the most frequently told story about ed-tech

October 20, 2022 12:02 PM

But the school bell has a different, more complicated history than the "factory model" story. From Audrey Watters (whose work, including at Hack Education, is pure awesomeness): "Listen up. The school bell is not a technology adopted to train students to become factory workers, ok? Or alternately, keep it up, and I'll just keep writing these essays about the history of school technologies and screaming into the void."

Previously on Audrey Watters.

posted by spamandkimchi (42 comments total)

It's good to see someone call out Gatto's bullshit for what it is.
posted by NoxAeternum at 12:10 PM on October 20, 2022 [3 favorites]

There has to be a name for the logical fallacy that, if X was introduced by Y for Z reasons, it must be accomplishing Y's goals, no matter how long it's been. Like, even if it were true that the school bell was introduced to train children to be factory workers, that's not particularly good evidence on its own that it ever worked, or that it's having a negative impact on kids now.

The actual history is pretty interesting though!
posted by BungaDunga at 12:36 PM on October 20, 2022 [8 favorites]

We homeschooled our kids in the previous century/decade and the school bell thing was just accepted truth across all of us - from dominionist Christians to hippie unschooleers.
posted by COD at 1:06 PM on October 20, 2022 [1 favorite]

What a great article, and what a great writer!

I especially liked the quote from Dewey:

The question [Wirt] tried to answer was this: What did the Gary children need to make them good citizens and happy and prosperous human beings, and how could the money available for educational purposes supply all these needs?

If only that were the foremost question in the minds of all school boards everywhere.

I really like Watters' current blog, too, especially the series of Good Things.

I'm very glad to be introduced to Watters' work and to this great, multifaceted, well-sourced history of the school bell. Thank you so much for posting this, spamandkimchi!
posted by kristi at 1:15 PM on October 20, 2022 [6 favorites]

Although companies like the Standard Electric Time Company (founded in Massachusetts in 1884) sold synchronized clock and bell systems to schools (and yes, factories), an early function of the latter was not to mimic the rhythm of the workplace but rather to warn occupants about fire.

As near as I can tell she doesn’t mention this, and perhaps she just takes it for granted, but I seem to remember at least one novel set in rural 19th Century America where the teacher used the bell to summon help from the community when the school itself caught on fire.
posted by jamjam at 1:28 PM on October 20, 2022 [4 favorites]

Whenever I think of old-timey school houses, in my imagination it's the kind that is modeled after a small church, with a little bell-tower. I was going to suggest that churches were the original time-keepers, but now that I think about it I'm fairly certain that in an agrarian society, the rising of the sun was the time you could start most of your work. Either way, I figured the bell was a hold-over from churches, not a device introduced by the transition to an industrial society.
posted by nushustu at 2:19 PM on October 20, 2022 [10 favorites]

I always thought that bells had a practical purpose in schools. Classroom clocks are never on the same time. It was helpful to have an auditory cure for both of the following situations:

- "Please teacher, we need to leave now to go to our next class or we will be late and that will make that teacher mad."

-"Student, you arrived after the bell. You are late."
posted by oceano at 2:42 PM on October 20, 2022 [9 favorites]

Audrey Watters' Teaching Machines is an excellent history of ed tech - she's one of the essential critical voices in this overinflated space.
posted by Paragon at 3:14 PM on October 20, 2022

If this floats your boat you may want to subscribe to OLDaily (Stephen Downes). Frequent mentions of Watters, I see something of interest just about every week.
posted by elkevelvet at 3:17 PM on October 20, 2022

My takeaway is that it's not that they were purposefully training the children to be factory workers, but that they were purposefully making the school more factory-like in order to make them less expensive.

I mean children have never needed special training to be useful in factories, either during or after childhood.
posted by bleep at 3:21 PM on October 20, 2022 [11 favorites]

It's always nice to see Gary's historical significance in education recognized!

But overall this article has a bit of a distinction-without-a-difference vibe. Once we're talking about educational Taylorism, the question of whether that was intended to train children to function within a regimented industrial system, or was instead intended to turn schools into regimented industrial systems that children incidentally have to learn to function inside of, doesn't seem terribly interesting.

