Do You Agree with the Following Statements

Do you agree with the following statements Agree Uncer Disagree Comment tain It is important for all students (university as well as K-12) to learn what democxracy is and how citizens in a democracy should act.

What citizens need to know about democracy can be learned by reading books, watching videos, discussing and listening to lectures. It is mainly about literacy and concepts.

What citizens need to know about democracy can be learned by action and experience. It is mainly about skills.

It is hard to teach democracy because nobody agrees what it is. Unlike teaching other topics, the teaching of democracy presents a special problem because of the wide parameters of what is meant by democracy. p. 1

Schools are undemocratic. The teacher-student relationship is a not a democratic relationship. Let us take a look at the omnipresent classroom structure in the American school system. … there is almost no democracy to be found in the entire educational enterprise. The system is almost completely autocratic. With rare exceptions: (1) administration is top-down; (2) the curriculum is tightly controlled; and (3) the teacher is the dictatorial purveyor of orthodox, politically neutral, and/or correct information in the classroom. Moreover, as the social and economic systems continue to unravel, public school teachers find themselves being placed into the role of policemen, desperately trying to discipline their wards. … Indeed the preeminent purpose of public school education is technical – to teach the three Rs and to discipline and regiment the minds of those who will toil in the factories, fields, and service industries, serve as enlisted personnel in the military and choose contentedly among a narrow range of options prepared by political and economic elites. p. 11

True education is revolutionary. It should help learners become critical of dominant power systems and accepted ways of thinking. Education is never politically neutral but disseminates the values of the dominant institutions and reinforces the socioeconomic distinctions within society. Therefore for members of groups with less income and political power, education is often …a “pedagogy of oppression. p. 15 It should aid in the formation of critical consciousness, which is an awareness of the way dominant socioeconomic systems and processes affect people, especially the poor and the working class, in their every day lives.

It is harder to be a democratic teacher than an authoritarian teacher. Democratic teachers face the real problem of dealing with the use of their own authority within elite institutions of a plutocratic system in transmitting democratic analysis and values to the student body. How can they force a democratic ideology on the students? How can they impose an evaluation system on the students? How far can professors go in allowing students sufficient independence of thought and imagination without stepping in to curtail them? So the making of problems is clearly not enough. The democratic teacher must also help to resolve them.

Learning democracy in a democratic setting is frustrating and even unlikely. It may not be “practical” since other classes and infact most of life is undemocratic. When students experience firsthand the few joys and multiple frustrations of dealing with direct democracy in a classroom or in an off-campus organizational setting, they learn a great deal about how hard it is to listen, to communicate, to deal with their feelings, to collaborate with those they dislike and so forth. In addition there is almost no outside support for what they are undertaking, yet plenty of cynicism and negative reactions, and what’s more, once the experiment is completed and the student leaves it behind, it scarcely remains more than a ripple in the mainstream of their studies. They then leave the university and take their places in the hierarchical, patriarchal structures of the business or governmental real world. p. 21,22 Becker, Theodore L. and Richard A. Couto. 1996. Introduction. Teaching Democracy by Being Democratic

I. DIRECT AND INDIRECT DEMOCRACY

Unlike teaching other topics, the teaching of democracy presents a special problem because of the wide parameters of what is meant by democracy. p. 1

A. Difference Between

1) Direct Democracy

2) Indirect Democracy /Representative Democracy/ Republic

B. Representative Democracy Evaluated

1) Criticisms Citizens give up freedom of self-rule to others Self-rule can’t be delegated to others nonrepresentativeness: elite, wealthy dominated

2) Most contemporary democratic theorists disagree

The claim that there is no conceivable way that the citizens of huge, modern nation-states could possibly take the time and effort necessary to establish laws. p. 2

Also, even elite representatives can pass laws in the interest of the majority of people

3) Indirect Democracy is dominant type. It includes some “vestiges” of direct democracy

