I don't think it matters much in which order you watch them. Episodes 2 and 3 were a little more chronologically linked, and it seems like we have more to say about those eras because we have more historical knowledge. It seemed like Episode 1 was interesting because it clarified some gray areas that we might have known about in early American education, and dispelled a couple of myths that we might have picked up at some point in our American History classes.

While there was a lot in this episode that was completely new to me, the issue of inequity was something that interested me for its novelty. I had known that schools were used by many towns at once, and that they were typically funded by the community, but it didn't occur to me that certain towns were richer than others, and could therefore afford to offer their students more resources. Jefferson's fight for elementary schools was also news to me, though I'm not sure that the video was very clear about all of his motives. Someone in the video remarked that he wished to "Rake the geniuses from the rubbish," and I can't help but wonder if someone with such a plan should receive much praise.

Horace Mann, on the other hand, seemed to earn his historian-appointed title of "Patron Saint of Education, " considering the leg work (both political and physical) that he invested into schoolhouse equality.

I am a little disappointed that the Anglicization of the Native American population got only about a minute of screen time. There were many issues with inequity and discrimination within the educational system in the early days, but the American-led cultural genocide of Native Americans is the most poignant century-and-a-half-long atrocity in our history, and the primary weapon was white-washing in the newly-instituted education system. I think more people should be made aware of the scale and implications of this event, and if you are going to air a documentary on the history of education, you should take care to lend an equal amount of mention to one societal shortcoming as the other.