Return-Path: <nifl-povracelit@literacy.nifl.gov> Received: from literacy (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by literacy.nifl.gov (8.10.2/8.10.2) with SMTP id f0IKWO910261; Thu, 18 Jan 2001 15:32:24 -0500 (EST) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 15:32:24 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <LAW2-F434TYFDCjoDUS00001f17@hotmail.com> Errors-To: listowner@literacy.nifl.gov Reply-To: nifl-povracelit@literacy.nifl.gov Originator: nifl-povracelit@literacy.nifl.gov Sender: nifl-povracelit@literacy.nifl.gov Precedence: bulk From: "Eileen Eckert" <eileeneckert@hotmail.com> To: Multiple recipients of list <nifl-povracelit@literacy.nifl.gov> Subject: [NIFL-POVRACELIT:362] education and democracy X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Status: O Content-Length: 1768 Lines: 28 I've been thinking about the exchange between Catherine and Laura about democracy and education. Laura's question, "democracy for whom?" is a crucial one. Catherine's statements about the corrosion of democracy, or democracy under attack, seem to imply that at some point there was a higher level of democracy in the U.S. than there is today. I've been trying to figure out what bothers me about those statements. >From the beginning of the U.S. as a nation, it has been called a democracy, a government of, by, and for the people. But when the Constitution was written, "the people" meant white anglo-saxon protestant males who owned property. The definition excluded all people of color, slave or "free." It excluded all women, Catholics, men without property, Jews, etc. Yet it was called democracy. It seems to me that it was a highly structured, formalized oligarchy by another name and that every civil rights movement since has been an attempt to expand the oligarchy into democracy. Does it make a difference whether we define our socio-economic-political system as "in creation" or "under attack"? I think it does. To be in the process of creating a democracy gives us the freedom to envision the best that we can build, whereas to be defending a democracy under attack requires that we pinpoint a past moment in which the democracy we defend existed. How we frame the question, for ourselves and with our students, sets the perameters for the options we see available to us. I do not think we know yet what democracy can be and I think that one purpose of education is to learn how to create democracy. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com
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