Education and Democracy

Throughout the chapters in Why School, that we have read, we come across the connection between education and democracy. In class we talked about multiple focuses in the text and what spoke to us the most. Out of the couple of focuses, two of them really stood out to me. The interpretation that school/education is suppose to help us get a job later after we graduate. But Rose believes otherwise and that school should teach us a wide range of other things that will aid us in growth. “But what I want to consider is how this economic focus, blended with the technology of large-scale assessment, can restrict our sense of what school ought to be about: the full sweep of growth and development, for both individuals and for a pluralistic democracy.” (28). “…schooling can devolve to procedures, to measures and outputs that constrain what gets taught, how it’s taught, and how we define what it means to be an educated person.” (29). In the following quote, from what I can interpret, Rose is saying that school is turning into some sort of a system. Similar to the comic showed in Tuesdays class, school is a symbol of a mass production line. Society is so hooked on the idea that you should get into a good college, in order to get a good education, that will then land you a good job. As college students, there is also a pressure to pick the correct major. We’re often influenced to major in something that adults know will be a high paying job later on. What most people do not understand is that college is not only a place where we receive a degree, we come for many other experiences or so to say, “expand our horizons”. “And how about accounts of reform that present change as alternately difficult, exhilarating, ambiguous, and promising — and that find reform not in a device, technique, or structure, but in the way we think about teaching and learning?” (29) Education is not just to learn history or what is written in textbooks but it should open our eyes to new things and help with our development. “We educate for a number of reasons, and people have written about them since the first decades of the republic: to pass on traditions and knowledge, to prepare the young for democratic life, to foster moral and intellectual growth, to enable individual and societal economic prosperity.” (34)

The second focus that caught my eye was the perception of work. In the text, there was an emphasis on the idea that certain jobs did not need any specific study or academic work. The idea of a “neck up vs. neck down” type of job has been fixated so much that people are convinced that if you want to work in a field that requires more physical experience, you do not need to get a proper education or vice versa. This all ties in with the first focal point of the importance of education. “…and extent of this so-called revolution in the economy, the rhetoric of old work vs. new work is very much with us, and shapes both economic and educational policy — and with it our notions about what it means to be smart in the workplace and the schoolhouse.” (85–86)

In my work with my community partner, I work hand in hand with elementary students. I would like to think that these students probably have no idea what they want to major in yet. And for me, that’s okay. I find that at this time, elementary and middle school, is the perfect time to focus on learning the basics such as english and math. Maybe at this time they can open up and experience art and other craft related classes that help stimulate imagination and growth so they learn to expand their ideas and not be so close minded to everything.