The Space Race and the education crisis in the US PDF

Preview

Summary

Essay on the Space Race and the educational crisis in the United States...

Description

Giulia Tambini SHPI Praxis Seminar A Heather Pruessing Februar 23, 2016

1. The thesis During the 50s, the United States were going through an educational crisis brought about not just by a decline in the quality of the service offered by educational institutions but also by a lack of enthusiasm coming from people involved in scientific research as teachers and scientists. The Space Race represented the chance for America to go back on track and reestablish his superiority on the scientific field.

2. The historical context On October 4th, 1957, the Soviet Union became the first country that officially started the so-called Space Race by launching the Sputnik 1, the first man-made object to orbit Earth. At that time, America was involved in the Cold War, a political standoff between Russia and the US which took place in the second half of the 20th century. As the World War II ended, the heads of government of the three most important country of the Allies, the American Frank D. Roosevelt, the Russian Yosif Stalin and the British Winston Churchill, decided at various conferences how Europe should have looked like after the war. At the end, Germany had been split into two parts: the eastern part controlled by the Soviet Union, the western part by the United States, the United Kingdom and France. The influence exerted by Russia, however, was not confined to East Germany: Stalin was controlling governments of several Eastern European States, and American feared the creation of an Eastern Bloc, and the consequent spread of communism all over the world. Fear of communism was what increased the tension between the two Great Power: the capitalist America did not even recognize it as a real economic system, simply identifying it as a symbol of the Soviet Russia.

1

Giulia Tambini SHPI Praxis Seminar A Heather Pruessing Februar 23, 2016

Because of the hostile feeling and the deep mistrust between the two countries, on that day of October 1957 Americans were alarmed to hear that the Russians had launched Sputnik. To Americans the launch of Sputnik was scary, its meaning was unclear and they feared that it could have been the beginning of a new war plan. Secondly the fear of communism and the further increasingly tension between the two superpowers, led to the advent of nuclear weaponry, what during that period was called “Arms Race”. For this reason, American was scared that the launch of Sputnik could mean that the Soviet Union was planning where to drop a nuclear bomb. At the very least, the fact that Russians could create and develop something so technologically sophisticated and launch it into space – while the US still didn’t have that capability - meant that they leading the Cold War also from a propagandistic point of view, demonstrating that they had smarter scientists and engineers and that they owned a finer and more advanced technology than Americans. The launch of Sputnik represented the starting line of what has become known as the “Space Race”: during the 1950s and 1960s the world’s two biggest superpowers competed for the supremacy in space, to have in this way a position of dominance on the global scene.

3. Thomas Bonner, “Sputniks and the Educational Crisis in America” The Space Race deeply influenced the public opinion about education in the United States: it put the focus on the flaws of American educational system and led to the consequential attempt of the institutions to do reforms in order to fill the gap between America and Russia in the scientific field. Before the competition started, America was already going through a kind of educational crisis. In his article “Sputniks and the Educational Crisis in America”, the medical historian Thomas N. Bonner describes what it consists in; it was 1958, a year later the launch of the Sputnik. During the Fifties, a sort of dissatisfaction with the educational system of the United States rose among Americans, and went increasing with the launch of the 2

