Article+D

=Democracy and Education= Pages 230-231

Read this article.

Isolate and list two (2) ideas found in this article. Write a brief statement in support of or contrary to one (1) of your two ideas.

1. A fundamental belief in democracy is the right to an education, but for education to truly work it needs democracy.

2. There is a focus in education today to teach "a mile wide and an inch deep". Basically, that there is an urgency to move the child up the grade level continuum, rather than help them understand the world they live in and be successful adults.

If we have our driving force in education to simply push the child to the next grade level, we will miss the point of creating a life long learner. In order to prepare for todays world, a connection needs to be made between the curriculum and their lives.

1. Curriculum should be empowering to students to make sense of their world.

2. Education is necessary for democracy.

Curriculum has been used to prepare them for the next grade rather than how the subject would be relevant to their lives. Have to teach what may be on a test rather than what is meaningful to them.

1. The primary mission of schooling should not be to prepare for the next grade level but to help students understand, to make sense of, and to be successful in their world today and tomorrow.

2. We learn by constructing meaning from our experiences.

~We agree with the first quote; however, in the US with NCLB you have to have scientifically based research and show adequate yearly progress by standardized assessments. With this it is hard to make sure that they make sense of anything. We skim the surface to get as much in as we can. Maybe this is where we fall short as a country.