My research linked to my course

How does what I’ve learned about social utopias, past and present, influence my interpretation of the sources in my seminar paper

 

It is a really wide question. Focusing on my source, I have saw a lot of Utopias thinking  from our course.

  1. From the Iron Council, the government tried to block the information about the war to the resident in the New Crobuzoner . Though may sound kind different, I have the same feeling of what Owen had down which only provided useful for society knowledge his education plan.

2. In the Utopia, More built an isolated community and that was what happened in new lanark and new harmony. There were isolated community in the outside and inside the community residents had to follow specific rules such as Owen’s regulation toward to inspiring people’s productive.

 

3. In Utopia, the residents are nice and well educated: that would be one of the reason why they can actually run such efficient political structure. In new lanark and new harmony, Owen really hoped to achieve in that way and he decided to focus on the education revolution because majority the first generation from this communities had the bad influence from the old society. So that would be the reason why owen set up the re-character school to regulate the children behaviors.

Importance and personal learning from research?

“Why should anyone care about what I have learned from this research? What makes my findings at all interesting or relevant to this class or to my life as a UR student?”

Because my topic is about education in new Lanark and new harmony.  Before I did my research  of 19 century British education situation for the background information of my  final paper. before the research, i just thought that Owen’s experiment was kind of weird because he tried to teach kids character education which I felt It is kind of like brain washing in 1984. However, after the research, I just realized that It was a really profound way. Under that circumstance, It is totally different comparing our society which parents had higher education and can teach children the right and wrong. In 19 century,  poor were under really bad situation, they did not have the enough resource and their kids had to work for supporting their family.  So with the contrasting of British society, Owen’s Innovation in education is much more advance comparing others and it is the foundation of his ideal society and utopia thinking.

 

From this research, I learnt that I can not just judge others’ theory without looking the historical background. Though some may sound weird from our point of view but from that time period it would be much more advance.

 

Utopia problems and thinking in my research

How does my research address the problem(s) of utopia? What connections could I make with More’s Utopia in my seminar paper?

My seminar paper is focusing on the new education method Owen developed for his ideal society. In his entire life, he was focusing on building his ideal society and education was really important part of his planning.  For education, he decided to change the old British education style for fitting his new Utopian idea and developed his educational theory inside of New harmony and New Lanark.

From my research, It is totally difference between the new Harmony and New Lanark comparing the British public education. The Children got better chance of education and better care inside of the new Harmony and New Lanark. They followed Owen’s character education and influenced by his education idea that surrounding in better environment like school, children especially in lower classes would develop better positive characters for the society  than their parent’s negative effect.  Meanwhile in British, children in the lower class were under terrible situation.  From the book of Owen as educator, It said that they could only hope to become apprentices or servants; It was assumed that education would be time and economic wasting if poor were destined for a lifetime long labors in factories for example, which needed no education for such a career.

So I think the education innovation Owen did in the New harmony and New lanark would be a good reflection on his Utopian thinking–which means focusing more on the development of next generation

 

How do I organized my research

“What are the hierarchies of information in my research. Other than chronologically, how can I organize your research and its claims in a logical way?”

For my research paper, I have multi-resources for my final paper. Majorly my resource is about the contribution of Owen toward to education from beginning of his career to New harmony and La nark. To organize my resources from  research, I decided to just follow the logical way to fit in my paper.

 

In my paper, in the beginning the intro part, I will first introduce the life and career of Owen as a social reformist. In that way I can use the information of Owen’s  life and part of the essay from his bibliography. Then I will illustrate Owen’s education philosophy so the information in my research is from secondary resource book about his major ideas toward new harmony and Lanark.

After introducing his philosophy of education, i definitely need to have some examples to prove my point. So I will introduce the schools system in new lanark and Harmony.  Of course those information is from my secondary resource book and I will tell all the detail inside of my paper.

it is just like that. Though in some part of the research we got lots of information and data, the way we use those information and data need to follow the main arguing ideas for each paragraph in the paper. It is different and kind hard comparing just following the chronological way to rank the information. Ranking the value of information by fitting to the main argument in the paper would be a really good way to start both research and information collection.

 

 

 

How do I come out my research question

How did this week’s research help me come to my final research question?

From the time I read the primary resource, I have strong interest in the education function that Owen using in his new community. As a finding father of kindergarten, Owen’s thinking is provocative and profound in his generation and has lots of influence to the later utopia’s project. So i decided to research about Owen’s education in his new Harmony and new Lanark in the primary resource.

With the help Liberian, I found out actually a really useful primary resource about Owen’s self -bibliography:  The Life of Robert Owen, written by himself, with selections from his writings and correspondence.  In this bibliography illustrated the way how Owen organized his school and set up his career rules. It provided really useful first hand information to my topic: how he came out of those ideas and how those ideas contribute to his ideal society. But it is only from Owen’s side. Then i found out my another secondary resource about comparison between the new Harmony and lanark.  it draw conclusion about how Owen’s new world thinking fall from different ways in society or Education. I think i am going to quoting it in my paper to be one of the argue point. Also in this secondary resource, it also talks about how Owen influenced future Utopia thinker like karl Marx. So from those resources I searched, I decided to write my paper: How did Owen’s new community’s education reflect utopia thinking.

Why I choose Owen as my research

What do I find interesting or curious about this group of people? What more do I need to know to situate this community in the problem or concept of utopia?

The Owen and his new world.

From the reading about Robert Owen and his new Harmony, It is really interesting to see some of his successful or even provocative ideas toward to the education and management ways. When Owen was running for the factory in British, he realized that early education toward to the infants to 6 years old kids would be really important for their future development. Thus, He decided to provide the early education institutions that working class parents could only pay the little bit of money to give their kids to the institution. The infants school also contributes Owen’s idea of replacing negative family influence with a positive environment for instilling desired value and fashioning superior value. ( Pitzer 94). His idea of education also showed up in his future school designing: He wanted textbook using sparingly and his students learned everything by doing. His idea is much more advance comparing with his peer in that ages. I think why Owen was so concentrating on education because he believed that the old world thinking can not fit the new Utopia world’s philosophy. The only way to change people’s mind is to develop a new generation that has the new idea and thinking for the new world–It is probably the reason why he wanted negative family affections out of early education. Though his idea is great and comparing with the idea of other utopias thinkers, Owen’s education is easier and more reachable, the only issue is that he did not have enough time for his new harmony to develop the new generation.