Education Commons^™

Schooling As If Democracy Matters, Lorraine Kasprisin

Journal of Educational Controversy

On November 1, 2006, John Goodlad was invited to speak as the Third Annual Distinguished Speaker at the Woodring College of Education at Western Washington University. Readers can view the video of the lecture or listen to the audio of the lecture.His lecture provided the impetus for the theme of this issue, and the journal is dedicating this issue to John Goodlad’s lifetime work in helping us to think about the kind of education that is required to sustain a vital democracy. John Goodlad wrote the prologue to this issue. The journal is also devoting a special section …

Are We Targeting Our Fellow Countrymen? The Consequences Of The Usa Patriot Act, Brett Rubio, Bridget K. Baker

Journal of Educational Controversy

Shortly after the attacks of September 11, Congress passed the Patriot Act (2001) without any debates or discussions regarding its effects. This complex legislation was passed without clear and calm understanding about the manner in which this document would shape our nation and our liberties. It is unfortunate that a gulf continues to exist between those who know about the effects of the Patriot Act and those who do not. This paper is not intended to explain the entire Patriot Act. It is a subjective piece meant to highlight only a few of the ways that the Patriot Act has …

Teaching For Democratic Values Under Political Duress, Walter Feinberg

Journal of Educational Controversy

Two days after 9/11, a bagpipe marching band playing a Sousa march paraded down an otherwise quiet section of State Parkway in Chicago, and, like the other passersby, I began to move to the music. As I became aware of the effects of the music on my body, I made a strong effort to break my step, and to not be seduced by the seductive rhythm of the band. Normally I have no difficulty walking or dancing out of step with the music. Many years ago when I was in the National Guard I would always be the one skipping …

Speculation On A Missing Link: Dewey's Democracy And Schools, Lynda Stone

Journal of Educational Controversy

In a special issue focusing on the relationship of democracy and schooling, an essay on the influence of John Dewey seems necessary. This is because in American and international educational psyches, Dewey’s name is associated in a progressive tradition with this relationship. In effect, a historical and contemporaneous trope, a symbolically discursive unity, has been established of Dewey and democracy and schools. The controversy of this essay concerns what it might mean if a missing link were identified in Dewey’s writings, in which he rarely, almost never, made the tropic connection himself. That is, when he wrote about democracy, …

Agenda For Education In A Democracy, John Goodlad

Journal of Educational Controversy

Words are fascinating. The frequency with which we use in conversation words of varied meanings without defining them both surprises and troubles me. “Education” is one of these. A very large percentage of people are thinking only of schooling in using the word, even though other components of our culture far exceed schooling in their educating. I have attended many “educational” conferences but recall only one session wherein education was defined and that definition discussed.

Closed Borders And Closed Minds: Immigration Policy Changes After 9/11 And U.S. Higher Education, M. Allison Witt

Journal of Educational Controversy

Amidst the spectacular losses of 9/11 and the tremendous ongoing ramifications of wars, security overhauls, loss of liberties and freedoms, as well as dire economic consequences, policy shifts affecting U.S. higher education have occurred quietly, largely unnoticed by the popular press or the American public, yet the implications for colleges and universities, and the public they serve, are dramatic and far-reaching. Despite the increasing interconnectedness of our world, evident in politics, economics and the environment, post 9/11 policy changes increasingly isolate U.S. higher education from the outside world, hampering academic freedom, stifling outside viewpoints, and consequently, allowing American hegemony an …

Singing In Dark Times, William Ayers

Journal of Educational Controversy

Bertolt Brecht raised a question in his poem “Motto”:

In dark times

Will there also be singing?

His answer:

Yes, there will be singing.

About the dark times.

Our work here and now is in part to sing the dark times. We begin by waking up, by opening our eyes to the reality before us, the beautiful and the hopeful no less than the difficult, the tragic, the ugly. We cannot separate our own lives from the concentric circles of context—historic flow and economic condition, political situation and cultural surround—that make them more fully understandable and meaningful.

