Sputniks and the Educational Crisis in America

Abstract

J T WOULD be supererogation these days to comment that this is a time of ferment without parallel in the history of American education, unless it was the stormy days of the great common-school debate over a century ago. Like the Jacksonian era in education, ours too is an exciting, adventurous time for educators who have decisions to make which demand boldness, conviction, and understanding. Now is a magnificent opportunity for statesmanship: Our people, newspapers, and politicians are looking to the nation's educators and almost imploring them to come up with a program and tell them what must be done. It is also a dangerous time for education and we must guard against the already manifest tendency to follow rather than to lead an aroused public opinion. We must be careful of impulsive decisions and wholesale changes which are not given the most careful and deliberate consideration; above all, we must overcome the deep-rooted American tendency to act without analysis, to tinker without understanding, to look for remedies before we understand the problem. The deep dissatisfaction with education arises from three separate yet intermingling sources. First in point of time are the serious criticisms of educational theory and practice coming from those who feel strongly that our school curriculums no longer support the traditional, liberal objective of education the cultivation of the mind so that it may make wise choices among conflicting values. These critics, both professional and lay, have charged that a deep and pervasive anti-intellectualism has invaded the curriculum of our schools, disparaged traditional learning, made a cult of mediocrity, turned our