Ch.3 - How Schools Are Organized and Linked to Society

Chapter three goes on to explain the purposes of schooling and how they are linked to society, how they are organized and structured to meet the demands of the times they are in. For example, in the fifties after the Soviet Union launched the space satellite Sputnik, national defense became a top priority and educational organizations shifted towards science and teaching students how to think. Today, the focus of education is for students to achieve high standards in an effort to make the United States more economically competitive.

Chapter three also mentions looping, a nontraditional approach to learning in which the teacher moves from grade to grade with the students. I’ve never experienced or seen looping for myself but I can see one major advantage to this program. At the beginning of the school year, the teacher spends less time getting to know the students and the students spend less time getting comfortable with the teacher and his or her classmates because they already know each other. This allows for more time and more productive instruction because the teacher is already accustomed to each student’s individual learning styles and can better prepare lessons.