Reading Analysis

Democracy and Democratic Education

Gutmann is asking us to analyze the relationship between education and democracy in our country. The two are obviously intertwined as schools must be governed in order to educate students properly, and the goal of education is to create citizens that can self govern and maintain a democracy.

Gutmann states that the biggest problem for us as a pluralistic, democratic society is providing an education that offers the student great potential for both individual freedom and civic virtue. It is a conflict for society, because both are important. The question she asks is if one is of more importance than the other, and how you justify your decision. Several philosophies have developed on what is the best way to approach the education of our students.

The “family state” philosophy (communitarians) emphasizes the teaching of the civic virtues, working to create a common good for society. Gutmann points out that this view can foster discrimination and repression throughout society. She uses the example that hunting witches in Salem in the 17 century was seen as defending the common good of the community. Gutmann states that individual freedom is all that protects us from movements such as the witch hunt.

The “state of individuals” philosophy (individualist) states that education should remain as neutral as possible when it comes to ideals of “the good life”. Education should be liberal and provide many different life options to students. Gutmann says this view overlooks the fact that most citizens value traits of both civic virtue and individual freedom.

Gutmann’s view is that both of these philosophies actually undermine the true meaning of civic virtue and individual freedom. Basically they are codependant, and together create our idea of a well rounded citizen. Therefore, Gutmann seeks to identify a more democratic ideal of education. An ideal that focuses on reproduction rather than replication of educational ideals. “Concious social reproduction” is the idea of setting boundaries to define a democratic education, and educating a citizen so that they can participate in, and maintain a democracy. There are stipulations in place for concious social reproduction: nonrepressive, strong intellect, and autonomy. Non repression means offering students opportunities to consider different ways of life, and most importantly, education must not interfere with this. In order to expose students to the different ways of life they need to have a basic understanding of civic virtues (non-violence, tolerance, respect, etc.). If they are to understand the values of different ways of life, they have to have a basis for which to judge them against. For concious social reproduction to be true, it must be nondiscriminatory, meaning everyone must be educated nonrepressively. Gutmann says, “No educable child- regardless of race, religion, ethnicity, sex, parental interest (or disinterest)- may be excluded from an education adequate to participate in democratic politics.” (161) It also must teach students to think critically, so they can intelligently discuss issues, and make appropriate, justified decisions.

Gutmann discusses the concept of democratic reproduction. Education needs to adequately prepare students for citizenship in our country by instilling traits of self governance, critical thinking, and social responsibility. The goal is that the country will be a better democracy when these students are in charge, because they took the initial ideals and built apon them to improve society. Gutmann states that democratic education is the soul of a democratic society, allowing us to pass on civil and political freedoms to all citizens. Democratic government and democratic education are co dependant , each relying on the other for survival.

Gutmann recaps the process of creating democratic citizens; be governed, and then govern yourself and others. As a child you are introduced to the idea of governance by being raised by your family. This idea is then fostered in school, and then developed through work and society.

Gutmann returns to the initial point of controversy, which is more important for democratic education, individual freedom or civic virtue? She states that instilling democratic virtue in students (honesty, self control, non violence, toleration, respect for others, critical thinking skills) is what will allow our democratic society to flourish. These characteristics will ensure students have “personal and political autonomy.” (164) This should also make it possible for all citizens to make educated decisions about their personal lives. The responsibilities of the public school system in our country are great, including developing the basic aspects of an influential democratic citizen, moral character and moral reasoning.

The concept that democratic education supports democratic society, and vice versa, is a very important one. It makes sense that we need to foster students moral character and reasoning so that the next leaders of our country will make adequate decisions for the good of society. The problem is incorporating these ideals in a meaningful way into the curriculum that is full of standards and standardized tests. Especially when the standards and tests don’t have much to do with veracity, self discipline, respect, non violence, tolerance, critical thinking and deliberation. If these virtues are of the utmost importance to a democratic education, why not put more focus on them in curriculums? You can encourage your students to exercise virtuous behavior, like having mutual respect for one another, but when you are concerned with preparing them for a standardized test that will reflect on you as well as them, there is not a lot of spare class time. The types of class activities that foster these virtues are time consuming and it would be a challenge to coordinate them with the standards and learning goals that we are responsible for teaching to the students. It is my hope in the art classroom that I will be able to create projects that will help students develop their problem solving, critical thinking skills and foster development of their morals; but I will have more freedom with the structure of my lessons because I will not be prepping them for a standardized test. I guess my question is, in this day and age when so much pressure is put on standards and test scores, how do we ensure that students are developing these traits that appear to be so critical to the survival of our democracy??