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Comrades! Public teachers! You gave the people literacy, now you must give them development! Make free Russia's conscious citizens out of yesterday's village philistines! This chapter looks at the methods used by the political elite to communicate with ordinary people and offers some explanations for the problems that they faced. Russia's political elite sought to educate ordinary people, and to transform their cultural lives, in the pre-revolutionary period. These attempts to communicate with and to educate ordinary people were intensified in 1917. So-called ‘cultural-enlightenment campaigns’ were high on the agenda of public life in the course of 1917. Correspondingly, ordinary people sought out and utilised information on the nature of the revolution, and of how they were to participate in the revolution. The Provisional Government and soviets, and educated society in general, sought to orchestrate popular education. For the Provisional Government, popular education had to be a success, as they relied on popular understanding and participation in the administration. Without popular support, their stated goals of overseeing democratic elections, keeping Russia in the war and preventing civic disorder were unachievable. Educational campaigns were undertaken with heartfelt faith from Russia's political elite that education could ‘transform’ Russia's citizens into newly fledged democratic citizens, who could participate in the building of an egalitarian, even utopian, state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

He “was the very embodiment of a traditional masculine character.” So Ashraf Pahlavi remembered her father Reza Shah, founder of the Pahlavi dynasty. “Although I feared my father, I shared some of his qualities: his stubbornness, his fierce pride, and his iron will,” wrote his powerful daughter, the twin sister of Mohammad Reza Shah, the second and the last Pahlavi ruler of Iran. Reza Shah left behind no autobiographies, but as Amin Banani notes, he “had to perfection the politician's talent for opportunism.” While still uncertain in his power, for example, “he knew how to play upon the religious emotions of the people.” He was “antagonistic toward the clergy,” although he was “basically apathetic to religion.” There was also “a definite ideological motivation” in his political actions. Dedicated to nationalism and statism, he sought a rapid adoption of “the material advances of the West [by] a breakdown of the traditional power of religion and a growing tendency toward secularism.” He built a modernizing, Westernizing, and centralizing state in Iran, a state that was based on a strong army and repression, not the consensus of the governed. Reza Shah introduced policies that altered the lives of Iranian women. For the first time, some women entered into the modern sectors of the economy, public and non-sex segregated schools were established, family laws were modified, and unveiling was enforced forcibly in 1936. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

“Since American military and other aid has brought my country such important direct and indirect benefits,” declared Mohammad Reza Shah in an autobiography written a few years after the CIA returned him to the throne, “I hope I shall not sound ungrateful if I state my conviction that we have been receiving glaringly inadequate amounts of it.” In fact, the Cold War brought American military and economic aid to Iran by the late 1950s, helping the Shah consolidate his power against communism and the secular and religious opposition. He expressed his own preeminence in a 1973 interview with Oriana Fallaci: “Where there's no monarchy, there is anarchy, or an oligarchy or a dictatorship.” Iran's integration into the world market and the ensuing economic growth based on rising oil revenues bolstered the state's power. Unleashing the unpredictable forces of change and expediently defending the throne with either co-optation or repression, the state launched several projects that changed the structure of the economy, the labor force, and the gender division of labor. Urban communities expanded with migration from rural areas, and the enlarging industrial and service sectors absorbed even more workers. More women, unveiled and educated, followed Western fashions and joined the growing labor market. Many began working in gender mixed occupations, while experienced the “double day,” working both inside and outside the home. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

“Behind the closed doors at home, prohibited from everything in life, education, training and social life, women are regarded as mindless, like infants; they are confined to the burdens of household work and childbearing and are considered the slaves and servants of their husbands,” wrote Bibi Khanum Astarabadi (1852–1920), an outspoken and prominent Qajar woman. This was not a tradition in Europe, she noted: “This is our Islamic custom.” Similarly, in describing women's absence in public, Seyyed Jamalzadeh, a noted novelist commented: “No women can be seen in this country of men, but strangely, half of the walking population in the streets is wrapped in black bags from head to the toe without even an opening to breathe.” A British orientalist, Clara Rice, observed that “most trades are in the hands of men, such as pottery-making, calico printing, felt-hat making and confectionery. All shops are kept by men. … there is no profession open to women. Art, music and literature may be said to be closed to them. All occupations followed by them [women] call for manual work rather than brainwork.” Yet, these invisible women were capable of action, as in the Constitutional Revolution of 1905–11 when many women gathered in the streets of Tehran took off their veils and shouted: “Long live freedom. … We must … live the way we want!” In the late nineteenth and early twentieth-centuries, Iran was economically backward, politically chaotic, predominantly Shi'i Islam, and a patriarchal society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chapter 3 of the book "Everyday Life: Reform in America, 2005" is presented. It describes student discipline and the status of teachers in New England during the colonial times. It discusses the relationship between education and religion during the period. It highlights educational reforms that have taken place in the U.S. since the early 1800s.