Referenda and initiative processes Town meetings Juries Community organizations/voluntary associations (ala Tocqueville)

II. TEACHING POLITICS TO THE YOUNG

A. Totalitarian Dictatorships do a good job Why is it easier for them?

They realize that the right political lessons keep citizens in check, teach them to bow and scrape, and permit the rulers to rule with minimal resistance and maximum deference. They are extremely systematic in their passion to inculcate the values of their system to the young, routinely develop0ing highly organized programs of overt indoctrination. p. 4

B Harder for Democracies. and Republics

More authentic democratic political systems have entirely different educational missions since their philosophies embrace such ideas and ideals as free thought, free speech, and the importance of individualism…. Personal responsibility for civic matters is emphasized, as is the right – if not the duty - to dissent. This holds equally as true in representative democracies as it doe3s indirect democratic systems. Implicitly teaching democracy also entails encouraging students to question authority including the teacher’s and to dissent appropriately, that is, as a citizen of the classroom. p. 4

III. TEACHING DEMOCRACY in the past

A. Preliterate Times

B. Ancient times Socrates The dialogue between teacher and students invites students to question assumptions – including those about authority – and to then deal with the flaws in these assumptions, their own thought processes, as well as the inadequacies of their views of reality…. The primary safeguard of democracy resides in the ability of citizens to question and to dissent from authority. p. 6 C. Early and modern republican times

1. Early Enlightenment Republics (Britain & U.S.)

The educational system in these newly minted representative democracies was largely, if not exclusively, the province of the economic elites – which made them ipso facto, the ruling class. Under the theory of early representative democratic governments, only they were mentally and morally fit to captain the ship of state anyway. p. 8

2. After Industrial Revolution

a. Liberal Tradition in American Education

A tradition that provided much more access to formal education, but that also emphasized social, political and economic functions divided and organized by race, gender and class. Being a state-run system in a free-enterprise economy, it promoted such values as individualism, materialism, and competition while also inculcating personal deference to authority figures like parents, teachers, business owners, and the government.

b. Some Liberal Educators: The Progressive Education Tradition

The importance of education was less related to molding workers for the next stage of the Industrial Revolution than it was to preparing individual people to work together for a more significant and meaningful role in cultural development and self governance…Publicly supported education would lead to a more dynamic society and to more creative grass-roots politics, with the bottom-up surge blossoming into a more prosperous and just society.

IV. TEACHING DEMOCRACY: present

A. Current Democratic Educational Practice Let us take a look at the omnipresent classroom structure in the American school system. At the elementary school level, there is almost no democracy to be found in the entire educational enterprise. The system is almost completely autocratic. With rare exceptions: (1) administration is top-down; (2) the curriculum is tightly controlled; and (3) the teacher is the dictatorial purveyor of orthodox, politically neutral, and/or correct information in the classroom. Moreover, as the social and economic systems continue to unravel, public school teachers find themselves being placed into the role of policemen, desperately trying to discipline their wards. …

Indeed the preeminent purpose of public school education is technical – to teach the three Rs and to discipline and regiment the minds of those who will toil in the factories, fields, and service industries, serve as enlisted personnel in the military and choose contentedly among a narrow range of options prepared by political and economic elites. p. 11

The content of political education …strongly reinforces the ideology of the value of control by a democratic elite. p.12

The content of education concerning the process of modern government also teaches passivity…The emphasis in almost all civics courses taught in modern –day America is on the process of elections and legislation. This puts the average students in their proper places, that is, as voters and as spectators of the game established political actors play. Almost nothing is ever presented to American students to encourage them to participate more directly …p. 12

B. Critique of Current Educational Practice V. NEW PRACTICES OF DEMOCRATIC TEACHING

A. Popular Education

Broadly encompasses the education of people without ordinary access to elite dominated educational institutions and for the purpose of social change.

