Summary of Dana Goldstein's The Teacher Wars

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.

Book Preview:

#1 In 1815, a religious revival swept the Litchfield Female Academy in Connecticut. The daughter of a celebrity preacher, 14-year-old Catharine Beecher refused to convert. This made her conspicuous, because she was the daughter of a preacher.

#2 In 1815, a religious revival swept the Litchfield Female Academy in Connecticut. The daughter of a celebrity preacher, 14-year-old Catharine Beecher refused to convert. This made her conspicuous, because she was the daughter of a preacher.

#3 In 1815, a religious revival swept the Litchfield Female Academy in Connecticut. The daughter of a celebrity preacher, 14-year-old Catharine Beecher refused to convert. This made her conspicuous, because she was the daughter of a preacher.

#4 In 1815, a religious revival swept the Litchfield Female Academy in Connecticut. The daughter of a celebrity preacher, 14-year-old Catharine Beecher refused to convert. This made her conspicuous, because she was the daughter of a preacher.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Oct 7, 2022
• ISBN: 9798350040227

IRB Media

With IRB books, you can get the key takeaways and analysis of a book in 15 minutes. We read every chapter, identify the key takeaways and analyze them for your convenience.

Book preview

Insights on Dana Goldstein's The Teacher Wars

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 5

Insights from Chapter 6

Insights from Chapter 7

Insights from Chapter 8

Insights from Chapter 9

Insights from Chapter 10

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

In the 1800s, there were few public schools in the United States. School attendance was not compulsory, and schools were generally organized by town councils, local churches, or urban charitable societies.

#2

Catharine Beecher was a teacher who fell in love with Horace Mann, a law student who would go on to become a public intellectual. They would define public education as America’s new church, and female teachers as the ministers of American morality.

#3

Following the death of her fiancé, Beecher went to live with the Fisher family. She was surprised to find that her fiancé had not been a good man, but rather a saved man because he had done good in his life.

#4

Beecher’s conviction that public works could benefit society as well as private faith led her to become an educationist. She began teaching the sisters of her brother-in-law, who had been educated at Andover and Yale, and they quickly learned and understood the challenging material.

#5

Beecher’s school was controversial, but it was extremely successful. It was far ahead of its time, and many of its graduates launched new schools based on Beecher’s ideas.

#6

In the late 1820s, Beecher began speaking about the need for universal schooling, and how it would be the best defense against a violent uprising by the underclass. She imagined a scenario in which elite young women went west to teach the masses for democracy.

#7

Beecher’s argument was that women would make better teachers than men, and that opening the teaching profession to women would be good for students and society. She also pushed middle-class white women into public view as workers outside the home.

#8

The American education system changed from college-educated males to young female moral educators in the mid-1800s. This was due to antitax sentiment, political evolution, and the influence of Horace Mann.

#9

Mann’s interest in education reform was sparked after his brother drowned when he was young, and he grew up hearing about the preacher