I would have been interested to learn more about the range of functions that school bells played in rural and urban educational contexts in the 80 years between Mann and Wirt. Surely it can't have only been about firefighting?
posted by Not A Thing at 3:59 PM on October 20, 2022 [14 favorites]

Is it from boxing, then ? Dog racing ?

OK I'll just check the article.
posted by NoThisIsPatrick at 5:49 PM on October 20, 2022 [1 favorite]

"Bells sent messages beyond schedule-related announcements. For example, hand bells like the one used for the sound recording at the beginning of this post and the one featured in the Many Voices, One Nation exhibition include a handle in the shape of a bald eagle. The American eagle is one of our national symbols found in classrooms and during the Progressive Era to instill patriotism and further cultural assimilation. Included in the Dr. Richard Lodish American School collection are bells with unique features unlike the many simpler designs found in the late-19th- and early-20th-century teachers’ catalogs pictured above"
posted by clavdivs at 5:59 PM on October 20, 2022

Bells also serve in a security/customer arrival capacity even today.
posted by clavdivs at 6:18 PM on October 20, 2022

"The bell doesn't dismiss you; I do!" bellows your worst teacher.
posted by Blue Jello Elf at 7:59 PM on October 20, 2022 [14 favorites]

Saved by the Bell
posted by clavdivs at 8:21 PM on October 20, 2022 [2 favorites]

Uh, "well, duh!"
posted by porpoise at 8:39 PM on October 20, 2022

Classroom clocks are never on the same time.

One of the nice things about the old clocks that kept time with synchronous AC motors is that they were physically incapable of drifting relative to one another. They might drift because of variations in the power line frequency, but they'd all do it together.

And back when I was still in school the power company would intentionally increase or decrease the frequency as necessary during low demand times to bring clocks back into sync with the actual time if some event on the grid had caused the frequency to get too fast or slow for part of the day. They intended to have exactly 5,184,000 cycles per day and made damn sure they did, even if they weren't evenly spaced throughout the day.

It was actually a regulatory requirement until relatively recently. They have since been relieved of the burden of providing what amounts to a (passable, but not great) timekeeping service and are just required to keep the frequency within a certain tolerance irrespective of past performance.

The phone company would also sell you a timekeeping service there for a while, as once they migrated from plain analog trunks to time division multiplexing they had to keep all the offices on the same time base to keep the trunks from getting desynchronized. Now everyone just uses GPS or something derived from GPS, for better or worse.
posted by wierdo at 9:05 PM on October 20, 2022 [24 favorites]

It's a bit surprising to see Watters nowhere really getting to E.P. Thompson in a discussion about time and time-discipline. Who would have said, I think, look: it's true that outward forms of discipline like bells and periods in schools weren't designed as industrial-factory preparation (apart from any other reason, because a struggle about the measurement of time long predates mass production). What clocks, and bells, and monitorial systems have in common is that they stress one kind of work-rhythm, which is regular and can be measured, and of course, paid or rewarded; as opposed to the very different one in which workers/students have a task and manage their own time and energy towards it.

The work pattern was one of alternate bouts of intense labour and of idleness, wherever men were in control of their own working lives. (The pattern persists among some self-employed - artists, writers, small farmers, and perhaps also with students - today, and provokes the question whether it is not a "natural" human work-rhythm.)

posted by Fiasco da Gama at 9:13 PM on October 20, 2022 [11 favorites]

One of the nice things about the old clocks that kept time with synchronous AC motors is that they were physically incapable of drifting relative to one another. They might drift because of variations in the power line frequency, but they'd all do it together.

And back when I was still in school the power company would intentionally increase or decrease the frequency as necessary during low demand times to bring clocks back into sync with the actual time if some event on the grid had caused the frequency to get too fast or slow for part of the day. They intended to have exactly 5,184,000 cycles per day and made damn sure they did, even if they weren't evenly spaced throughout the day.

