THE SEARCH FOR COMMUNITY

CRAIG JOHNSON

Chapter 12

Vision of the founders

An education needed in the new republic in political terms rather than in terms of academic achievement, social class, individual fulfillment, or occupational preparation.

Many founders thought of liberty in terms of widespread political participation; thus public education should prepare the citizenry for such participation.

The Asymmetries of Community Almost everybody seeks some sort of

community or communities to which they can feel attached and at home.

Public schooling once had a powerful moral and legal authority behind it.

The Asymmetries of Community Pluralism sought moral authority and

legitimacy for education in the many diverse communities.

Some pluralists were critical of public education being conformist in outlook and practice. They recommended ethnic, multicultural, and bilingual studies should be emphasized.

The Asymmetries of Community Civism sought the principal authority and

legitimacy for public education in the democratic civic or political community.

They argued public education should promote values, knowledge, and skills of participation for maintaining and improving the democratic community and to strengthen the freedom, equality justice, and popular consent of the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights.

Central Values of Pluralism Preserves functional autonomy of major social

institutions. Decentralized power into as many hands as

possible. Recognizes that hierarchy and stratification of

function and role are unavoidable and honorable.

Relies as much as possible upon informal custom, folkway, spontaneous tradition—sanctioned habits of mind—rather than formal law, ordinance, or administrative regulation.

Renascence in Education

Kinship was a great mistake to think that the political institutions, like the public school, could do better than the family in education.

Localism argued that busing springs from pride of attachment to neighborhood rather than from racism.

Voluntary association the prime agents of human accomplishment are the intimate, free relevant, and spontaneous associations of self-help and mutual aid.

Neo-Radical Proposals for Pluralism (Joel Spring)Public schools were

hopeless and might as well be abolished in order for the freedom of stateless anarchy to prevail.

(Michael B. Katz)They should be stripped of their value teaching and so they would not do too much damage with their racist, materialistic, exploitative, capitalistic, class-biased teachers.

Romantic Critics

Public school system could not be reclaimed and should be replaced by voluntary efforts.

(Henry J. Perkinson)Prime fault of schools was they followed too closely the need and demands of the national community and neglected the natural need and creative impulses of kids.

Romantic Critics

(Paul Goodman)Public schools were primarily concentration camps designed to socialize the young to the dominant economic and social values of society.

(Paul Goodman)Students should learn from the community in decentralized informal contact with all the educative agencies .

(Edgar Z. Friedenburg)Children should be allowed to go to any kind of school that would enable each one to develop an individuality and identity of his or her own.

Romantic Critics

(John Holt)The child should learn whatever he chose from a smorgasbord of learning possibilities.

(Ivan Illich, Everett Reimer)Educational networks and learning webs would replace institutionalized schools and professional teachers and public funds would go directly to the learners to enable them to find their education wherever and whenever the would.

Itzkoff’s “New” Public Education Local autonomous cultural community is

the natural context and authority for education.

Social and educational system could be reformed by a gradual shift to voluntarism and eventually to a full-voucher system.

Children would have maximum opportunity to realize their value commitments in a wholly voluntary system of community-based schooling.

Sizer on a Smorgasbord of Schools Pluralism of educational institutions as the

best solution for the future. The deschooling movement, alternative

education movement, and the advocates of neighborhood community schools represent a new reality in American education politics.

The part schools can play in education is limited.

Children could divide their time between different kinds of schools – ethnic, community, regional, and national schools.

Bilingual Education

Higher Education Act of 1965 encouraged colleges and universities to give special preparation to student teachers who would work in low-income areas.

Bilingual Education Act(1968) gave federal aid to school districts to meet needs of limited English speaking children.

Horace Kallen on Cultural Pluralism The principles of political democracy

must underlie the diversities of cultural pluralism.

Opposed to separate schools for different cultures except as supplementary and voluntary additions to public schools.

Opposed the injection of pluralistic religion into public schools.

Opposed public support for private or ethnic schools.

John Dewey and the Meaning of the Public

Search for conditions under which the Great Society could become the Great Community.

Needed a Great Community that was not physical and organic, but which was characterized by a communal life that was morally, emotionally, intellectually, and consciously sustained.

John Dewey and the Meaning of the Public

His meaning of public was human acts have consequences upon others: perception of these leads to efforts to control action so as to secure some and not others.

Consequences of actions are two kinds. Those that affect only the persons

directly engaged are private. Those that affect others beyond those

concerned are public.

The Citizen as the Officer of the Public

The significance of a representative democracy is that every citizen VOTER is and officer of the public.

The meaning of a representative democracy is to organize its affairs that the public good dominated the private interest.

Civic Role of Public Education

Liberals saw the need to mobilize disparate groups on behalf of pressing new social and political or economic reforms.

Conservatives saw the need for social cohesion in the authentic tradition of the American way of life to ward threats from outside sources.

The Social Frontiersman

Teachers must bridge the gap between school and society.

Teachers must become the centers for the building.

Give children a vision of the possibilities which lie ahead and endeavor to enlist their loyalties and enthusiasms in the realization of the vision.

The Educational Policies Commision

Emphasized the need for education for democracy.

Believed youth need the realization of civic responsibility, self-realization, human relationship, and economic efficiency.

Concept of “Good Citizenship” in the 1950s

Highlighted the fact that the schools were not radical and not subversive, but supporting the principles of political democracy and economic values.

Schools should develop the knowledge, attitudes, problem-solving ability, and skills of working with other for the general welfare.

Law Related Education

Law of Free society included lesson plans, case books, course outlines, and teachers guides and multimedia materials covering eight basic concepts for civic education K-12.

• Four concepts stress civism (authority, justice, participation, and responsibility.

• Four concepts stress pluralism(freedom, privacy, diversity, and property)

Education for Moral Development Six stages of moral/cognitive development

First two stages people are found to think and act on the traditional bases of fear and punishment, reward, or exchange of favors.

Middle two stages says they think and act on the conventional bases devoted to maintaining the political and social order by meeting the expectations held out for them or duties imposed upon them by authorities.

Upper two stages say people think and act on the basis of moral principles genuinely accepted by the individual rather than on the basis of simply conforming to the authority of the group.

Barbara Jordan on a National Community

A nation is formed by the willingness of each of us to share in the responsibility for upholding the common good.

A spirit of harmony can only survive is each of us remembers, when bitterness and self-interest seem to prevail, that we share a common destiny.

John Rawls on a Public Sense of Justice

The members of a well-ordered society should have a strong and normally effective desire to act as the principles of justice require.