Profit-making as character education: social education in the Moraine Park School and Antioch College, 1916-1933
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Joseph Watras [1]
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[1] University of Dayton
University of Dayton
City of Dayton, Estados Unidos
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- Localización: Theory and research in social education, ISSN 0093-3104, Vol. 37, Nº 4, 2009 (Ejemplar dedicado a: Histories of social studies thought and practice in schools and communities), págs. 432-457
- Idioma: inglés
- Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
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Resumen
Arthur E. Morgan and other self-made business leaders opened Moraine Park School in 1917 to provide a form of character training that they feared had ended in the United States. These men believed that young people gained the best social education when they had to run their own companies because such opportunities enabled students to acquire the commercial habits, develop the ability to judge material values, and develop ethical perspectives. Calling this component the masculine element, they wanted young people to work on their own in schools in ways the rise of corporations and large cities made difficult. Appealing to the popular image of the self-made entrepreneur, Morgan's idea made Moraine Park School popular. It was one of the first institutions to join the Progressive Education Association (PEA), and Morgan served three terms as the PEA president. In addition, Morgan applied his idea of social education to Antioch College when he became president, and he used it in schools he built for the families of workers in his dam construction projects in the Miami Valley Conservancy and in the Tennessee Valley Authority. Although hailed in his time as an innovator, Morgan did not make an important philosophical contribution to educational thought because he considered the opportunity to create businesses as a separate element apart from academic subject matters.
