Open Education in America
...more than just mathematics and found interest in the whole school environment and spent extended periods of time in England to study and have first hand experience on its open education system. · Open education is a new form of approach that is more open to change, new ideas, curriculum, communication of feelings between teacher and pupil, between pupil and pupil, and also participation in decision-makings in the classroom. It is like a classroom environment where there is a minimum of class teaching and where children are provided for to encourage them to pursue individual interests, be actively involved, and where children are trusted to direct many aspects of their own learning. · Americans were impressed with British Infant Schools with the new concept of open education and made reforms in American educational system to establish open education in classrooms. · Teachers were sent to England to become "open" educators to study the system first hand through workshops, seminars, practices, and expert advisors. Schools were built or reconstructed without walls to separate one classroom from the other- America schools were becoming more “open” towards education. · This met up with problems because these quick and widespread techniques didn’t spread out in America; the education and reeducation of teachers were seriously undermined when sources of dried up, inability of school systems to continue the support, failure of the voluntary supports, and also because of the whole social climate of educational thinking changed" · Failure to completely reeducate teachers was one of the main problem, the other was the enacting of the open educational system- Americans didn’t take in consideration some issues when modeling after England’s schools such as the differing of social climate of America from England. British teachers were motivated and entered with large number of support, freedom and courage which was mostly from general respect of their profession and expertise, and the customary obedience of English children to authority which wasn’t present in the US. · Americans didn’t transfer the philosophy of open education with the methods, and instead made open edu...