Democracy

I wonder, beyond the requisite “doing well” goal that seems to match every class, how to best quantify what I want out of this course. Besides performing to the best of my ability, I want to be challenged. I want my viewpoints to be altered with new knowledge and I want to be able to take what I learn in this course to further classes and my classroom in the future. For a relatively abstract idea (democracy), I want it to become self-evident and for it to be cemented into my mind. Democracy seems uneven in the classroom and one of my goals is to be able to more readily observe it.

To that end, I would like to see democratic activities within the classroom. Since it occurs to me that I have difficulty, particularly in relation to college classes, relating democracy to the classroom, examples would be helpful. With the creation of groups, one can clearly see the power dynamic and how democracy should work. In a group where everyone does his or her part, the work progresses better than simply the sum of its parts. In classes where group work assigned has everyone participating to the best of his or her ability, things turn out wonderfully. I would like to see that happen again, where everyone pulls his or her own weight and turns an assignment into an art form.

Yet as I consider this, I also consider the reading due for this week. It seems as though the book mentioned the history of schools and democracy within without revealing all the evidence for why democracy is necessary. Yes, schools taught students to be patriotic in the past and people who worked to improve schools thought schools should be used to create better citizens. The questions linger, however: why? How? How does school transform students into better citizens? What activities lead this to happen? Why is it schools, among other venues, that culminate in better citizens as opposed to say, churches or community events? What is it about a class that better lends itself to democracy?

For the most part, it does not appear as though classrooms always facilitate independent thought. Teachers ‘teach’ to the test and evaluations are at a premium, with tension weighing heavily upon students and teachers to perform. In school, one does a teacher has instructed one to do. Yet in a democracy, teachers should listen to their students and accept feedback. How often does this really happen? Does democracy still exist within the classroom? If so, where?

(I open the floor for discussion).