A ha! In the 80s my elementary clocks would regularly delight students (and probably annoy teachers) when the hands would start moving erratically. I can't remember if it happened at the same time every day, but I definitely remember this. Thanks for the memory. :)
posted by Literaryhero at 11:48 PM on October 20, 2022 [8 favorites]

Grid frequency control is absolutely still a thing.
posted by flabdablet at 12:14 AM on October 21, 2022

I just pavlov the sound of bells, don't you?
posted by fairmettle at 12:16 AM on October 21, 2022 [2 favorites]

One of the nice things about the old clocks that kept time with synchronous AC motors is that they were physically incapable of drifting relative to one another. They might drift because of variations in the power line frequency, but they'd all do it together.

Or they might drift because over the summer the clock in the library was disconnected and when it came time to put it back the painters just reset the hands to their watch.

I can only assume this happened a lot at my school because as synchronized as those clocks were, none of them ever had the the same time. We had to rely on the bells.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 5:17 AM on October 21, 2022 [1 favorite]

WWV Simulator. Dad had been an Air Force radio operator, had a world band big radio. Set my watch by this every couple of days. Fixed those out of sync clocks. Not surprisingly.... many years later at $WORK, I'm the GPS/NTP Timelord, keep your hands off my clocks.
posted by zengargoyle at 5:33 AM on October 21, 2022

My kids school has this weak electronic ding bell thing that you can barely hear on the playground, so we have convinced the elementary school teachers to hook up a phone to the soundsystem and play the opening to ACDC's Hells Bells so kids can hear a bell and a traditional bell instead of that weak Windows error bell they have.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:20 AM on October 21, 2022 [4 favorites]

I spent 8 months in an American school when I was 17.

It was a HUGE school with thousands of students. At some point, someone had apparently decided that bells were too authoritarian, so they used to play music over the intercom system to signal that it was time to go to your next class.

Whoever was responsible had clearly lost interest because instead of a selection of interesting music, they always played Ella Fitzgerald's "Melancholy Baby". And every now and then, for that surreal vibe Billy Holiday's "Strange Fruit".
posted by Zumbador at 9:29 AM on October 21, 2022 [6 favorites]

Old clocks in schools, train stations, etc., have a synchronizer circuit -- it varies, but one I have has a wire where when voltage is put to it (activated by the master clock), the clock will roll the minute hand forward until it's pointing right at the 9. So, if it's fast (8:51) just the minute hand will roll all the way around the clock to 8:45; if it's slow (8:35) it will advance 10 minutes. This keeps the clocks in sync, by making sure the master is correct which automatically updates the rest, rather than relying on the AC frequency.
posted by AzraelBrown at 9:34 AM on October 21, 2022 [1 favorite]

Having been raised on a dairy in a small farming and industrial town, any sort of order and structure in my life was a godsend. School bells provided that.

There was also a town horn that blew on weekdays at 8:30, 12:00, 1:00 and 5:30. These were basic signals for businesses and industry that, "work begins, lunch begins, lunch ends, work ends"
I always found this cool as the whole town could hear it and, looking back, see how it was a means that recognized a community.

Back to that structure and order thing.

The loss of that horn contributed to the community drift and splintering that began in the 1980's
posted by goalyeehah at 9:42 AM on October 21, 2022 [6 favorites]

How is playing “Strange Fruit” to a school full of high schoolers uninteresting?! Sounds like someone was doing what they could to make a subtle statement about racism?
posted by eviemath at 9:44 AM on October 21, 2022 [3 favorites]

I went to a Catholic college where bells rang for the hours and quarters. I always forgot to pay attention to how many times it tolled (is that the deep tone counting the hours?) so anytime between 6 and noon I had to locate a watch or clock to find out what time it really was, besides knowing it was "on the hour."

In high school my band teacher almost always took us over time during 2nd hour. Eventually our 3rd hour teacher was used to everyone from band being a couple of minutes late. At least once a week we were let out so late that an announcement was made to the whole 1600 person school, "Mr. C's 2nd hour band class was let out late, please do not count those students tardy for 3rd hour." I think the other teachers hated him. Certainly he would not be welcome keeping time at an amazon warehouse.
posted by Emmy Rae at 9:55 AM on October 21, 2022 [2 favorites]

Many years ago on Fark, I recall this article about a senior at a California high school who successfully lobbied to get the bell replaced by Foghat’s Slow Ride.
posted by dr_dank at 10:05 AM on October 21, 2022 [3 favorites]

I think I'll run for city council on a "town horn" platform to make real change in my community.
posted by Emmy Rae at 10:08 AM on October 21, 2022

Old clocks in schools, train stations, etc., have a synchronizer circuit -- it varies, but one I have has a wire where when voltage is put to it (activated by the master clock), the clock will roll the minute hand forward until it's pointing right at the 9. So, if it's fast (8:51) just the minute hand will roll all the way around the clock to 8:45;

I didn't know that. I always assumed synchronized clocks worked by being on a dedicated AC circuit where the frequency could be manipulated to change all the clocks at once. But that would require any non-trivial change to either take days or require incredibly high frequency AC to be produced.

