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Religion and Technology and its Influence on American Education
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First Settlement
At Cape Henry, Virginia, the first Anglican and Episcopal Church in the American colonies was established. Then two months later, America's first Protestant Episcopal parish and first permanent English settlement now know as the modern day United States is established in Jamestown, Virginia led by Captain John Smith. -
Separatists
Under the leadership of John Robinson, English Separatists, began to immigrate to North America - eventually, they came to be known as the Pilgrims. Two months later, The Mayflower left Plymouth, England with 102 Pilgrims aboard. The ship would arrive at Provincetown on November 21st and then at Plymouth on December 26th. The Pilgrims, who had fled religious persecution in England, in which their religious views would come to dominate education in the New England colonies. -
The Puritans
Puritan colonists landed at Salem and started the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Within 9 months, Samuel Skelton was elected the first pastor of Salem, Massachusetts. The church covenant created by Skelton made his congregation the first non-separating congregational Puritan Church in New England. In addition to the Bible, the Puritan way of education dictated that children needed to read in order to understand the capital laws of the new country as their code declared. -
The Baptists
Roger Williams first arrived in North America. He would soon question the rigid religious policies in the Massachusetts colony and their educational methods, leading to his being banished to Rhode Island five years later. There he would create the first Baptist church in America. Three short months later, The General Court of the Massachusetts issued the decree that "no man shall be admitted to the body politic but such as are members of some of the churches within the limits" of the colony. -
The Catholics
The Roman Catholic Church made its first steps in North America when the colony ships "Dove" and "Ark" arrived in Maryland with 128 Catholic colonists. The members of this group had been chosen by Cecilius Calvert, second Lord Baltimore and the colony itself would be led by Leonard Calvert, Lord Baltimore's brother. The defeat of the Royalists in the English Civil war of 1646 led to stringent laws against Catholic Education. During the Maryland colonial period, Jesuits continued to teach cland -
Teacher Model
Early public schools adopted the teacher/manager model with the teacher as the primary manager of instruction and assessment in a single classroom. In this model, educators are seen as proactive facilitators/managers of the overall learning environment which involves student participation in the tasks and group processes for individual student development. Students are then coaxed to act independently as well as interdependently, to help develop a sense of responsibility for their own learning -
Webster
First Noah Webster (Blue Book) Speller is published, with its opening sentence declaring: "No man may put off the law of God." This speller is widely used in American schools and is peppered throughout with Bible verses. Later versions stated, "Noah Webster who taught millions to read but not one to sin.". Noah did not like American schools, they had no desks, poor books from England and untrained teachers. He thought that Americans should learn from American books, so in 1783, Noah wrote his -
Northwest Ordinance July 13, 1787
Congress passes the Northwest Ordinance which is outlines requirements for governments of new territories so they can qualify for statehood. Article 3 of the Northwest Ordinance directs the people of the territories to establish schools "to teach religion, morality, and knowledge.” Nearly every state admitted to the Union after this has written in their State Constitution wording that the schools are to teach morality and religion and they all use the Bible as the bases for their teachings. -
First Computer
The first generation computer (ENIAC) built by Presper Eckert, and John Mauchly were huge, slow, expensive, and often undependable. This model used thousands of vacuum tubes, which took up a lot of space and gave off a great deal of heat. Six months later, the first vacuum tube-based computers were developed. -
First School Computer
IBM 650 computer teachers binary arithmetic in NYC. The computer, a two-address, coded decimal machine with memory on a rotating drum (equivalent to a 8.5Kb memory drive), was initially marketed for scientific use which upgraded the pre existing Calculating Punch Machines, and taught high school students how to computer-program. *Stratham, 2012) -
Education Act
As part of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s “war on poverty”, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) brings new money into schools for technology. Driven by the need to be competitive via technology during the Cold war against the Soviet union, mainframes and minicomputers are put into place in some schools, but most are used for administration or for school counseling. Prior to the law's passage, educational policy-making had been the near exclusive domain of state and local governme -
Voluntary Prayer
The Supreme Court struck down an Alabama law allowing voluntary or silent prayers in public schools. The idea of "silent meditation" was also struck down because it indicated an intent to encourage students to pray. (Zaleski, 2006) -
The National Cooperative Education Statistic System
System Established under the authorizing legislation to develop a comprehensive core system of comparable local, state and federal data useful to policymakers and educators at all levels of government. This system will also identify and define core data that is needed to operate schools and districts and support state and federal program reports and to guide the overall education policy at all levels. -
SCANS
project that was to define the standard set of job specifications and qualifications that an applicant would need to fill the job so that a ‘certificate’ of skills attainment for that job would mean the same thing across the country. The Aspen Institute report warns: “Without a dramatic change in the way we train and support workers, we will fall short of finding the highly skilled, adaptable, and technologically sophisticated labor force we need to compete in the future global economy” -
Religious Pamphlets
At the request of President Bill Clinton, the US Dept. of Education sends an easy to read pamphlet to every to every superintendent in the country. This pamphlet explains what practices courts have found acceptable, due to widespread confusion over religious practices in public schools. (GTBE, 2010) -
Newdow vs Rio Linda School District
An atheist and minister of the Universal Life Church, Michael Newdow, filed suit against the school district claiming the phrase "One Nation Under God" was a violation of the Constitution. The 9th District U.S. Court of Appeals upheld the phrase, finding that the words are part of a "ceremonial and patriotic nature" then in 2002, Newdow again sued another school district on the same grounds. The appellate court sided with him, before being overturned once again by the Supreme Court. (Nedow v.