Introduction To Chapter From The Abandoned Generation Written For This Issue, Henry A. Giroux

Journal of Educational Controversy

This article was written at a very dire time in American history. Motivated by both a sense of outrage and hope, it attempted to identify a number of dangerous threats to democracy at home and abroad as well as and to offer a productive series of analyses of how to stop their poisonous effects on all aspects of public and private life. What was not clear to me at the time was the extent to which the horrific acts of September 11, 2001, would be used as a pretext to reinforce not simply the political and economic power of a …

What If Democracy Really Matters, Claudia Ruitenberg

Journal of Educational Controversy

What if, in order to examine the phrase schooling as if democracy matters in North America, we—scholars and readers—turn not to the more obvious American theorists of democracy and schooling, such as John Dewey or, more recently, deliberative theorists such as Amy Gutmann or critical theorists such as Peter McLaren, but to the French radical philosopher of democracy Jacques Rancière? What if Rancière compels us to think quite differently, even controversially, about democracy? And what if, as a result, we reject the very possibility of schooling as if democracy matters, not because democracy does not matter, but because it is …

Beautiful Losers, William Lyne

Journal of Educational Controversy

In the months before the 2000 election, full of tenured radical smugness, I had argued that the best vote was a vote for Ralph Nader. I told my friends that all the truly meaningful political changes in U.S. history—abolition, women’s suffrage, the 40-hour work week—had originated in third parties, so it was important to push the Green party vote count above five percent, so they would be eligible for federal funding. Bush and Gore were the same, just like Republicans and Democrats were essentially the same (it was Bill Clinton, after all, and his draconian welfare “reform,” who completed the …

Democracy, Patriotism, And Schooling After September 11th Critical Citizens Or Unthinking Patriots?, Henry A. Giroux

Journal of Educational Controversy

From: The Abandoned Generation: Democracy Beyond the Culture of Fear reprinted with permission by the author

I should like to be able to love my country and still love justice. I don’t want just any greatness for it, particularly a greatness born of blood and falsehood. I want to keep it alive by keeping justice alive. Albert Camus

This is a difficult time in American history. The tragic and horrific terrorist acts of September 11 suggest a traumatic and decisive turning point in the history of the United States. Some commentators have compared it to the Japanese attack on Pearl …

Democracy, Education And Conflict: Rethinking Respect And The Place Of The Ethical, Sharon Todd, Carl Anders Säström

Journal of Educational Controversy

One of the cornerstones of a democratic education is a basic notion of respect for others who hold different points of view from ourselves. Yet, within an increasingly divergent public discourse about values, rights and equality, democratic education needs to concern itself with practices that not only encourage respect, but that can negotiate through the very troubled relations that often afflict classrooms and schools. Models of how to promote respect often centre on creating a conflict-free atmosphere through appeals to deliberation, dialogue, conversation, consensus or a combination of these. Indeed, conflict is often perceived as not simply being counter-productive to …

Teaching A 'Racist And Outdated Text': A Journey Into My Own Heart Of Darkness, Melody Wong

Journal of Educational Controversy

In wrestling with her teaching of Joseph Conrad’s frequently challenged novella, Heart of Darkness, a high school English teacher discovers her own complicity with and complacency about Western political, economic, and social hegemony. Ultimately, her research into the historical, social, and political contexts of the 19^th century novella enable her to understand its immediate relevance to the privileged world that she and her students live in, and to take her students on a personal journey in the modern “heart of darkness.”