It's probable the clocks in my school were just non-syncronized AC clocks.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 10:32 AM on October 21, 2022 [1 favorite]

How is playing “Strange Fruit” to a school full of high schoolers uninteresting?! Sounds like someone was doing what they could to make a subtle statement about racism?

Clumsy phrasing on my part. I meant that hearing "melancholy baby" like clockwork every 45 minutes, all day long, 5 days a week was not an interesting selection of music, and that the rare and random appearance of "strange fruit" was surreal.
posted by Zumbador at 10:34 AM on October 21, 2022 [1 favorite]

I had always thought the bell had its origin on sugar plantations --the original capitalist factories.

But also in churches--I know our catholic church has a bell to ring out the hour and even half hour.

However, I had originally heard this from Black groups organizing to save town bells, like in Africatown, as the bells had also come to indicate revolts, uprisings, and later on, to commemorate many community achievements.

At least for Africatown, the bell is a performative tool for building the community, and has been such since the 1930's.

But then, in schools, we're talking about a whole different kind of bell, like the article says, an automated alarm system, which has a different history.
posted by eustatic at 11:51 AM on October 21, 2022

I have learned so much from her.
posted by elmono at 12:46 PM on October 21, 2022

There was also a town horn that blew on weekdays at 8:30, 12:00, 1:00 and 5:30.

I had completely forgotten about the noon whistle in the village where I grew up. You could just barely hear it in the school on the outskirts of town. But I lived across the street from it, so there was no sleeping all day in the summer.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 1:09 PM on October 21, 2022

At some point, someone had apparently decided that bells were too authoritarian, so they used to play music over the intercom system

Pre-bell music has been pretty much standard in Australian primary schools for maybe 50 years at this point, and sometimes the resulting lack of attention to what's chosen yields disturbing results.

I live across the street from a primary school and I was sure somebody would work out how howlingly inappropriate this selection was within a day, or at most two, but they'd played it three times a day for a week by the time I walked over there and encouraged the principal to pay attention to the lyrics.

That guy has moved on now and the present administration's musical choices have all been innocuous.
posted by flabdablet at 1:24 PM on October 21, 2022 [1 favorite]

Also our school bell is an ex ship's bell atop a steel tower out in the grounds, rung with a pull rope. It's far less jarring than the hideous electronic noises that got used all the way through my own school career, so much so that I'm not annoyed even when it gets rung in the middle of the night by inebriated teens with nothing better to do.
posted by flabdablet at 1:29 PM on October 21, 2022

John Taylor Gatto is a sharp and perceptive writer who falls into his own froth, believing that schools were engineered malevolent industrialists to manipulate children into being passive and unquestioning. And people still say shit like that: “school is designed to make you into sheep because they want you to be that way.”

I’ve been working in schools for 16 years. They are not designed. You can’t make an initiative land and sustain anywhere. Schools are big inertial masses that are impervious to ideas and influence. The belief that “they” can not only change schools but also change them in a way that is devastatingly effective on students is so ridiculous I don’t know where to start.

It’s just the laziest, dumbest thinking any smart person can fall into.
posted by argybarg at 7:36 PM on October 21, 2022 [7 favorites]

I was just remembering that in the school I graduated from, there was an extra bell that rang just in the gym wing, 10 minutes before the end of every period, so you'd know when to head to the locker room. Saved the PE teachers from having to watch the clock.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 12:04 PM on October 22, 2022

Schools are absolutely intended to socialize kids into acceptable behaviors. The idea that schools are ideology free is bizarre.
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 5:42 PM on October 22, 2022 [1 favorite]