In a democracy, people from different backgrounds engage, work together, and reinforce one another. They determine their own fates by voting for those leaders who represent their interests and desired lives. Generally, people seek happiness in their communities and aim to create better environments for children. However, when people from diverse backgrounds meet to achieve a democratic goal, challenges arise because of their diverse ways of seeing and doing things. Each individual or group has developed and familiarized itself with its unique ways; the rich seek to maintain their status while the poor, working 9-5 jobs, struggle to improve themselves. This results in slow progress, with the enduring factor that differentiates democratic progress from other progress being virtually absent.
Enduring Progress
In a democracy, individual and enduring progress differ. Democracy supports individual aspirations but can lead to issues when its backing is misinterpreted as a license to disregard others or undermine societal health. In a democracy, individual wealthy is normal; the question that democracy answers is how an individual should conduct h/herself in a society to withstand challenges (that h/she as an idividuals or groups can bear alone), achieve enduring progress. Democracy extols and emphasizes enduring progress and seeks to achieve enduring progress by (1) empowering members of society to understand their experiences and vote wisely, and (2) establishing rules on interpersonal relations. This essay primarily focuses on the first aspect, on democratic education.
Public Education
To withstand challenges, society needs democratic education, or public education. Opponents of public education argue that it is a failed system, claiming public school children are disruptive and that tenured teachers become incompetent. They promote private schools and wish to transfer funds and children they deem ready to learn to private schools, worsening public school issues. They overlook the benefits of diverse children learning together and ignore (1) the restrictions democratic rules impose to improve public schools, (2) that private schools, when inclusive, will face similar challenges, and (3) that without learning together, diverse children may struggle to cooperate as adults, contradicting the goals of democracy.
Adults are responsible for providing democratic education for children and fostering their interest in learning. Adults including educators, parents, and policymakers who set stands. Democratic education collapses when children do not learn how their class lessons relate to their experiences, and how their experiences relate to their futures, hindering their abilities to vote for leaders who will create a supportive society. Democratic education goes beyond mere content teaching and focuses on strategies that prepare children for meaningful engagement and enduring progress. Adults fail when they neglect children’s experiences; therefore, children may grow into adults who make detrimental decisions about democracy, undermining the integrity of both the democracy and democratic education.
Content and Strategy Centered Teaching and Learning (CSCTL)
Those against public education argue that low-performing children diminish high performers and should engage in separate tasks. However, research shows that students of varying achievement levels perform better together when guided by teachers trained in CSCTL practices. Low-performers are motivated by observing high-performers develop and apply strategies and formulas, while high performers gain confidence by sharing their knowledge. Children engage effectively and learn better based on skilled application of CSCTL methods. In a democracy, children from diverse backgrounds need CSCTL experts to learn and foster collaboration necessary for adulthood. Otherwise, they fail to learn together leading to a weakening democracy (Dewey, 1934).
Democratic Education and Enduring Progress
Public education is synonymous with democratic education and is essential for a democratic society like the USA. It is crucial for fostering shared understanding among diverse peoples. In a democracy, the aim of education is to develops capacities and achieves progress, which must meet the needs of a greater number of people. This progress is contingent on whether the people are educated; that is, whether they are supportive of educating all children, not just their own. A society cannot be truly democratic if it allows children to grow into adults who do not understand democracy, as those who value democracy would find it unacceptable.
Education cannot be democratic when society’s members prioritize their personal or group concerns over national norms, as there can be no national consensus without a central agent to set the agenda and standards. This leads to curriculum differences, with some states neglecting to teach democratic practices, resulting in varied beliefs and civic understandings. Consequently, individuals may favor their unique beliefs, creating a divided national identity and fostering misinformation, which undermines trust in the institutions and norms. Such divisions weaken shared experiences, making democracy more about personal interests than a collective need for progress and creating a contradiction: a democracy lacking principles or rules.
