Reflection
Throughout the time in my education class, Teaching Towards Democracy with Dr. David McGough, I experienced many educational moments. The overarching question for the class was what role does education hold in a democratic society? This question is key for the class because as teachers, we must understand what our end goal is for our students. Why is it that we are having the students go to mandated schooling till they are 18 years old? What purpose does this education hold? These questions were ones I held after understanding what the goal was for this education class.
When we first started the class we began by understanding what makes up a democracy along with what our society holds in high regards as ideal values. This class looked into three main aspects of society, which were democracy, capitalism, and religion. After learning this, we found out that for our final project in the class we would need to complete an advocacy project. This project could be on whatever subject or group of people we deemed needed improvement. For myself, I choose to group up with 3 other students in the class to work in an advocacy project for college student debt in Vermont. This project would work on colleagueship and advocacy which were the two principles we would need to address within this class for our teaching license.
What I found most interesting about this class, was how every aspect that we learned about connected with one-another. We first started with what values were held within our democratic society. This was to help understand what our society thought of as acceptable behaviors along with how our citizens should act. After learning about our society, we started to look at how education fits into these beliefs. Within the class, I read many articles about various aspects of life like racism, the idea of democracy in schools, what advocacy is, and even the history behind the pledge of allegiance. All of these articles helped deepen my understanding of how education can play a role in democracy, and even what a democracy means within our society. Sue Winton cites from John P. Portelli and R. Patrick Solomon’s book titled, The Erosion of Democracy in Education: From Critique to Possibilities. Winton states, “...a critical democratic perspective understands democracy as an ideal that is committed to equity, diversity, social justice, reasoned choices, and public participation (Solomon & Portelli, 2001)” (as cited in Winton, p. 43). When I started my final group project within the class, I found myself being able to refer back to articles like this many times for its strong connections to the topic at hand.
The idea behind a democracy is that the people come together as a whole to govern themselves. Within our society we come together to vote on certain laws and regulations that affect our life. For our class, and for the principle number 11, colleagueship was a constant aspect that was addressed. The class had to understand what colleagueship meant and utilize it every meeting because as a class, we would come together and have discussions about our readings. For these discussions we would have delegated roles for students to play. One student would play as a leader who controlled the group's discussion and call on people, two other students would play as discussion students who started off the topic of discussion, then there was a student who took notes on these discussions and reiterates them at the end. As the semester went on our professor would add more in-depth roles to the discussion to keep it interesting, which at the end of the semester each student in the class had a role. These discussions were another aspect that connected to colleagueship (along with democracy) because they forced the class to understand how to work well with each other. For the class, we had to make sure ours (and others) voices were heard or represented, while being understanding of others points of views. These roles helped me understand what it meant to be in a democracy because each person has a role within the group, which we must make sure everyone had a say within the discussion.
For the advocacy project I got the chance to understand what it meant to work in a group towards an actual end goal (rather than discussions in a classroom). This was a major learning point for me because it showed me what it would take for me as an educator to advocate for a student's change in school. My project was to advocate for change in the Vermont college system because students are graduating with rising debt. Throughout this project my group and I had to understand what each other's roles were, work with each other’s strengths and weaknesses, along getting the project in the time period we had. This was a stressful project at times because of meetings times and some students missing meetings, but we were able to get the project done and learn many things from it. Besides learning how to work with other people in a group, I learned how the process of advocacy went. Before this project I just thought of advocacy was when a person (or group) protested against something or conducted fund raisers towards a cause. But after completing this project and reading the articles, I understand that those are just two of the many roles advocacy can take on. Advocacy can be more in depth (and in most cases needs to be), and can take on many more roles to reach the goal of advocating for a certain cause.
In closing, I learned many useful ideas about the connection of democracy and education. Every aspect of this class was constructed to further the understanding this guiding question about democracy. I found this beneficial in my learning process because when I got the chance to look back on all my papers, readings, and projects, I can understand how they are all connected and lead to the understanding I have now. I will be able to utilize these new ideas and concepts when I become a teacher because my goal as an educator is to have my student’s live better lives along with having them become lifelong learners. In an article by Louis A. Gatta he states,
“The role of the public schools in providing services to help students develop socialization skills, decision making skills, and problem solving skills is in a state of transition. The chance in the family structure in American society over the last decade has forced schools to reexamine their role in providing student services outside the realm of the classroom.” (p.1, Gatta).
This statement by Gatta shows how the role of education is changing from what it use to be. Educators and school figures understand that schools must take on the role of teaching students bigger life lessons then how to do math or science. This is what this class has taught me. As an instructor, I am licensed to teach other people's children when they are in school for 8 hours a day. During this time, I must help the students understand what life lessons they will need to have, or know about, for when they begin their life in this society. I will aim to better the lives of my students and aid them in the process of becoming knowledgeable and involved citizens.
Works Cited
Winton, S. (2008). Character education: Implications for critical democracy (43- 63). International critical childhood policy studies, Vo1, No1. Retrieved from, http://journals.sfu.ca/iccps/index.php/childhoods/article/view/4
Gatta, L. (2016). A student advocacy program a means of expanding the role and effectiveness of teachers. p.1
