Jim Crowther speaks
about the “Crisis in Democracy” in Europe, and how there's
“powerful anti-democratic forces emerging across Europe along with
global economic forces that are unaccountable to national
electorates” (Crowther 2013). Crowther then documents his 4 major
trends that has “interrelated dimensions,” with the first one
being how the world's governments have handled the economic crisis,
started by the American subprime mortgage bubble that burst in 2008,
which has led to “the ousting of governments (e.g. in Greece and
Italy), a lurch towards austerity and the upsurge of large minority
right-wing political forces with intolerant racist and xenophobic
agendas” … “Bureaucrats largely dictate the economic polities
in Spain, Ireland and Portugal from Brussels and even strong
economies such as Germany and France heed the dictates of the banks”
(Crowther 2013). While Americans bailed out the banks, the same ones
who caused this catastrophe of global proportions due to our
“unsustainable and reckless credit activity of banks” (which also
happened in the UK), the solution has only been to implement
austerity measures, which puts the burden of the solution to the
crisis on the most vulnerable in our society, while the financial
industry remains pretty much unaccountable. The financial industry
received “a mere slap on the wrist or the loss of a knighthood here
and there”, but, “on the other hand, there have been draconian
cuts in welfare and a hardening of attitudes towards people on
benefit” (Crowther 2013). While the uber wealthy bankers,
corporations, and financial elite caused the economic recession,
instead of going the way of Iceland, where the politicians fired the
bankers, and threw them in jail, America gave our tax dollars to
those same global bankers, and cutting the much needed social welfare
programs that keep the poor and marginalized in society barely
afloat. While there's much talk about cutting the welfare of the
“47%”, there's hardly any serious talk about cutting off the
welfare for the financial industry. The global economic crisis has
also “been the undermining of the social rights of citizenship, an
essential component of democracy, because it is easy to politically
legitimate”(Crowther 2013).
The second trend
Crowther observes, is that there's an attack on democracy because of
“the rise of transnational and multinational firms, which have the
corporate power and financial clout to override or shape national and
international politics”. This expansion of power by democraticly
illegitimate private corporate tyrannies has seeped into shaping the
policy of public education. “The expansion of the private sector
into edu-business is one example of this trend” (Crowther 2013). A
third trend Crowther sees, is that the global elite power apparatus
is giving rise to “new forms of network governance” which
“undermine representative forms of democratic accountability.” An
effect of this has been a public educational policy that's “hitched
to private-sector values and goals” (Crowther 2013). The last trend
Crowther points out is how “public spaces for debate and dissent
are being undermined.” Since the public sphere, with American
politicians and media plotting out the scope of the debate, is being
filled with the concerns of the monied interests, the concerns of the
common average working class families are being skirted and ignored.
The “consequence is that the public sphere is hollowed out as a
place for analyzing how personal troubles can be transformed into
public issues” (Crowther 2013).
When all of these 4
trends in Europe are combined, they “make for a crisis of democracy
in social, cultural, economic and political terms” (Crowther 2013).
The governments
installed in Iraq, and in other nations, are not modeled on the
American Constitution, since the representative democracy of our
founders, minus Thomas Jefferson (who wasn't at the Constitutional
Convention), is a kind of bastardization of democracy. The Electoral
College is the best example of this, where James Madison defended it
in the Federalist Papers, because he wanted to distill the public's
choices, to refine the whims of the huddled masses, so that it
appealed to the aristocracy, and the plutocrats. And compared to pure
direct democracies, representative democracy is far removed from the
civic participation and the sharing of power pure direct democracy
demands. For representative democracies, our only civic duty as
citizens is to vote. For direct democracies, a deliberative assembly
is required, as well as civic groups, and an active citizenry, all of
which are virtually and woefully absent in American society. The
institution which should be promoting all of these values, the
American public school system, are governed by appointed monarchists
in every classroom. The crisis of democracy found in Europe is also
found here in America, which is ironic considering our
exceptionalism, where America is the “city on the hill”, and a
model for liberal democracies all across the world.
