What Are Democratic Societies and Participatory Democracies
Repeatedly in books,
articles, publications put out by advocates of education reform, we find the
phrases "democratic society" and "participatory
democracy." What do these two
terms mean and how do they relate to education reform and our form of
government?
A democratic society is a
society that adheres to the tenets of socialism; a participatory democracy
is a form of government in which the representatives of the people are
appointed. This is also called a representative
democracy, noting that care must be taken in the definition of
"representative" intended by the user. It is a government of men not a
government of laws.
Education, as now
conceived, is not to cultivate and discipline the mind of a child, to produce
an individual in a free society; education, as now conceived, is to
"socialize" the child, to produce a cooperative, collaborative,
compliant teamplayer willing to work for minimal compensation [1] for the good of
the collective whole. In this
context, knowledge is incorporated as it is used and applied in addressing
social and life-related issues such as religion, discrimination, life-style
preferences, prejudice, gender equity, ecology, environmental issues,
homelessness, welfare, disease... taught in the context of unit themes or
thematic units. This delimiting of
knowledge is also known as the less is more theory [2] of teaching less
but teaching it more indepth (as it is used
and applied); also as applied learning, making learning relevant,
and life-role learning.
In this new educational paradigm [3], process is
singularly more important than content. Process is defined, in Webster's
Seventh Collegiate Dictionary, as "a series of actions or operations
conducing to an end." Stiggins defines process as
"behavior/procedure." [4] Conley states, in reference to process standards,
… education, as now conceived, leads to demonstrable changes
in student behaviors, changes that can be assessed using agreed-upon standards. [5]
A process element
is an intellectual or affective process consisting of attitudes, behaviors,
beliefs, skills, or techniques that may be applied in a wide range of
situations in ways that help in the comprehension and processing of
information. [6]
What is the "end"? Bloom states,
…a large part
of what we call "good teaching" is the teacher's ability to attain
affective objectives through challenging the students' fixed beliefs and
getting them to discuss issues."[7], [8]
Likewise, Ralph Tyler, in his 1949
book, Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction, on page 49,
states,
Since the real
purpose of education is not to have the instructor perform certain activities
but to bring about significant changes in the students' patterns of behavior,
it becomes important to recognize that any statement of the objectives…
should be a statement of changes to take place in the student. [9]
Erickson states,
Remember, though,
that you need to make certain there are open-ended, guiding questions that will
cause students to arrive at essential learnings
— those transferable lessons of life that help students make conceptual
and real sense of their world. [10]
In the introduction to the Washington state
essential academic learning requirements for Goal II, January 1996 version, the
same is stated this way,
Schools must now
more actively engage in helping students understand the meaning of facts.
In Socratic
questioning [11], the teacher serves as a questioner of students' points of
view. The Greek sage Socrates is
the model for this type of instruction.
Instead of talking at students, the teacher participates in dialogues
with them, aiming to uncover the rightness or wrongness of their beliefs. [12]
In other words, we must lead children,
inductively, to the wanted conclusion, the wanted way of thinking about social
and life-related issues.
What is the wanted way of
thinking? The answer to that can be
found in the context and content of material to which children are being
exposed. Over and over, children
are being exposed to biased and hypothetical information presented in such
manner as to lead children, inductively, to believe it to be fact. Too, children are being exposed to
material that creates cognitive dissonance in the child; creating conflict
between what the child knows (cognitive) and what the child believes
(affective) to effect a change in how the child acts/behaves
(psychomotor). Material
that can only be described as depraved, base, macabre. This material is not the exception, it
is the norm.
Besides outcome-based education; this
system of education is known as progressive education [13]. Education to socialize the child
is the aim of socialist countries.
Paul De Hart Hurd, Professor Emeritus,
Stanford University, describing education in communist countries,
"In the
Communist countries there are comprehensive examinations at the end of the
primary, middle, and secondary schools to assess a student's total
progress. Test results are not
interpreted in a competitive sense as to who has done well or poorly compared
to other students or a norm, but rather whether a student has mastered the
prescribed subject matter. If test
results are below expectancy, the student is tutored by the teacher and other
students. The objective is to avoid
failures.
The purpose of this
new education system is to prepare the child to assume his "rightful"
place as "a productive and contributing member" in the "globally
competitive workforce." No
longer will the child be educated, then decide what job he wishes to pursue in
his adult life. Under the new
paradigm, workforce training will begin in the elementary grades and progress
in earnest at about the age of sixteen with the receiving of the Certificate of
Mastery (CIM).
In documents put out by the state of Washington, the child will not be
able to work for a wage until he/she has received a CIM.
[14] After receipt of the CIM, the child will
receive workforce training in accordance with job openings found in the
local labor market. [15]
Skill standards, aligning with the
federal SCANS [16] Competencies, will be established for each industry. To track the local labor market, a state
and national database will be established, tracking every worker and every
job.
Dr Shirley McCune, 1989 Governors'
Conference on Education: "What we're into is the total restructuring of
society."
The tenth plank outlined by Marx and Engels in the Communist Manifesto as necessary for
transformation to socialism/communism is,
Free education for all children in public schools. … Combination of education with
industrial production, &c, &c.
