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The authors contrast ideals about democratic education with what occurs in classrooms, linking institutional frameworks to nondemocratic outcomes and suggesting a growing disconnect driving Foundations toward extinction.",{"@graph":14,"@context":73},[15,34,56],{"@type":16,"itemListElement":17},"BreadcrumbList",[18,23,27,31],{"item":19,"name":20,"@type":21,"position":22},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",1,{"item":24,"name":25,"@type":21,"position":26},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/","Document",2,{"item":28,"name":29,"@type":21,"position":30},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/","Research & 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Flint, East Carolina University  \nWhy Do I Have to Go To School?  \nNearly forty years ago, Jonathan Kozol wrote on the perennial question posed by children: “Why do I have to go to school?”1 Rightfully, in our view, he admonishes those who would “act as though it were a foolish question.”2 We take issue, however, with his characterization of their canned response: “It is for your own good.”3 Kozol treats this as an act of dishonesty. If they were honest, he says, they would tell children that “they go to school for something that is called‘their nation’s good.’”4 This presumes, of course, that adults know any more than children do about the origins of compulsory schooling, its history, and the ideas that have shaped its practices and defined its purposes, let alone how those practices and purposes are linked to Kozol’s treatment of “something that is called ‘their nation’s good.’” In fact, however, most people know nothing about the Foundations of schooling, and that includes a growing percentage of the people who work in schools and teacher education programs.  \nOver the course of the past twenty years, those college and university programs responsible for certification and licensure of school professionals have trended toward dropping coursework in educational Foundations from their required curricula. Our analysis leads us to conclude that contemporary conditions will soon drive Educational Foundations into academic extinction. While we, as scholars working in that field, take no gratification from our conclusions, we find ourselves incapable of expressing any shock or surprise over anything other than the fact that it’s taken the teacher education establishment so long to throw Foundations under the proverbial bus.  \nReturning to Kozol’s argument, we disagree that people are dishonest for telling children that compulsory schooling is “for their own good,” not because we think it is, but because we can find three reasons why people who say such things to children are not self-consciously lying. First, they don’t know what forces led to the establishment of compulsory schooling. Second, how could they possibly believe otherwise, given the extent to which approximately eight generations have internalized the legitimations created to convince them of the benevolence of schools? Third, and paradoxically, they could be right, depending on how we define what is“good” for children.  \nAs Foundations scholars, most ofus have at least had the opportunity to study the origins of compulsory schooling during the course of our training and ongoing professional development. Studying the Foundations of compulsory schooling, however, can be an altogether different experience from studying the Foundations of education. We know many Educational Foundations scholars who spend essentially no time keeping abreast of the contemporary forces driv-  \n1. Jonathan Kozol, The Night is Dark and Iam Far From Home. (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1975/1990), 34.  \n2. Ibid.  \n3. Ibid.  \n4. Ibid.  \ning the policies that impact the lives of students and school personnel. They prefer to spend their time studying the history of ideas and different philosophies of education. In spite of the differences in our foci, most of us would agree there is a colossal gap between our highest educational ideals and what actually transpires inside schools and classrooms. And most of us, if only in the courses we teach, advocate strongly for closing that gap.  \nThose ideals most certainly inform whatever value we assign to education and, therefore, the “good” we believe should come from schools for children. For many of us, we derived those ideals from what we’ve always been told, sometimes by our teachers in school, about the idealsand values of America. Allegedly, those values came to us from our nation’s “founders,” and the democratic institutions they created t","cbCaidcDY6l8hsqI","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaidcDY6l8hsqI","pdf",559447,11,"English","# Why Do I Have to Go To School?\n## Abandoning Foundations in Certification and Licensure\n## Reassessing the “For Your Own Good” Argument\n## Ideals vs. Reality in Schools","[{\"question\":\"Why do the authors dispute the claim that compulsory schooling is “for your own good”?\",\"answer\":\"They argue that many adults may not be intentionally dishonest because they lack knowledge of how compulsory schooling was established, have absorbed legitimations over generations, and the meaning of “good” depends on definitions.\"},{\"question\":\"What do the authors say teacher education programs have done over the last twenty years?\",\"answer\":\"They report that college and university programs tied to certification and licensure have trended toward dropping Educational Foundations from required curricula.\"},{\"question\":\"How do the authors connect educational “ideals” to classroom reality?\",\"answer\":\"They describe a large gap between stated democratic ideals and what actually transpires in schools and classrooms, and they discuss how prevailing beliefs and institutional frameworks shape that outcome.\"}]","Not Too Big To Fail: How Teacher Education Killed the Foundations | PDF",1792089173,28]