Giulia Tambini SHPI Praxis Seminar A Heather Pruessing Februar 23, 2016

Sputnik: if the Soviet Union went so far in technology that they have been able to send a satellite into space while America still could not, the causes were to be searched in the environment in which scientists and engineers were trained. Bonner explains that this feeling of discontent was common also before the start of the Space Race, and he identifies the causes of this spreading sensation in three major sources: First of all, those who criticized American instruction were blaming the educational theory and the whole system assuming that the traditional goal of education was no longer supported by the American school curricula. Schools did no more promote meritocracy as a fundamental principle in education, favoring in that way a system which advanced mediocrity as a cult. The spread of a feeling of anti-intellectualism was a consequence of this, who led people to despise the traditional learning. The second cause of protests was more concrete: during the Fifties classes were overcrowded and schools and colleges did not have enough money to guarantee a proper service. Due to the increase in size of student bodies in school and colleges, the educational system was going through a financial crisis. Finally, Bonner assumes that a crisis of values negatively influenced the learning system: he bucks the trend declaring that the problem was not the preparation of the students involved in the scientific field, as he believes that this is equal in proportion to that of any other place, but in the environment in which these people grow. A young man who was deciding to start an academic career – in the scientific as in any other scholastic field - knew from the beginning that he would not get the prestige and the esteem that he would deserve, nor would he be rewarded with any material. Since education in America had lost his importance – or, at least the importance that Americans gave to it was far minor to the one given in the other countries – also scholars and scientists who could perceive this phenomenon lost the thrill and the enthusiasm of a life devoted to research.

4. The reaction: The National Defense Education Act of 1958

3

Giulia Tambini SHPI Praxis Seminar A Heather Pruessing Februar 23, 2016

On October 4th Sputnik woke the nation up; if during the 1950s people were disappointed about the American educational system, from 1957 the problem became clear to everybody. It cannot be said that the reforms have started from that moment: changes to the US educational system had been in the works for years supported by the national Science Foundation; but the launch has been a crucial event for the future of the nation, whose leaders, fearing that the Soviet Union could have been superior in the academic field, understood that concrete actions were necessary. Almost a year later the launch of the Sputnik President Eisenhower responded to this urgency; on September 2, 1958, he signed into law the National Defense Education Act. The law helped reshape education in the US providing funding to all levels, to both private and public schools and colleges. The goal of the president was – besides improving the whole American academic system – to lead an ideological mission: he recognized that the Space Race and the whole Cold War against the Russians could be won just considering education as a basis from where to start fighting the Soviet superpower. The act guaranteed funding for four years, increasing funding per year; in total, over a billion dollars was directed towards improving American science curricula. It supported research on methods and materials for language teaching and experimentation in more effective utilization of television, radio, motion pictures, and related media for educational purposes. As a consequence of this, in classrooms, educational tools began to change. Lab kits and overhead projectors were added, and educational films became part of the curriculum. The Space Race lasted until the very end of the Sixties. Many important events, as the launch of the Explorer 1 on July 1958, the first U.S. satellite in orbit, or the launch of Apollo 8 ten years later, the first manned space mission to orbit the moon, came in succession after the nation focused itself on education. “Science and education have become the main battleground of the cold war. It is upon education that the fate of our way of life depends. It means that the outcome of a third world war, may be decided in the classroom1”

4

Giulia Tambini SHPI Praxis Seminar A Heather Pruessing Februar 23, 2016

Bonner, Thomas, “Sputniks and the Educational Crisis in America”. The Journal of higher education, Ohio State University Press, April 1958.

5. Conclusions: By putting a man on the moon on 1969 America could consider itself as the winner of the Space Race, which had for sure a positive influence on both education and technology. The competition led to the formation of important agencies like NASA, founded in 1958. The nation responded to the security threat by targeting education and several of the changes remain in use today.

6. Bibliography Abramson, Larry, “Sputnik left legacy for US science education”. NPR, September 2007. Barksdale, Barbara, “Brainpower for the Cold War: The Sputnik Crisis and the National Defense Education Act of 1958”. Greenwood Press, 1981. Bonner, Thomas, “Sputniks and the Educational Crisis in America”. The Journal of higher education, Ohio State University Press, April 1958. Campbell, Craig, “America's Cold War: the politics of insecurity“, Cambridge. Belknap, 2009. Powell, Alvin, “How Sputnik changed US education”. Harvard New Office, October 2007. Rissing, Steve, “Launch changed US science, math education”. The Columbus Dispatch, 2007. Watters, Audrey, “How Sputnik launched Ed-Tech: The National Defense Education Act of 1958”. Hackeducation.com, 2015

5

Giulia Tambini SHPI Praxis Seminar A Heather Pruessing Februar 23, 2016

Words count: 1411

6...