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essay on democracy and education
democracy and education essay
democracy and education essay
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Democratic Classrooms Are Beneficial To Learning It is time for education to turn from conventional-authoritarian to modern-democratic approach inside classrooms. As authors John Holt and Kristan A. Morrison argue, traditional classrooms are restrictive, authoritarian, coercive, and manipulative and leave no opportunity for students to express and involve in their own education and learning experience. On the other hand, democratic classrooms arguments stand for students having the freedom of choice in what, when, how and where to study. Classrooms need to become more democratic, open and inclusive to participation because students’ engagement in class leads them to learn in a more meaningful, active and beneficial way. Conventional …show more content…
Compared to traditional classrooms, Morrison argues that democratic classrooms “have no infantilizing effect; instead, they place great trust in students” by giving them the freedom to choose, to express and to participate in the classroom (80). Democratic classrooms promote important qualities in students that traditional classrooms do not. Morrison argues that students become more “mature, self-disciplined, and intrinsically motivated, seeing the value of learning above and beyond its usefulness to getting a ‘good job’ done.“ (as cited in Bhave, 1996;Labaree 1997). Therefore, democratic education does not only foster maturity, self-confidence and independence but also “promises much more meaningful learning”(Morrison 80) and “better quality of work” (as cited in Watson, 1970) by letting students have the choice and freedom to study what is interesting for them hence becoming active participants in the learning …show more content…
Schools should become our motor of driving our society to democracy and it starts in the teaching methods inside our classrooms. As Morrison writes in one of her first sentences in her essay: “Schools and societies are reflections of one another” (79), if we wish to see a change in our society it should all start by how people are educated. By students engaging in their process of learning, our schools would be creating autonomous, independent, self-confident students and future adults and leaders with a strong sense of direction, critical thinking and respect for the opinions of others, and that openness and inclusiveness is what our society is needing in this day and
Dewey, John (2012-05-12). Democracy and Education: an introduction to the philosophy of education . . Kindle Edition.
In Democracy and Education, John Dewey, described as the father of experience-derived education, gave his opinion of how democracy and education should interact in order to create a sound democratic society. He wrote of how a democracy cannot flourish if education is tuned for the masses or if only a select few can get higher education. He also discussed how the “three R’s” (reading, writing, and arithmetic) are faulty, and how the curriculum must help students develop the ability to tackle social issues in the “real world.” However, high schools today are not preparing citizens to achieve Dewey’s vision; rather, they are moving farther away from it.
A democratic society is one in which its members have their own informed opinions and have the freedom to define their role in society. John Dewey argues that a democratic society can only function if students receive an education that fosters critical thinking and analysis. However, modern-day high schools are inadequately preparing students to become exemplary citizens because schools withhold students in unfavorable settings while emphasizing irrelevant curricula and failing to expose students to the liberal arts.
Public schooling itself is not the goal, he said, and public schools don't necessarily do better than private schools in educating children to meet the state's interests, which he defined as preparing children for both workforce and democratic participation. Those who joined in the discussion pushed Reich to specify the content of an education for democratic participation. "Some would say reading and writing is enough," he responded. "Personally, I would go a few steps further to say that students should learn to come into dialogue with others on a public stage." Voluntary national standards for civic education suggest "a combination of making sure students know the history and shape of the structure of government, and how to influence public deliberation and policy," he said. Others suggest experience-oriented programs, often called service learning. "My model has been the Socratic dialogue, where the teacher is a leader and p...
The desire to learn new things means that both sides, students and teachers, must have an engaged pedagogy. According to hooks, an engaged pedagogy is both sides are willing to learn and grow. Not only the students are empowered and are encourage sharing things about themselves and learning new things but teachers are also meant to do these things (21). This is a barrier because if students and teachers are not willing to learn and grow democratic citizens cannot be created. This is so because people will not be educated of differences and others react and deal with different things in society. This goes along with the importance of self-actualization of teachers in the class...
...ut the low chances of productivity if teachers and universities constantly depended on contingent situations or amount of students. He used many generalizations, about how many students would automatically follow several different ideologues and believe opinionated facts, socially and politically driven ideas and beliefs. He also has two absolute ideas, whether a student learns as Fish explains or a student is politically and socially influenced. In conclusion, Fish argues about what a university should and shouldn’t do during the course of education. The developing of skills and knowledge is necessary, rather than developing ideologies and values. According to Fish, it is nearly impossible to create a classroom that shares both academic and external capacities (19).
