Education is very important sphere in modern society. People try to get the best education in order to get a good job in future and to receive their place in present society. Students go to school, attend classes, and very often even do not think about of the purpose of school, what aim it pursues, what useful it makes to the society and at last, how schools are organized, what is the history of developing schools and whom they are organized for.
The purpose of our study is to provide a critical writing, to compare and contrast two written works of D. Carlson “Beyond the Cave Myth: Re-Mythologizing Democratic Literacy” and R. Manzer “Public Schools, Democracy and Historical Trends” in the light of named problems. Our task is to state common assumptions about the role of education in society and to give the critical premises upon which those arguments are based.
Ronald Manzer in his article gives us the information not only about the position of schools in the democratic society, but also provides us with the information how and when public institutions and policies were put into practice in his article. Manzel provides us with five historical periods of foundation and formation of school institutions. He gives us the understanding of the changing attitude to the democracy in the society.
The first period of educational statement deals with the founding ideas of community. The colonies before, the provinces of Canada were divided by denomination, race, language, and ethnicity. The education was understood as closely related to the authority of the church. The measure of equality was provided with the help of using French language of instructions and studying. The schools did not get the equal financings; Roman Catholic schools got more financial support as other ones, especially suffered province with French language education. (Manzer 2004)
The second period is the so called “pursuit of industrial efficiency”. The public education was organized by the idea of “democratic community and equality” (Manzer 2004). The main idea is that there were multilateral secondary schools with different courses and grades.
The secondary schools were equal for everybody, without taking into consideration religion, language and races. The curriculum was the same for one grade of one course, and was different if the grades or courses varied. But still there was one exception when the educational programs were different, that is when the problem touched the hierarchy of occupational classes. (Manzer 2004)
The third period of changes dealt with the welfare of state. The period of changes starts with the end of the Second World War. The notion of equality is understood in the other way, relating to a new idea of democratic community. “Secondary education had been joined with elementary education as a requisite for democratic citizenship” (Manzer 2004).
During this, third period, school curriculum was organized in such a way, that every student had his own educational program and timetable. The subjects were divided into three or four levels of difficulty with more advanced courses. The educational programs were organized in such a way that to meet some particular educational interests, needs, and talents of students. The idea of equality lies in the idea that all students will be equal according to their opportunities and abilities. (Manzer 2004)
The next period deals with “the debates about the language of instruction and the place of religion in public schools. During this period, three ideas of democratic community appeared in the Canadian educational regime, which dealt with bilingual and multicultural communities.
The first idea was the classic liberal formula, which stated that “democratic community ought to be neutral among competing visions of a good life” (Manzer 2004). The second point was that “policies and practices of educational regimes should be adapted as much as possible to encompass the social diversity of the democratic community” (Manzer 2004). And the last one is called “a communitarian approach, which talked about separating schools according to denominational, linguistic, racial or ethnic features. (Manzer 2004)
The main change during the period was the idea, which did not come in use, to impose Christianity and religion in general on students. The idea is non constitutional, so it did not get distribution. (Manzer 2004)
And the last period is the era of Capitalism. All discussed periods very slowly, but still very surely, stepped to the present idea of education. Every period is rather important as we took something from every one to reach the modern understanding of education.
Now students get some equal basic knowledge and skills in different spheres of education and than they are free to choose some deeply oriented subjects according to theirs individual talents and needs, “restricted by a combination of curricular reform and budget cutbacks” (Manzer 2004).
The freedom is given to students to choose the primary subjects; students may maintain their democratic ideas in the modern educational regime. But students are not allowed to influence the organizational moments in the educational prosess.
The idea of free choice of timetable and educational program is supported by Dennis Carlson, as he says that:
if we give young people the opportunity to use their literacy to become makers of meaning and culture, we will find that they are capable of much more than we had imagined, certainly much more than anything currently measured on state proficiency tests (Carlson 1998).
He wants to say that we should give more freedom of choice to students and agrees with Manzer that the present form of education is more useful than it was before.
Carlson also says that during the study people are coming to the conclusion that the only way to come to the truth is to use some scientific investigational methods, to rely on the points of view of different scientific facts than on their own opinion and point of view.
The ideas of both these scholars are mainly equal in the questions of modern education, but still there are some differences and argues about the problem of democracy. Manzer is sure that the education came to the pick of its democracy. Students are eager to choose their timetable, the subjects they want to attend and study in details.
Carlson is more pessimistic in his attitude to absolute free of choice. He takes into consideration the questions of how to teach, what to teach and in what quantity. All these choices are not available to students and are given in the disposal of experts and professionals in this sphere. Yes, he agrees that now students are given more freedom of their choices but it is too early to talk about absolute one (Carlson 1998).
So, about what democracy in education we may talk about? Students are not allowed to organize their work? They are just allowed to choose the items from offered ones, and not to choose from the whole variety of items which is available to those who organize the educational process.
And whether students need this absolute freedom? Are they so responsible to take such big responsibility on their shoulders? We suppose, no. In our opinion, it is rather wise that students are not allowed to take part into the questions of providing curriculum.
And there is no need to give all responsibility to students. It should be a dialogue between the governing structures of the school and students who want to take part in the organizational process. As it was said above, students can do more than we think, so they may help us with these questions.
One more support in the question of not absolute democracy is the idea that not all languages are used in the educational process, “the democratic public language must speak in multiple dialectics and be organized around metaphors and story telling” (Carlson 1998). The present American educational system stepped forward in this question but does not develop it to the appropriate level in the educational system.
Carlson also says that modern schools teach not only literacy, but also illiteracy. Students should rely mostly on somebody’s points of view (scientists and scholars) and not to involve their own logical thinking.
To provide the equal democratic opportunities to all students it was offered to maintain tests into the process of assessment students’ knowledge. The tests are standardizes and provide equal opportunities to all students as they are the same for everybody, one and the same time is given to cope with them. It is also supposed that equal knowledge and opportunities were given to the students to get ready to the tests. (Carlson 1998)
So, in conclusion we want to note that the democracy is rather obvious in the school education in the questions of the curriculum. For many years students were studying what they were told and in what time. In the modern United States students are eager to make up their own time table, they can choose subjects which they want to study in details and attend them, and they are given more freedom of choice in the questions of education.
But still, students are not allowed to influence the organizational process of completing curriculum and choosing of basic spheres of knowledge. So, there is no need to talk about absolute democracy in the public schools of the United States of America.
References
Carlson, D. (Spring 1998). Beyond the Cave Myth: Re-Mythologizing Democratic Literacy. Studies in the Literary Imagination, 31, 1, 87-101.
Manzer, R. (2004). Public Schools, Democracy and Historical Trends. Education Canada (Canadian Education Association Journal), 44, 4.