Education under the new paradigm is for
the express purpose of providing human capital for the benefit of the state.
In 1943, William Pearson Tolley, Chancellor of Syracuse University, wrote:
In a slave state
vocational training may be education enough. For the education of free men much more
is required.
Meetings are now
being run by consensus and the Delphi Technique is being used liberally on
unsuspecting communities to facilitate them into ownership of preset
outcomes. Both techniques hold
basis in the Hegelian Principle of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis used for
the express purpose of creating the Oneness of Mind necessary to dialectical
materialism. [17]
Site-based councils are being
established at each school site, made up of administrators, classified and
certified employees, and parent and community members appointed to
"represent" the community.
This council will be responsible for the maintenance and operation of
the school. Concerns of the
community will now come before the site council instead of the duly elected
school board. [18]
Parents are being organized by
left-wing groups [19] using the Hegelian Principle. Any parent who does not agree with the
left-wing takeover of their schools will have no avenue of redress. This is the very essence of what
Alexander Hamilton spoke of in Federalist Paper #10, when he addressed the
fallacies of democracy.
Appointed representatives, a socialist
education system to produce human capital for the benefit of a state supervised
workforce — this is the reality of democratic societies and participatory
democracies, of socialism, of oppression.
Democracy
is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.
Liberty
is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.
— Benjamin Franklin
__________________
[1] In their book, Democratic
Schools, (Alexandria, Va: ASCD,
1995) Michael Apple and James Beane state, on page
102, ;" …despite political and educational rhetoric to the contrary,
most economic forecasts show that a large proportion of the jobs the modern economy
is creating are low-skilled, part-time, and poorly paid (Apple 1989)." [Back]
[2] This is the
terminology used by Theodore Sizer of the Coalition
of Essential Schools. [Back]
[3] "Paradigm"
is a fancy way of saying model. [Back]
[4] Measuring
Thinking Skills in the Classroom; Stiggins, Richard J, Evelyn Rubel
and Edys Quellmalz;
Washington, DC: National Education Association; 1988; p 30; Appendix A in reference
to Evaluating Students by Classroom Observation: Watching Students Grow;
Washington DC: National Education Association; 1986. [Back]
[5] Roadmap to
Restructuring; Conley, David; Eugene, Or:
ERIC; 1993; pps 123, 124. [Back]
[7] Taxonomy of
Educational Objectives; Book Two; Affective Domain; Bloom, Benjamin;
David Krathwohl and Bertram Masia;
White Plains, NY: Longman; 1964; p 55. [Back]
[8] Bloom's Taxonomy
of Educational Objectives is mastery learning; it delineates the
process of outcome-based education which is mastery learning renamed. [Back]
[9] This quote is
referenced in Toward a Coherent Curriculum; Alexandria, Va: ASCD;
1995; pps 104, 105. [Back]
[10] Stirring the
Head, Heart and Soul; Redefining Curriculum and Instruction; Erickson;
Thousand Oaks, Ca: Corwin Press; 1995; pps 121,122. [Back]
[11] Socratic thinking is
another term for critical thinking, also known problem solving or decision
making. [Back]
[12] Multiple
Intelligences in the Classroom; Armstrong, Thomas; Alexandria, Va: ASCD;
1995; p 70. [Back]
[13] John Dewey, socialist,
is known as "the father of progressive education" in the United
States. [Back]
[14] Final Report;
Governor's Council on School-to-Work Transition; March 24, 1995; pps 11, 18. [Back]
[15] This is laid out in both
the 1995 Report to the Legislature from the Workforce Training and Education
Coordinating Board and HR 1617 at the federal level. [Back]
[16] Secretaries Commission
on Achieving Necessary Skills was formed under the supervision of the US
Department of Labor (when Elizabeth Dole, wife of Robert Dole was Secretary of
Labor) to establish workforce competencies. State standards must coalesce
"national" (federal) standards to receive federal grant and block
grant monies. [Back]
[17] "Dialectical
materialism: a social and economic
theory, elaborated by Karl Marx and others, and held by Communists, which
maintains that social and economic evolution must inevitably proceed through
stages of conflict between economic classes, the dictatorship of the
proletariat, and the gradual atrophy of the state to the eventual emergence of
a classless society." (The
Worldbook Encyclopedia Dictionary; Chicago:
Double Day and Co, Inc; 1965) [Back]
[18] But for a group of
watchful parents, Washington state would have passed, in the 1995/96
Legislative Session, a law that would have eliminated the enumerated powers of
the school board, allowing those powers to be passed to the site councils. Undoubtedly the bill will resurface. [Back]
[19] One such group being
the Industrial Areas Foundation founded in 1942 by Saul Alinsky, who, in his
book, Rules for Radicals (New York: Vintage, 1971) stated,
"Few of us survived the Joe McCarthy holocaust of the early 1950s and of
those there were even fewer whose understanding and insights had developed
beyond the dialectical materialism of orthodox Marxism." [Back]
© March 1996;
Lynn M Stuter
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