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 f0INVC915098; Thu, 18 Jan 2001 18:31:12 -0500 (EST) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 18:31:12 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <5F6C7F4A7177D311A0C6002035687B8EC98A45@exchange1.sos.state.mo.us> 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: "Jones, Karen" <jonesk@sosmail.state.mo.us> To: Multiple recipients of list <nifl-povracelit@literacy.nifl.gov> Subject: [NIFL-POVRACELIT:363] RE: education and democracy X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas Content-Type: text/plain; X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2653.19) Status: O Content-Length: 2653 Lines: 51 I find the idea Eileen expresses - that we are struggling to create something that has never actually been achieved rather then defending something that we once had but is now under attack - most provocative. I don't know whether we are gaining or losing ground in striving toward democracy, but perhaps another role of education is to give people the tools and information and power they need to move all of us toward democracy if they so choose. I guess the frightening possibility of that is that they also gain tools and power to move us away from it if they so choose. Keeping people less educated than they are has long been a tactic of oppressors... Karen Jones -----Original Message----- From: Eileen Eckert [mailto:eileeneckert@hotmail.com] Sent: Thursday, January 18, 2001 2:32 PM To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: [NIFL-POVRACELIT:362] education and democracy 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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