Democracy, Schooling and the Role of Teachers

Signing up for a class entitled “Teaching, Democracy and Schooling,” I will be whole-heartedly honest and admit I did not have much of an idea of what to expect in the course. I did have a handful of expectations, of course, being that I enrolled in the course as the first of many steps in my education to become an educator in the United States. With that mind, my expectations for the course could perhaps be best summarized as this: the class would be teach and discuss the basics of being a teacher in the United States and understanding what it meant to be a teacher in this country. I entered the classroom with these concepts in mind and was meant with a good degree of excitement to realize the class would greatly expand upon the very basic expectations I had previously established.

 To say my expectations were accurate, however, would be something of a lie. From the onset, the course is not a methods course, and I suppose my expectations would have defined it as such. The structure of the course is far more exploratory and thought provoking, raising questions about the meaning of education in the United States, how it dies to the democratic concepts that founded the nation and the place teachers hold in society. This raises many questions; some obvious and some not so obvious about the state of education in the United States. With these questions come complex issues such as politics and curriculum, the No Child Left Behind or Student Success Act, inclusion and immigration and standardized testing and funding. The list goes on, becoming more and more complex as issues are dissected.

While addressing these issues is something I firmly hope to accomplish (and sure I will as the course progresses), it is the larger questions that I find more intriguing. What does it mean to be a teacher, especially one in a democratic society? More specifically what does it mean to be a teacher in the United States? As teachers, what are we responsible for? What should be our goal be, regardless of subject matter, as an educator in modern society? There is no easy answer to any of these questions. But it is these larger (almost metaphorical) issues that I seek to address.

In a single class activity, these larger issues are already beginning to be considered. In particular, the idea of being a teacher in the United States is a discussion piece that I expect to be a recurring issue. Education in the United States is something of a controversial issue due to the lack of a clear definition of its role in US society. The Declaration of Independence does not define a right for citizens to receive an education, being more of a political piece to establish independence from Great Britain. Despite being a radical piece, outlining the most basic rights of US citizens, it does not establish a right to education. Its companion document in the Constitution does not address this glaring issue either, however education became synonymous with American democracy. It has evolved into the “great equalizer” in American society; progressively growing into the large institution it is today.

Education, despite not being explicitly addressed in the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution, is arguably one of the most democratic institutions in the United States, however it took some time before the notion of “public education” came to exist. As Jaroslav Pelikan writes in his selection “General Introduction: The Public Schools as an Institution of American Constitutional Democracy” from the larger work The Public Schools: “the ideal of the “public school” system of the United States…has held that in a democratic society…the best way to raise up a leadership cadre in each generational cohort is to begin with the shared experience and the shared curriculum of the institution that we used to call “the common school” (XVII). The shared experience and curriculum, as revealed in the introduction to The Public Schools written by Susan Fuhrman and Marvin Lazerson, has constantly evolved due to the connection between public school and citizenship (XXIV). If education is connected to citizenship, it appears that the role of teachers has been defined in more a subtle manner by the passing of time, educational theory and politics rather than an explicit document. It is the responsibility of teachers to teach students how to be responsible, capable citizens in a democratic society who can exercise their civil and political rights, such as voting, with confidence. On a literal level, it does not sound too glorious, however, it is brimming with opportunity. It gives teachers the freedom to open the mind of students and explore possibilities, with the understanding that it accomplishes the ultimate role: to truly educate students in the grand design of the “great equalizer.”