Educating for Democracy

For my first entry in the Huffington Post, I'd like to address an issue that has been rarely discussed in current public debates concerning problems in the public schools: their role in promoting a democratic society. A fuller account of my views can be found in my article, "Educating for Democracy" in the Winter Jewish Currents, in which I argue that to maintain a healthy democratic society students need to be educated in basic principals of democracy including critical thinking. I believe this should be a central concern for improving our present system of public education. However, when one hears about education in the public realm, "global competition" and "accountability" have become buzz words that crowd out other vital issues. The importance of preparing students to be active participants in a democratic society seems to be a subject conspicuously absent from public discussion; but not in the academic world where it is of great concern.

Joel Westheimer, Professor of Education at the University of Ottawa, in an article on educating for democracy, observed:

. . . The high stakes testing mandated by No Child Left Behind (NCLB) has . . . pushed to the margins education efforts that challenge students to grapple with tough questions about society and the world. In a recent study by the Center on Education Policy, 71 percent of districts reported cutting back time for other subjects -- social studies in particular -- to make more space for reading and math instruction. . . . As historian David McCullough told a U.S. Senate committee . . . , because of NCLB, 'history is being put on the back burner or taken off the stove altogether in many or most schools.' An increasing number of students are getting little to no education about how government works, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the evolution of social movements, and U.S. and world history" (Independent Schools, "No Child Left Thinking," Spring, 2008).

The Founding Fathers believed that in order to prevent a dictatorship from arising in the newly established United States, its citizens would be obliged to inform themselves of the vital issues confronting the country. They would also need the reasoning powers to distinguish truth from lies and thus be able to make rational decisions on what policies to support and whom to vote for. Thomas Jefferson expressed the importance of an informed electorate when he said:

Our liberty cannot be guarded but by the freedom of the press, nor that be limited without danger of losing it.

But in order for the press to have a positive impact on citizens' opinions, the electorate must have the ability to read and think critically.

An informed citizenry needs to balance what is best for its own self-interests with the "greater good": what is best for the health of the country as a whole. Thinking with this perspective stems from a solid, democratically-centered education. But it is not the direction in which public education seems to be moving. We face the danger of a future American citizenry which is no longer equipped to analyze political issues rationally, unaware of what "democracy" even means.

Westheimer has made the distinction among three kinds of citizenship: Personally responsible citizens -- "honest, law-abiding members of the community"; Participatory Citizens -- those who "take leadership positions within established systems and community structures"; and Social Justice-Oriented Citizens, who "question and change established systems and structures when they produce patterns of injustice over time" The critical thinking necessary for citizens to actively promote healthy changes in our society, he insists, are not developed in a test-oriented system; only status quo thinking is emphasized in the short-sighted perspective endorsed by educational leaders like Arne Duncan in which the expansion of charter schools is advocated as a serious remedy for profound pedagogical issues.

The vitriolic political rhetoric evident today is reason to be concerned about the state of American governance. The public is either disgusted or amused by the juvenile behavior of our politicians, but there is little insistence from them that reasoned and civil discourse be restored in the political arena. This should be cause for alarm.

We should be alarmed when so much of the debate over health care reform descends into lies, misinformation, and exaggerated claims most notably from the right.

We should be alarmed that as a result of the cynical political manipulation of a vital issue there has been a rise in the public's skepticism about the severe changes in the earth's climate. This "no nothing" attitude provides the electorate with a rationale to avoid or deny its obligation toward future generations. Where do we see concerned citizens in significant numbers demonstrating or vigorously lobbying their representatives to think and act in the long term rather than the immediate future? These trends of ignorance and avoidance, I believe, will become even more pronounced if our educational system continues to produce a citizenry unskilled in democratic traditions and practices.

While the present emphasis on testing in schools to determine educational excellence crowds out the teaching of the skills of good citizenship, I wonder: how will we be able to sustain our democratic society if the capacity to read carefully and widely, the need to balance self-interest with the common good, and the necessary intellectual curiosity to learn new things that might challenge old beliefs are no longer a vital part of our children's education?

