Analysis of the "Life Adjustment Movement
In the wake of World War II, the major movement in the American education system was the life adjustment movement. This movement aimed to provide a curriculum that would teach the life skills that would be valuable for the students who fails to continue with postsecondary education. Headed by the educator Charles Prosser, the movement represented democracy in education where the students would learn what is valuable to them in the real world ( Kliebard, 2002 ). There was a call to have education for all American youth through the establishment of general education in a free society. The critics of this ideology, however, saw it as a soft method that does not prepare the students for the future. It is also viewed as being anti-intellectual, prioritizing the socially significant subjects over the arts and humanities. It has also been criticized for being deterministic in nature, viewing it as a discipline of academic study.
The curriculum ideology that had a predominant influence in life adjustment education is the Dewey. Proposed by John Dewey, this ideology emphasizes on the importance of democratic relationships in the classrooms. It shifted the focus of educational theory from the institution of the school to the needs of the students. With the development of child-centered education and the need to introduce a progressive educational system, the Dewey ideology played a major role in ensuring that the curriculum developed was of importance to the students in relation to the real world situation ( Kliebard, 1998 ). According to Dewey, the curriculum should be made in a way that prepares the students ready to deal effectively with the modern world. As a result, the curriculum should not be presented as a finished abstraction but should incorporate the preconceptions of the students and their view of the modern world. These were the same ideologies that were included in the life adjustment movement, which demanded more democracy in the education system.
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Another curriculum ideology that played an influential role in the development of the life adjustment movement is social meliorists. This ideology holds that education should be used as a tool to bring reforms in the society. As a result, the curriculum should be made to prepare the students ready for bringing reforms in the society. One of the major ideologies for the life adjustment movement was to have a curriculum that helps the students gain the knowledge they can apply to create changes in society ( Graham, 2018 ). As a result, the social meliorists’ ideology was one of the most influential tools in the development of the life adjustment movement.
The criticism of the education system in America, especially in public schools, had increased, leading to needing to have a new system in the education sector. There was a call to match the educational programs with the national defense needs and the need to have the federal government play a role in education in the country. The NDEA was introduced to change this role in the education system. One of the outcomes of this was the introduction of the scholarships and loans for the students in higher education ( O'Cadiz, 2015 ). The need to increase educational achievement and do away with the criticism of the curriculum, there was a need to develop a new curriculum and get means to enhance not only the high school education but also the postsecondary education. Through this, scholarships and loans for higher education were introduced, leading to more people, including those from low-income families to get college education using the loans ( Wayne Ross, Mathison & Vinson , 2014). The NDEA targeted mainly the college and universities, and to ensure that there was an overall rise in the level of education in the country. It also aimed at providing funds to the state educational agencies to improve the teaching of science, modern language, and mathematics. This was one of the major impacts in the educational sector and has had a long term effect on the whole system. Currently, many students are in the colleges and university due to the scholarships and loans, a move that has increased the educational achievement in the country.
The need to develop areas such as sciences, engineering, mathematics, and the modern foreign languages also led to the led to the expansion of the centers for teaching languages and sciences and help the students improve their knowledge in such areas. The change in the educational policies to establish a new curriculum that would support the needs of the students and prepare them to be ready for the modern world. The system that supports the needs of the system was introduced following the criticism of the old curriculum, and a more democratic system enhanced.
There is a need to currently have the life adjustment equivalent to help call for more change in the education sector to boost effectiveness. The education sector is one of the systems that require continuous reforms throughout due to changes in the modern world. Technology continues to advance, and more new ideas develop, thus the need to have reformed. The presence of such movements is necessary to identify areas of weaknesses within the curriculum and then propose a reform.
References
Kliebard, H. M., (2002). Changing course: American curriculum reform in the 20th century (Vol. 8). Teachers College Press.
Kliebard, H. M., (1988). Success and failure in educational reform: Are there historical “lessons”?. Peabody Journal of Education , 65 (2), 143-157.
O'Cadiz, P., (2018). Education and Democracy: Paulo Freire, social movements, and educational reform in São Paulo . Routledge.
Graham, P. A., (2018). Educational dilemmas for Americans. In Science in Culture (pp. 225-236). Routledge.
Wayne Ross, E., Mathison, S., & D Vinson, K. (2014). Social studies education and standards-based education reform in North America: Curriculum standardization, high-stakes testing, and resistance. Revista Latin-American de Estudios Educativos (Colombia) , 10 (1).