The ideal of public
education is where we should be allowed to question ideas, and to get
into arguments and debates, most especially regarding our political
leaders. This too is altogether lacking. In one of my more freeing
classes in Normal School (aka Teacher Training Schools), I asked my
fellow teacher-student colleagues, “Who else thinks we should have
democratic schools in a democratic society?”, and the only response
I received was an unbearable silence. I'm not sure if my colleagues
didn't support my love for freedom and democracy, or if they were
afraid of speaking their minds, for fear of being flunked out or
looked upon disfavorably by the autocrat Professor, but either reason
is appalling for our so-called democracy. While I know there's some
folks who support democracy, since there's over 300 million
Americans, I feel completely and utterly alone in my love of
individual freedom, where we all have a sacred sovereign autonomy
that demands to be treated with respect and dignity. Freedom in group
settings take the form of democracy. America in general, and Kentucky
in particular, has a major crisis in democracy.
While reflecting
upon the state of democracy in Kentucky politics, the Senate election
is in the national limelight, and can serve as a useful example. This
Senate election will have a disgusting $100 million spent in campaign
contributions, and yet, we the people do not receive a $100 million
conversation, where we speak about Kentucky's myriad of problems, and
find solutions to those problems. Instead, we have a race to the
bottom, where we are being bombarded with mud-slinging television
ads, which incidentally is how Mitch became Senator 30 years ago.
Even George Washington set a precedent for Presidential term limits
by stepping down after 8 years. While probably not a genuine offer,
Mitch McConnell, after beating Matt Bevin, his Republican challenger
in the primary, wrote a letter to Alison Lundergan Grimes asking her
to engage in a series of debates, invoking the ideal standard of
debating set by the “Lincoln-Douglass” debates. We the people
never got a series of debates, but on September 13, 2014, we did get
a debate. A single debate. On KET, Kentucky's “Educational”
public television station, and that's all we're going to get. And the
Libertarian candidate was even denied access to the debate, in spite
of him suing in order to get that access. Kentucky also has an
abysmal voter turnout rate, and long list of local candidates running
unopposed in this year's elections. All local county positions are up
for reelection, and that happens every 4 years, yet, most of those
races have candidates who run unopposed, including the million dollar
Circuit Court judge seats. For Kentucky, the Senate election is
perhaps the least significant campaign, in terms of influence,
considering all of the power the Sheriff, Judge-Executive, Mayors,
Legislative councils, for county and city, Judges, and State
representatives, plus a slew of other local candidates have, but
there's hardly a peep from the media or Kentucky folks regarding
them. Speaking about our representatives should be casual water
cooler talk, but here in the Bluegrass, speaking about politics is
considered impolite. While all of this represents a crisis in
democracy that can be blamed on the elites, without a mobilization of
the public, and an informed and active citizenry demanding to hold
our representatives accountable, we're only going to get the scraps
of democracy the elites give us.
Some folks may
blame Kentucky for these problems, but many national surveys show
that this crisis is happening all across America. “Almost a 1/3 [of
Americans] mistakenly believed that a US Supreme Court ruling could
be appealed”; and “only 1/3 of Americans could name all 3
branches of government” ... “one-third could not name any”!
(Snow 2012). Most American high school graduates can name “the
three judges on American Idol”, but very few can say how many
Justices of the United States Supreme Court we have, or their names
(Snow 2012).
Luckily, we already
have a Universal Public Education System in place, but ironically,
our American government schools aren't teaching us about American
government, and our vital roles as stewards in this “democracy”.
While the ignorance is disturbing, it's more appalling when one
considers that civic learning and engage is the lifeblood of a
democracy. “To neglect civic learning is to neglect a core pillar
of American democracy” (Snow 2012).
For Crowther, the
solution for the crisis of democracy in Europe lies with the Swedes.
“The Swedish context provides a positive experience to reflect on
the potential role of popular education in this context, as well as
warnings to heed”(Crowther 2013). Crowther even references radical
educational theorist Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed
being used as a basis for many of the popular school movements there.
