Following his first year of teaching, Herbert Kohl wrote the novel Thirty-Six Children which accounted for a harsh, yet realistic view into education as of 1967. He was presented with 36 African-American students, who were just as terrified as he was to be a first-year teacher. He tells the story that on his first day, students were asking questions about volcanoes and he went to congratulate a student for his response and that student flinched in response. This was the moment that he realized that both him and his students were afraid of each other, and specifically doing the wrong thing (Fraser, 257).
The reason that so much pressure had been put on new teachers to be good at their job was in response to the Soviet Union launching the Sputnik satellite. This advance in scientific discovery by the Soviet Union made Americans feel as though they "had lost its scientific and technological lead" in the world (Urban, 260). teachers felt enormous pressure to educate their students well, primarily in the natural sciences and mathematics.
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December 2019
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