The Best Democracy Money Can Buy: Nclb In Bush's Neo-Liberal Marketplace (A.K.A., Revisioning History: The Discourses Of Equality, Justice And Democracy Surrounding Nclb), Rebecca A. Goldstein, Andrew A. Beutel

Journal of Educational Controversy

With the landmark passage of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) in January 2002, a new era of accountability, standards, and sanctions have become solid fixtures in public education (see Cross, 2004; McGuinn, 2005; and McGuinn, 2006 for an extensive discussion of the evolution of standards in US public education). The implications of this federal mandate were viewed differently, depending upon the perspective of the viewer. Regardless, there has been and continues to be a great deal of skepticism regarding NCLB’s ability to change the educational experiences of children and youth, particularly those of poor and minority students (Fusarelli, 2004; Kantor …

Teaching The Levees: An Exercise In Democratic Dialogue, Margaret Smith Crocco, Maureen Grolnick

Journal of Educational Controversy

Just after 6 a.m. on the morning of August 29, 2005, Katrina, one of the worst hurricanes in the history of the United States, made landfall near Buras, Louisiana, 65 miles southeast of New Orleans. Katrina brought enormous destruction and loss of life to Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. The hurricane also brought a crisis of conscience to many Americans as they confronted, with the rest of the world looking on, media images of people – many of them poor and black – caught in the catastrophic consequences of the storm, apparently beyond the reach of government protection or help. The …

Ways Of Seeing (And Of Being Seen): Visibility In Schools, Sam Chaltain

Journal of Educational Controversy

My first teaching experience, in the winter of 1994, was at a public university in Beijing, China.

Hired to teach third-year English majors in an American Literature course, I was 22 and had just graduated from college myself. In the weeks leading up to the class, I grew a beard to try to create the illusion of a greater distance between my age and theirs. I learned later it didn't work.

Immigrants Into Citizens: A Uk Case Study For The Classroom, Patricia White

Journal of Educational Controversy

How do you become a British citizen? Apart from finding yourself one, as an accident of birth, you can choose to become one. This paper looks at that process, because it reveals much about British government assumptions about the community, the role of the citizen, and appropriate education for citizenship. This in turn raises questions about how far these are appropriate assumptions for a country which aspires to be a democracy. I suggest at the end of the paper that studying the concrete example of the British process of becoming a citizen (i.e., naturalisation) may be a good route for …

Educator Roundtable: Working To Create A World Where Teachers Can School As If Democracy Matters, Philip Kovacs

Journal of Educational Controversy

Elsewhere I have argued that neoliberal and neoconservative dominance of both public and private spheres led directly to standardization and privatization, the two dominant narratives of progress for public education. We formed the Educator Roundtable to challenge and change the conversation. In place of dominant narratives, the Educator Roundtable invites educational reformers to listen to what individual voices across the country say about their particular issues with high-stakes accountability. This listening may not be progress as defined by corporate-minded reformers, but it will be growth, as educators in communities nationwide learn that they share similar struggles, and ideally, begin working …

Finding Our Voice: One School's Commitment To Community, Dianne C. Suiter

Journal of Educational Controversy

John Goodlad's body of work speaks clearly to the responsibility of schools and those who implement the work of schools to accomplish a two-part mission: to both introduce students to “the organized bodies of knowledge that discipline and enrich our lives as citizens, workers, parents, and individual human beings” (1979, p.ix), as well as to “enculturat[e] the young in a social and political democracy” (1979, p.ix). At our small school in the Midwest, founded on Goodlad's writing and work, we begin this process the moment a student walks through our doors.

Visions Of Public Education In Morse V. Frederick, Aaron H. Caplan

Journal of Educational Controversy

As legal rules go, the US Supreme Court’s 2007 decision Morse v. Frederick (2007) will be fairly easy for school administrators to apply. The First Amendment allows a public school principal to “restrict student speech at a school event, when that speech is reasonably viewed as promoting illegal drug use.” Justice Alito's concurring opinion explained that the rule “goes no further” than speech advocating drug use, and does not authorize punishment for “speech that can plausibly be interpreted as commenting on any political or social issue, including speech on issues such as the wisdom of the war on drugs or …

Capitalizing On Disaster: Taking And Breaking Public Schools By Kenneth J. Saltman, Christopher Robbins