The society in Sweden has a robust popular education movement, and
Crowther concludes that “the most elementary point which these
trends [popular education movements in the UK, Germany, France,
Italy, Spain, and Scandinavia] have in common is that they emerged
out of the aspirations of ordinary people to educate themselves,
individually and/or collectively, and thereby led to the growth of
alternative public spheres where issues of wider concern and the
common good were debated and assessed” (Crowther 2013). The major
difference between Sweden's success with democracy and their
educational system, and the rest of Europe's problem with democracy
and their lack of a robust popular education movement, is that in
Sweden “the demands of social movements in civil society have been
supported by the state.” … “The interconnection between civil
society and the state has been deeply embedded in Swedish culture
through institutions of popular education (i.e. folk high schools,
study circles and the associations which promote them)” (Crowther
2013). Snow also agrees with this assessment when he points to “lack
of institutional commitment to formal civic education” as a major
problem with civic learning (Snow 2012). The same is true for
American schools.
A major reason why
American public education doesn't have democratic processes is
because Normal Schools doesn't have them, and when we adult teachers
begin to live by democratic virtues, then we adult teachers will be
able to show the students by example what adults using democratic
processes looks like. Just having alternative schools isn't enough,
because many of them are inherently undemocratic (Laguardia 2009).
Because public education and it's Normal Schools aren't democratic,
it's time to issue “a call for the transformation to democratic
schools” (Laguardia 2009).
Some alternative
private schools are democratic, such as Sudbury Valley Schools, and
perhaps their successes will translate, through competition, for
Normal Schools to up their ante. But more importantly, what needs to
happen for us to reform Normal Schools to reflect our American
democratic heritage. Abraham Lincoln's definition of democracy—of,
by, and for the people—is held in high reverence all around the
world. Lincoln said that our nation's learning of America's laws and
our Constitution should become “the political religion of the
nation”. He advocated civic education to be “taught in schools,
seminaries and in colleges; let it be written in primers, in spelling
books and in almanacs; let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed
in legislative halls, enforced in courts of justice” (Snow 2012).
Thomas Jefferson also warned us of what the opposite of an educated
citizenry would produce: “If a nation expects to be ignorant and
free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never
will be” (Snow 2012).
As humans, we only
retain 5% of the lectures we hear, but we retain 90% of what we teach
(and 75% of our experiences, and 50% of our experiences, per the
Learning Pyramid). Normal Schools need to adopt the many popular
education mechanisms that the Swedes are using, such as democratic
study circles. With democratic study circles, instead of being
lectured at by a monarchist, where we learn virtually nothing (5%),
instead, we can teach each other. If each of the student-teachers
were to take a chapter from our respective textbooks, and we taught
ourselves, and each other, what we learned, we would retain 90% of
those lessons we taught, as well as promoting an inherent respect for
one another, as opposed to arguing amongst ourselves, in unnatural
oppressive settings, in order to appeal to the Professor. Those
arguments made in hierarchical environments, the zeal for education
isn't apparent, but knocking down independent ideas, including ones
that may be perceived as threatening the Professor's authority, even
if they are not, are held in high esteem. Study circles, or
democratic circles, would change that.
In Sweden, “adult
students decide what is relevant, which contributes to the quality of
learning”, and “the collective pedagogy of the study circle
enables individuals to express their own opinions and to learn
through discussion and debate as well as from materials they include
in their study.” In having those democratic discussions, “the
resourcing of these activities” will ultimately lead to putting the
“legitimate responsibility” of financing such demands on the
State (Crowther 2013). Crowther ends his article with a quote from a
1975 academic journal which declares:
Individual freedom to question the value of established practices and
institutions and to propose new forms is part of our democratic
heritage. To maintain this freedom, resources should not be put at
the disposal only of those who conform but ought reasonably to be
made available to all for explicit educational purposes. (Adult
Education: The Challenge of Change, 1975, p. 25). (Crowther 2013)
If we do not
believe in freedom of speech for those views we disagree with, then
we don't believe in freedom of speech. Laguardia quotes Thomas
Jefferson when speaking about the absence of an informed and active
citizenry. “Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers
of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe
depositories.” Indeed, to have a complacent people is to allow the
rulers to become tyrants. Jefferson said to safeguard democracy, the
people's “minds must be improved to a certain degree”, which is
why he was in support of an Amendment to the US Constitution for
public education. “The influence over government must be shared
among all the people. If every individual... participates of the
ultimate authority, the government will be safe.” Thomas Jefferson,
Notes on Virginia 1781-1785, Query 14 (Laguardia 2009). Laguardia
said that “only an informed populace can guard against undemocratic
forces like plutocracy and theocracy”.