Examples: Citizenship School s of the Highlander Folk School Paulo Freire, Theorist of Popular Education, Adult Literacy programs

1. Education is Never Politically Neutral

Education is never politically neutral but disseminates the values of the dominant institutions and reinforces the socioeconomic distinctions within society. Therefore for members of groups with less income and political power, education is often …a “pedagogy of oppression. p. 15

2. Pedagogy of the oppressed: education should be empowering

It should aid in the formation of critical consciousness, which is an awareness of the way dominant socioeconomic systems and processes affect people, especially the poor and the working class, in their every day lives.

3. Education must provide Practical Tools

Education must provide the instruments to escape the doldrums and the dungeons.

B. Participatory Research

Participatory research …assumes that ordinary people have ability as well as needs. …. Most individuals have sufficient talent and intelligence to do some kind of research related to solving their problems, albeit with some expert assistance. …There are several …distinguishing features of participatory research… . The people affected by the problem set the agenda . The goal is power or social change . The people affected by the problem control the process of problem definition, information gathering, and how to implement decisions and . The people affected and those who help them are equal opportunity learners in how to deal with the problem.

C. Experiential Education

VI. INSTITUTIONALIZING DEMOCFRATIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA

A. Starting Points

1. Reports on the problem

2. Campus Compact

3. COOL and Highlander

D. Particular Authors/Practitioners

1. Harry Boyte

2. Ben Barber

3. Integrating Theory: John Dewey

4. Paolo Friere

VI. DEMOCRATIC EXPERIENTIAL TEACHING IN MODERN AMERICAN: HOW CAN IT WORK?

A. The problem of practicing pure democracy at American University level Those who preach more democracy in modern-day American classrooms and who favor democratic experiential education…. want students to practice the values of pure democracy in real life, regardless of whether it is within a government agency, the office of some political leader, or under the auspices of some established United Way organizational Obviously these places are at least in part undemocratic, if not overtly antidemocratic. How can democratic teachers deal honestly with such agencies? p. 20

B. Classroom Ironies

Democratic teachers face the real problem o dealing with the use of their own authority within elite institutions of a plutocratic system in transmitting democratic analysis and values to the student body. How can they force a democratic ideology on the students? How can they impose an evaluation system on the students? How far can professors go in allowing students sufficient independence of thought and imagination without stepping in to curtail them? So the making of problems is clearly not enough. The democratic teacher must also help to resolve them.

classroom ironies

B. Importance of Reflection upon the paradoxes, challenges

Kolb’s Learning Cycle: The Rosetta Stone of experiential education.

The key however is that the cycle of experiential education and democratic practice are lifelong and not limited to school or school-aged persons.

This shift in power and responsibility for reflecting on experience over a lifetime may be a key lesson for the bearer of the educational burden, the teacher, to learn. p. 20

C. The Practice of Democratic Experiential Education in Modern America

1. How little impact a teacher has, especially a democratic teacher Any teacher who had had much experience with the democratic teaching enterprise comes to understand that the nature of the process amounts to very little in immediate transformation. When students experience firsthand the few joys and multiple frustrations of dealing with direct democracy in a classroom or in an off-campus organizational setting, they learn a great deal about how hard it is to listen, to communicate, to deal with their feelings, to collaborate with those they dislike and so forth. In addition there is almost no outside support for what they are undertaking, yet plenty of cynicism and negative reactions, and what’s more, once the experiment is completed and the student leaves it behind, it scarcely remains more than a ripple in the mainstream of their studies. They then leave the university and take their p0-laces in the hierarchical, patriarchal structures of the business or governmental real world. p. 21,22

2, If so, why do it?

If the aim is to change the world, the arrow will fall far from the bull’s-eye. So unless the democratic teacher lives in a super utopian world, or is at heart, masochistic, other pedagogical and political goals are involved.

a) Recall history of people who struggled against impossible odds. Why did they do it? Was it worth it? They were part of a movement …toward “improved American democracy”

b) What will be gained?

There will be scant visible change in the system. So what will be gained? The life of the imagination – that is what is gained. p. 22