The principal of my junior high school in 1940s New York was conspicuously a modern woman. She went through the hallways and presided at assemblies with stylish dresses and a smile that had to compete for attention with the sparkling sequins on her collar. She was so pleased to be in charge of administering melting-pot Americanism and Progressive Education to a bunch of Brooklyn adolescents.
Most of the teachers took a dim view of a theory of education that dismisses tradition, authority, and religion, and so they allowed this program of behavioral scientists to slide out the windows, just as it came in through the door. Math, science, English, history, shop, music and other subjects were taught and learned as transmissions of knowledge, not platforms of indoctrination disrupting the progress of education toward a better life for all. And this called for attentiveness and discipline in the classroom, a place to learn, not to be “pleased.”…
