The Impacts Of Thomas Jefferson And Horace Mann

Many of the more basic aspects of the school systems that educational pioneers Thomas Jefferson and Horace Mann created still exist today: like the requirement by law to attend school and the importance of educating both males and females. However, both Horace Mann and Thomas Jefferson have also had important influences on parts of educational system that may not be completely obvious, but that have transcended time and are still in place today. Whether the results of the decisions made by these men were intentional or actually unintended consequences, their legacies are still prominent. Some of the specific effects seen today include the decline in the quality, effort, and work of teachers, and the emphasis placed on intellectual behavior …show more content…
Mann defined what the expectations of a teacher were in his Common School movement and mapped out the various ideals that the classroom should have under the leadership of the teacher. It was important that Mann attempted to reach high values and lofty intended goals of his system, but idealism is a tough method of social change because it generally lends itself to results that fall short of the desired outcome: it is almost impossible to have a perfect result of a plan. Take Communism for example, which seemed great in theory, but when applied to a society, was not functional. In the case of Mann, his high ideals and hopes for a set of morally driven, nurturing, and intelligent, trained teachers were great in theory, but have not stood the test of time. In his time, Mann borrowed the system of the “normal school” from the education system of Prussia as a method of training teachers, mainly female teachers, for a life in education. Today, most teachers, excepting those in private school education, have to pursue a degree in higher education, a standard taken from Mann, but the trends of today indicate that the intellect and expectations of teachers are not as high or demanding as they ought to be. This is a direct consequence of the normal school system as set up by Mann, as it was often considered an alternate path of higher education that was not as rigorous because it didn’t include a high school or college education. Normal schools that were the primary way for people to become teachers throughout history transformed throughout time and became the regional state colleges that are seen today, and also carried along the same practices of admission and education as the normal school with the change. Because Mann had a negative view of the intellectual prowess of women and instead viewed them as a cheap form of labor and solely