Journal of Educational Controversy

War and disaster define the contemporary experience in no small manner. This is not just because pervasive warfare inevitably produces disasters. Whether war is waged between nation-states or by nation-states on ideologies (e.g., war on terrorism), civilian populations (e.g., war on youth or war on the poor), or things (e.g., war on drugs), the disasters of war are now coupled, to an unprecedented degree, with disaster more generally and the increased awareness of the possibility of disaster. As we witnessed with the Indonesian tsunami of 2004 or the mass devastation of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, disasters are natural--sometimes unexpected, other …

What Schools Are For By John Goodlad, Antony Smith

Journal of Educational Controversy

John Goodlad is known for his unceasing effort to engage educators, politicians, and the public in dialogue on the purpose of education in a democratic society. From the landmark study A Place Called School to his work in developing the National Network for Educational Renewal and the Agenda for Education in a Democracy, Goodlad has for many years represented the reasonable and determined voice of renewal in the midst of shrill cries of reform from all corners. What Schools Are For, now in its third edition, is a must-read work addressing Goodlad's efforts to spark dialogue necessary to understanding …

Pedagogy And Praxis In The Age Of Empire: Toward A New Humanism By Peter Mclaren And Nathalia Jaramillo, Richard Kahn

Journal of Educational Controversy

Peter McLaren and Nathalia Jaramillo's Pedagogy and Praxis in the Age of Empire (PPAE) best collects their founding theoretical work on the post-9/11, emergent international anti-capitalist/imperialist movement that reflects an active example of revolutionary critical pedagogy. Those familiar with McLaren's recent material on the subject in books such as Teaching Against Global Capitalism and the New Imperialism (with Ramin Farahmandpur, 2004) Capitalists & Conquerors (2005), Red Seminars (with Compeñeras y Compeñeros, 2005), and Rage & Hope: Interviews with Peter McLaren on War, Imperialism and Critical Pedagogy (2006), will find in this latest text a further volley of unflinching …

“Bong Hits 4 Jesus”: Have Students' First Amendment Rights To Free Speech Been Changed After Morse V. Frederick?, Nathan M. Roberts

Journal of Educational Controversy

In 2007, the United States Supreme Court issued its opinion in the closely watched case of Morse v. Frederick, better known as the “Bong Hits 4 Jesus” case. This First Amendment case was closely watched by public school administrators because the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals had earlier overruled a lower court’s finding that no First Amendment violation had occurred and instead ruled that the school principal, in fact any reasonable administrator, should have known that she was violating the student’s rights, and accordingly, that she could not assert qualified immunity as a defense to damages, including punitive damages …

Spectacular Things Happen Along The Way: Lessons From An Urban Classroom By Brian D. Schultz, Carl A. Grant

Journal of Educational Controversy

Recently a student, Sara, approached me and said, “This spring I am graduating. I am sorry I didn’t take any of your classes, but I am told that you will not hold that against me; and [you will] be helpful. I am going to Chicago with my boyfriend after graduation. He has a job in the city, so we want to live in the city; therefore, I will need to get a job with the Chicago Public Schools. What do you recommend that I read so that I will become a good teacher?” I gave her my copy of Brian’s …

Spectacular Things Happen Along The Way: Lessons From An Urban Classroom By Brian D. Schultz, Paula Johnson

Journal of Educational Controversy

Brian Schultz, author of Spectacular Things Happen Along the Way: Lessons from an Urban Classroom, serves as a model for innovation in co-constructing democratic curriculum with students and for challenging the resource, expectations, and funding gaps that exist for students who are marginalized on the basis of race, culture, language, or socioeconomic status. In a climate of assessment and prescribed curriculum, Schultz resists complacency and engages in critical pedagogy. The story that Schultz details in Spectacular Things Happen Along the Way provides lessons for pre-service and in-service teachers in development, motivation, learning, intelligence, culture, and assessment, as well as Schultz’s …

About The Authors

Journal of Educational Controversy

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