In a broad sense, the field of social foundations of education entails beliefs and values in school and society, the political economy in schools and society, and the culture of the school. There are a magnitude of social forces that affect educational policies on a daily basis such as; government, religion, family and the economy. Each of these social structures influences one another which results in many conflicts in regards to a “democratic education.” The social foundations of education do not meet the criteria of a democratic education because of certain laws or rules that are established. For example, the delegation of funds in schools is solely based on the property taxes of a specific community. Therefore, the schools in poor communities receive less funding than the schools in wealthy areas. When young people have no say in the regulations that they are bound by, then they cannot be said to live in a democratic environment or understand what it truly means to be “democratically educated.”
The journal was first published with the help of two sponsoring organizations: the John Dewey Society and The College of Education at the University of Illinois. Today, the Philosophy of Education Society and Wiley-Blackwell, a global partner of over 800 prestigious societies, have joined the university and the John Dewey Society to help produce one of the leading journals of theory in education, both in the country and worldwide. In every publication, the journal addresses issues both within the discipline of educational theory, as well other educational disciplines, and has always been a place where "philosophers and theoretically inclined scholars... engage in a shared conversation about educational ideas, values, and policy issues." Throughout the decades, the journal discusses the current educational theories at different moments and the challenges associated with them. These issues are often similar, though still different depending on the popular theories and social and political issues of the t...
Schools are like little communities of small people where children learn to deal with real life scenarios and develop life skills necessary for their debut into society. Children learn from example, and what better example of society is there than a school? Schools must assume responsibility over the ethics which they impart to the child as this will resound in that child 's later actions as a member of society. Eleanor Roosevelt discussed the importance of fostering good citizenship in students in her essay, "Good Citizenship: The Purpose of Education" because students use school as an example to emulate society. She writes, "The practical side of good citizenship is developed most successfully in school because in miniature one is living in a society, and the conditions and problems of the larger society are more easily reproduced and met and solved" (Roosevelt). Moral education also has an impact on government. Carl Becker, a distinguished historian, noted certain conditions required for the success of a democratic government in his essay, "Ideal Democracy". One of the conditions for the success of a democracy requires citizens to possess certain virtues and competencies, such as rationality and good will (Becker 152). The truth of such a claim becomes striking as one thinks back to King and his example of Talmadge as an educated governor holding office and wielding a
Zuckerman, M. B. (2005, October 10). Classroom Revolution. U.S. News & World Report. p. 68. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.
To help students to feel capable, connected and contributing (or the three C’s) Linda Albert asks us to make five fundamental changes to our classrooms, or what she calls “Paradigm Shifts in Cooperative Discipline” (see figure 2). Firstly, we need to move away from a “hands-on” or “hands-clenched” approach to discipline, which is an authoritarian style of classroom discipline, to a “hands-joined” or democratic style of classroom management. Secondly, we need to recognize that student behavior is a choice, and not caused by some outside force, though these forces may influence student behavior it is ultimately the student’s decision on how they will act in your classroom. Thirdly, she asks us to abandon our long list of classroom rules and replace it with a concise code of conduct; shifting the classroom atmosph...
In the 21st century, teachers experience many behavioral issues with students in the classroom and face challenges that are very difficult to resolve. School districts have different expectations about how students must behave during school and teachers have their own expectations about how students must behave in their classroom. Every educator has different classroom expectations and students must follow specific standards; therefore, the responsibility of the teacher is to discuss the standards with all students and make sure those expectations are clear. According to Jones and Jones (2016), teachers whose students made greater achievement gains were observed establishing rules and procedures, and carefully monitoring student’s work. In
This book, Dare The School Build a New Social Order by George Counts, is an examination of teachers, the Progressive Education Movement, democracy and his idea on how to reform the American economy. The book is divided into 5 different sections. The first section is all about the Progressive Education Movement. Through this, George Counts points out many downsides and weaknesses of this ideal. He also talks about how he wants teachers to lead society instead of following it. In the second section, he examines 10 widespread fallacies. These fallacies were that man is born free, that children are born free, they live in a separate world of their own, education remains unchanged, education should have no bias, the object of education is to produce professors, school is an all-powerful educational agency, ignorance rather than knowledge is the way of wisdom, and education is made to prepare an individual for social change.
The learning environment connects the classroom to the community through a democratic approach. This community based learning brings the world into the classroom so students can implement social change and challenge social inequalities. The curriculum focuses on student experience and taking social action on real problems such as hunger, violence, and discrimination. It is important to instruct students to explore in group settings so they can work together to analyze and develop theories that can help each other and make a real different in the world. As a future educator, it is important to not only to teach my students the issues in our world, but how we can work together to find
The classroom should be a democratic environment where students choose what they want to learn. The teacher and stud...