 

Comments

[Steve Weed]

For the sake of full disclosure, I was a graduate student of Joel. I took World Drama with him, and I enjoyed the class very much. One of the things I enjoyed was he would spend the first fifteen minutes of class or so talking about current events and politics, on the national, state, and local level. He was always very good at listening patiently to those who disagreed with his political viewpoint. I thought these discussions were a great way to get people engaged, excited, angry, whatever emotion as we headed into our study of the drama piece for that week, which almost always led back to politics and culture.

It seems to me if we’re going to create an educational system for democracy as described, one that aims to ignite critical thinking, of which I’m in total agreement with you, we almost have to alter the general thinking of the U.S.. The U.S. by nature is not a very self-critical place; intelligence is not celebrated here. During the last presidential election, one of the smears against Obama was that he was an intellectual. How do we get parents, neighborhoods, leaders to see the benefit of critical thinking? Or, to apply critical thinking to their own lives? It seems like that needs to happen first before we can transfer this idea into our educational system. If you happen upon this comment, Joel, I’d be interested in your thoughts.

[JFlyer1]

Education starts at home and unfortunately, most parents teach their children that its more important to receive good grades than actually learn in school. Essentiall, that what they learn is irrelevant as long as they score well on exams. This philosophy continues in college when those students with the highest GPAs and standardized test scores are admitted to the best graduate schools. Some of the best and brightest are left behind because they dont score as well on tests or simply dont know how to play the game (or cheat like many do). In essence, the entire system is a sham. Learning is not the goal of American education rather, outscoring your opponent so one can make $$$ is the goal. Essentially, American education has been turned into a game of numbers. Those who score the most points, win.

[Alan Singer - Huffpost Blogger]

I will recommend this to my education students at Hofstra. Well stated.

[kgdr24]

Why did President Obama appointment Arne Duncan? He has no actual experience as an educator. His ignorance and lack of innovation is evident, as you so rightly pointed out in your articulate post, by his insistence on charter schools as the cure-all for what ails our students. This is not only short-sighted, it is reckless. Charter schools are educational experiments that are not proven to be more successful than public schools. Yet Duncan wants to relax standards regulating them in order to increase their numbers!

He is creating a dual education system that is not sustainable. We know what works- small class sizes, teachers with access to quality professional development, universities with strong teacher and administrator programs, universal pre-k programs, and fully funded community support systems to help struggling families... to name a few.

Duncan pretends to be an innovator, but really, he is just passing the buck by pointing to charter schools and saying, "okay- even though you haven't actually proven to be superior to our existing public education system- you're new- so I'll just call that innovation." How lazy can you be?! Seriously. If this is the best he's got- NCLB is looking like Eistein's Theory of Relativity.

[Joel Shatzky - Huffpost Blogger]

Thanks for the comments kgdr24. If you get the latest issue of the "American Educator" you will see an article by Duncan in which he sounds like a major-league reformer advocating many of the suggestions we make about needing multiple forms of assessment and not relying on high-stakes testing, encouraging best teaching practices and support for new teachers. Then he slips in the importance of "interim assessments" and we're back to high-stakes testing. The sad thing about Duncan is that he thinks he's talking in a progressive way when his policies are actually very destructive of good teaching. If you want to catch my take on his "manifesto," check out my blog in "The Examiner" under "Family Life," with the subheading "Education." There I'm the "New York Public Schools" blogger.

[LMPE]

The right wing doesn't want people to understand democracy. They want people to think that you have to believe in Jesus (along with hating women, gays, non-whites, etc) to get into heaven.

[Joel Shatzky - Huffpost Blogger]

I might agree with you about the right wing, but there are a lot of parents--African-American and Latino as well as White and Asian--who want their children to attend a "safe" school with other students, like their children, who want to learn. As a result, those who aren't "smart enough to pick the right parents" end up without any peer models who want to learn as examples for themselves to follow. It's a very difficult situation but needs far more complex solutions and neither Obama nor Duncan nor any other prominent political leader has the courage or the political capital to do it: end poverty.