Deborah Meier is a visionary teacher, author, and founder of successful small schools in New York City and Boston. Harry Boyte, senior scholar at Augsburg College, is founder of the youth civic empowerment initiative Public Achievement and a leader in the movement to democratize higher education. This blog is no longer being updated.
Families & the Community
Opinion
Beyond 'Civics' Vs. 'Citizenship': Possibilities for Common Ground
The recent Making Citizens report is mistaken about the youth civic education initiative Public Achievement -- it reflects itself the mobilizing, good versus evil approach which has come to dominate public life in our time, the approach to politics it also decries. The debate has also illuminated possible common ground to integrate civics and citizenship education and move beyond binary thinking.
Social Studies
Opinion
Keeping Democracy Alive Requires Practice
Democratic practices in schools can help prepare the young for adulthood, writes Deborah Meier.
Teaching
Opinion
Experiential Education Should Be Apart from Schools and Colleges
David Randall, Communications Director of the National Association of Scholars, makes his third set of comments in our discussion about his report. He agrees that civic learning can never be reduced to only those things that can be learned in a classroom. But he thinks citizenship and experiential education should take place out of school.
School Climate & Safety
Opinion
Beyond Polarization: Education for Civic Repair
It is an ineluctable dynamic that when one polarizes, one purifies. This means eliminating the complexity of "the other side" that one sees as the enemy. In my view this is a serious problem of the National Association of Scholars report, "Making Citizens." It collapses the vast diversity of the civic engagement movement into a left wing conspiracy undertaken with stealth and subterfuge. This is a caricature. Nonviolence as a philosophy brought together with repair of civic life points beyond today's polarization. We need a reawakening to nonviolence tied to repair of civic life.
Social Studies
Opinion
Teaching Active Citizenship in Schools Is Worth It
Like allowing free speech in society, teaching democratic ideals in schools poses risks. But those risks are worthwhile, writes Deborah Meier.
Social Studies
Opinion
Active Citizenship Should Be Learned Out of School
In this posting, David Randall, author of Making Citizens: How American Universities Teach Civics, argues that civic life in America has benefited by abundant forms of civic participation and active citizenship is a welcome part of public life, but it doesn't belong in schools. Teachers cannot include civic practice since all are equally qualified to act as citizens by virtue of turning 18.
Social Studies
Opinion
A Different Kind of Politics
We need a different kind of politics beyond binary thinking -- in education and more broadly. This is active citizenship, beyond left and right. We have profound resources in our history.
College & Workforce Readiness
Opinion
Does Civics Belong in the Classroom?
This posting by David Randall, chief author of "Making Citizens," the new report from the National Association of Scholars, charges that the "new civics," aimed at turning America's youth into left wing activists, has replaced the "old civics," teaching students about the operations of government.
Teaching
Opinion
Active Citizenship Is Democracy's Best Defense
Service learning and student organizing can provide students with connections and channels to become active citizens, writes Deborah Meier.
Social Studies
Opinion
We the People Vs. a Chosen Body: A Debate as Old as the Nation
The new report by the National Association of Scholars, Making Citizens: How American Universities Teach Civics, reopens a debate as old as the nation -- is democracy is elections, or the ongoing work of the people?
Teaching
Opinion
Putting the Public Back in Public Education—From Protest to Public-Making
Privatization of higher education -- from the Trump education team and other forces - feeds on private processes. To reverse the trends we need to put the public back in public education, broadly defined.
Teaching
Opinion
One Reform to Make Schools More Democratic
Schools must serve as democratic institutions for students so that they understand how democracy functions when they graduate high school, writes Deborah Meier.
Teaching
Opinion
Turning Jobs Into Public Work
Facing a ferocious attack on the public purposes of education from the incoming Trump administration, it is crucial not to only focus on the dangers -- as real as they are. We also need to recognize the stirrings of a democracy movement in and around education. Overcoming the framing which is at the heart of the attack -- the false opposition of "vocational education" and "liberal arts and civic education" is key to building the power of this movement. Even the most insightful books from the democratic movement in education such as the new Dilemmas of Educational Ethics tend to reproduce the distinction.
We need to claim our work as educational professional as public work, full of civic and democratic possibilities.
Teaching Profession
Opinion
The Constructive Work of Teaching and Learning
Building foundations for democracy in schools can be achieved through building a culture of democracy for every child, writes Deborah Meier.