2/3 of 81,000
students in 26 states surveyed “found two-thirds of high school
students complain of boredom, usually because the subject matter was
irrelevant or their teachers didn't seem to care about them”
(Laguardia 2009). For Laguardia, the solution was to have “Civics
and Social Studies” ... “take on much more important roles”. He
wanted democratic “classroom organization”, because when the
students understand their beautiful historical gift of democracy,
then we will be able to develop an informed, active, and engaged
citizenry, who can participate in the decision-making processes in
school, as well as in the community. While Civics by itself is vital
to our democracy, another aspect of having informed citizens is
developing their ability to think independently, and to know “how
to solve difficult problems with logic and evidence”. For
democratic learning, our students will need to be able to master
citizenship skills, such as: “presenting a coherent argument;
listening to the argument of others; persuading others; being open to
the persuasion of others; negotiating differences; and mobilizing
support for a particular proposal” (Laguardia 2009).
“Democracy is not
only a form of government, but a way of life” (Kuran 2014), and
right now is “a time when the very meaning of democracy and
citizenship is contested (Arnot and Dillabough 2000)” (Matsepe
2014). If we lose our democracy, since democracy is on the ropes
around the world, and wholly absent in American public schools, it
won't be because of the terrorists, or by somebody trying to
overthrow the government. It'll be because we did it to ourselves,
and didn't care enough about freedom and democracy, as our founders
did, and our political leaders like to brag about, especially when
used to justify the Empire's bombing of brown-skinned 3rd
world nations back into the stone age. “Democracy accepts that
individuals are autonomous, responsible for self-governance, and able
to make choices and decisions for themselves” (Kuran 2014). While
I'll be able to do all that I can to empower my students to
understand their sacred sovereign autonomous power, Laguardia calls
for democratic practices “in every classroom from kindergarten
through the 12th grade” (Laguardia 2009). “Students
should participate in decision making in their schools”... “because
it means molding future leaders who will become better citizens with
decision making capacity that will benefit their communities”
(Matsepe 2014). I would love to see democracy revitalized in America,
and it'll only happen when the schools, especially the Normal
Schools, believe that freedom and democracy is a virtue, which it is.
Freedom and Democracy are good things.
References
Crowther, Jim. “Popular Education,
Power and Democracy”. June 1, 2013. Adult Learning. pg.
45-47. “Popular Education Network” PEN.
Kuran, Kezban. “Teacher perspectives
on civic and human rights education.” May 23, 2014. Educational
Research and Reviews. Vol. 9 (10). Pgs. 302-311.
http://www.academicjournals.org/article/article1400506908_Kuran.pdf
Laguardia, Armando and Arthur Pearl.
“Necessary Educational Reform for the 21st Century: The
Future of Public Schools in our Democracy”. November 1, 2009. Urban
Review.
Matsepe, Mokone W. “Democratic
involvement of students in high school governance in Lesotho.”
April 10, 2014. Educational Research and Reviews. Vol. 9 (7).
http://www.academicjournals.org/article/article1399387665_Matsepe.pdf
Snow, Rodney. “Education on the
Fundamentals of Our Government and Democracy is on Life Support: We
Can Help.” May/Jun2012. Utah Bar Journal Vol. 25 Issue 3,
p8-13.
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