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GreenMoney Journal - publishing since 1992
Fall 2010 issue
Socially Responsible Investing – Better Companies, Better Communities
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Democracy-friendly Education
Deborah Meier
Re-thinking schools starts with re-thinking its fundamental purposes and function. There are, first
and foremost, only two purposes that matter to me. Everything else is a luxury.
The first purpose of education is to do no harm to the individual children and their families,
which includes leaving them a little better off than when they came to us. Let us leave them
stronger and more loveable.
The second purpose is to inspire a generation of Americans to
take on our collective task of preserving and nourishing the habits of heart and mind essential for
a democracy, and, as we now see, the future of the planet itself.
The purpose of
education is not: (1) to produce a small "leadership" political elite to lead us to the Promised
Land or (2) to produce employees to fit into some particular niche determined by others, and
surely, (3) it is not to produce higher test scores and give out more diplomas-which isn't even a
very good way to do the previous two things!
Democracy, and the kind of thinking
that's good for it, doesn't just happen. It is not "natural"-like walking and talking. But
it is not unnatural either. We need then to ask ourselves, what happens in schools that make for
greater devotion and understanding of democracy and its place in our complex modern global world?
An educational system that keeps this first and foremost on its mind will not have to sacrifice the
so-called "basic skills". It might have to place calculus lower on the agenda than statistics and
probability, or modern history before ancient history. Maybe yes, maybe no. It may have to
sacrifice the arts, or it may have to place greater demands on them.
But what a
democracy-friendly education surely must do is change the way people relate to each other in
schools, and how their voices are heard and taken into account. And the change we need is not
tinkering on the edges, but fundamental.
What we do know is that creative and critical
thought are not natural allies of multiple-choice tests or stereotype short-answer quizzes. The
inventiveness we need cannot be left to elite few, because in a democracy such out-of-the-box
thinking will be sabotaged by ordinary citizens and rightly so, if they are not well-educated too
and become a party to the needed changes. We pay an enormous price for dismissing the impact of an
alienated political public. We've even gone so far as to dismiss the need for the voices of
teachers-viewing them as merely tools of reform, not at its heart. Our parents and teachers have
replaced our financial and business leaders as the new "special interest" group. Thus the answers
become increasingly divorced from the problems on the ground.
Let's imagine how we'd
design the life of youngsters from birth to 22 if we hadn't got stuck in the traditional school
model and just extended it for 10 more years? Let's imagine how we might re-design if we spent more
time listening to those in the real "know." Based on what we know about human beings, how else
might we ask the young to spend their precious time? Would we have cut them off from relationships
with adults engaged in interesting work-and vice versa-for 12-16 years? Would we have labeled so
much of the world's important and critical work as "menial", and "nonacademic"? Would we expect
that efficient learning takes place by sitting till and listening for 5 hours a day? Would we have
measured success by a multiple choice test rather than a "road test"?
We can't change
overnight, but we can begin to make sure that the policies we adopt do not strangle the innovation
we need. Too many big-time reforms today try to "fix" the current system in stone-making it ever
more standardized rather than ever more inventive. We need to ban the use of the word
"rigorous" in schools - with all its unmistakable dictionary meaning of harsh and
inflexible-and find a language that suits the task ahead of us.
Yes, small is good.
But, aimed at the wrong "ends", it's just another shifting of the chairs on the sinking Titanic.
Yes, technology is useful, but…Yes, better teacher "training" is good, but…Yes, observing the
impact of our work is critical, but…Yes even more money is good, but…
But, none will
matter until we are prepared to tackle the "what for?" And on that question we are all experts. On
that question we don't want anyone to lead us to the Promised Land; we want to lead ourselves, with
our families, neighbors and children right alongside us.
Article by Deborah Meier,
Writer
Deborah W. Meier is currently on the faculty of New York University's
Steinhardt School of Education as senior scholar and adjunct professor as well as Board member and
director of New Ventures at Mission Hill, director and advisor to Forum for Democracy and
Education, and on the Board of The Coalition of Essential Schools. She is active with the In
Defense of Childhood organization http://www.indefenseofchildhood.org . Her books, The Power of
Their Ideas, Lessons to America from a Small School in Harlem (1995), Will Standards Save Public
Education (2000), In Schools We Trust (2002), Keeping School, with Ted and Nancy Sizer (2004) and
Many Children Left Behind (2004) are all published by Beacon Press.
More information at
http://www.deborahmeier.com
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