Democracy and Schools

Most of my readers are probably familiar with Deborah Meier’s long-running blog conversation, which until last year she shared with Diane Ravitch. In a recent post, Democracy & Schools, Meier said:                       

“Students and faculty .. need a curriculum that can be defended in terms of the life skills and knowledge needed to be a fully informed member of the ruling class of a democratic society—as a juror, a voter, etc.” She went on to articulate a pet peeve of mine: “For example, maybe (such a curriculum) would place expertise in dealing with probability and statistics before being able to pass a test in algebra or calculus.” 

What intrigues me about Meier’s perspective is that she sees probability and statistics not in the context of a math curriculum, but primarily as civic skills. Now that I think about it, this has always been the point. To say it another way, what our children learn in school should be useful to them in the broadest sense. 

In fact, this is actually the entire point of a public education – of which ‘accumulating the skills to get a job’ is only an important subset. This has been largely forgotten in the great education debate, but to quote Ben Franklin, public schools were to be established for the very purpose of: "creating citizens who could make wise political decisions”.

The good news is that people are beginning to recognize that these two goals (job skills and citizenship) are not in conflict. The critical-thinking, problem-solving, collaborative skills that are central to becoming an engaged citizen are precisely the skills that will be essential in a 21^st-century economy. 

There may be an even broader issue here. We also tend to forget that a strong economy rests on the foundation of a strong civic culture. One has only to look around the world to see that you cannot have the former without the latter. Unless we intentionally work to increase the civic capacity of the next generation, we may find that ‘good’ jobs will exist for only the privileged few.  Which, come to think of it, seems to be where we’re headed. 

To the ‘four Cs’ of a 21^st-century education (Critical-thinking, Communication, Creativity and Collaboration) we need to add a fifth: Citizenship.