When the Blair government came fresh to power in May 1997 it had primary education as it main aim and a close-knit team ready for both Number 10 and the newly merged Department for Education and Employment. David Blunkett, the secretary of state, had been the only member of the shadow cabinet besides Gordon Brown to have been publicly promised his post prior to the election. Estelle Morris, a member of the education team since 1995, became under-secretary for schools and then school standards minister from 1998 when Stephen Byers was promoted to the Cabinet. Professor Michael Barber, Tony Blair's chief speechwriter on schools in opposition, became Blunkett's main adviser and head of the newly created Standards and Effectiveness Unit (SEU) in the department, charged with changing the culture to accept responsibility for delivery as well as legislation. In Number 10, Tony Blair's chief of staff since 1994, David Miliband, an education expert, became head of the newly formed Policy Unit. Andrew Adonis, don and education journalist, who in an article in the run-up to the 1997 election had urged Blair to become his own education minister, was recruited to be Blair's education adviser. From the outset the new DfEE was a whirl of activity. It restructured and rewrote the mission statement and embarked on an ambitious programme of legislation and monitoring. Within days it was setting targets in literacy and numeracy for primary education. Tony Blair was personally involved, regularly meeting the education team at the DfEE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why did some countries lag so far behind others in finally delivering public subsidies that provided schooling for the entire population? Why did some succumb to the argument that primary and secondary education had to wait for decades and centuries until parents finally had the means and the motive to pay for private education? A striking early example of this lag was spotlighted in Chapter 5. Victorian Britain lagged behind other leading countries in primary and secondary education before closing the gaps after 1891. Yet Britain's lag was brief relative to the lag of a century or more in Third World schooling. Universal schooling is so important to economic growth that the question “Why isn't the whole world developed?” has rightly been tied to the question “Why don't all children complete their primary education?” Chapter 5 placed much of the blame for delaying mass education on powerful elites opposed to schooling the masses at taxpayer expense. Where political voice was restricted to those holding substantial property, poor children got little help from the taxpayers. This chapter tells more of that global story about elites, voice, and schooling. We begin with statistical evidence about the determinants of public primary and secondary schooling. While several forces play roles, the results confirm the central role of democratic voting rights. A second section then adds statistical evidence to support the assumption that democracy causes schooling more than schooling causes democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A chapter from the book "A Statistical Profile of the Teaching Profession" is presented. It tackles which educational, social and economic factors contribute to improved education and learning. Lists showing important data gaps and methodological difficulties that limit the development of a broad statistical profile of the teaching profession are presented. The report illustrates some progress in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries though many gaps remain.

Chapter 6 of the book "Enjoyment and the Activity of Mind: Dialogues on Whitehead and Education" is presented. It explores the process of learning and the role of the teacher in discovering what the students need in order to facilitate it. The character also talks about how intelligence work and the criticism of Alfred North Whitehead on how teaching affects its natural work. It also highlights Whitehead's idea on "general culture," which affects the stages of learning.

This article presents advises teachers to make group presentations about snakes, lizards, turtles, and crocodilians. Describe, demonstrate, and compare several reptile adaptations. Reptiles have some amazing adaptations for staying alive, from sticky toe pads to sticky-tipped tongues. In this activity, the group can investigate some of these adaptations and learn more about what it's like to live like a reptile. Then have the kids think of some things they'd like to find out about these creatures, such as how they move, eat, defend themselves, and reproduce. INSET: REPTILIAN INVESTIGATIONS..

Chapter V of the book "THE VIRGINIAN: A Horseman Of the Plains," by Owen Wister is presented. It cites Mr. Taylor and his problem in educating his children at Bear Creek. It mentions about Miss Mary Stark Wood of Bennington, Vermont, and her wish to see the West and would love to teach. It cites the letter of Molly Stark Wood and the coming of the schoolmarm at Bear Creek.