Hughes Ch. 5

How does the machine-oriented esthetic relate to the educational movements of the Twentieth Century? For example, what value is expressed by educational televisions? New Math?

Chapter 5 largely discusses the arts (designing, building, paintings). There was a push to manufacture mass products. The materials used were less organic and more man-made, such as plastic or steel. There was some opposition to the change. In addition, designers used function to dictate design in buildings. Artists began to look at machines as works of art and making them the focus of paintings and photographs.

I had to research new math in order to answer this question. I found that many of the ideas within new math had been de-emphasized or eliminated since the 1960s. Critics believed it to be too abstract. One similarity would be that both technology and education had gone through reforms.

The machines were designed according to function and their intended purpose as well as to make products affordable and available to everyone. I feel this could also relate to education. The education field wants all children to be proficient. Guidelines are issued and schools are left to implement them in the most effective and efficient manner. Many models are one size fits all. Both machine design and education have followed a trend that looks good or provokes a feel-good emotion, or at least I think so.

I may be missing the point or intention on education television. My thoughts were that educational television is very beneficial. Every classroom in our school used to have a television. They have now been replaced with LCD projectors. So televisions are a thing of the past much like the steam engines. The ability to projects and watch educational programs from the Internet or DVDs is very beneficial.

In this environment of command and control, mass production, and the military-industrial complex (remember chapter 4), where did the hippie movement of the 60s and 70s come from? Was there a corresponding movement in education?

In chapter 5, Hughes discusses the movement against the spread of rigid order and control. Artists and architects alike went against the systems, order and control, which probably spurred the hippie movement. John Cage put on events or “happenings” during the 1960s in hippie communities. Music stressed more freedom and improvisation than rigid form. Architects pushed for freely evolving urban places.

Again I had to research the second part of the question. There was a free school movement in the 60s and 70s as well. Student learning was free. Students learned through experience and had participated equally in governance. Children were believed to learn best in an empowering atmosphere. Staff served as models, guides, mentors and leaders but never authority figures. There were no required classes, age groupings or pre-set curricula or grades. These schools were typical small and had with little resources.