Educating for Democracy-and Liberty
Robert Pondiscio continues his conversation with Deborah Meier today.
Dear Deborah,
I'm sorry you didn't rise to my challenge to encourage combatants in the rhetorically charged edu-wars to come together on curriculum and instruction. I hope we can come back to those bridgeable differences before my brief residency here comes to an end.
We can also take up the Common Core State Standards if you insist. But I must admit I am feeling exhausted by the increasing vitriol over them. When I described a knowledge-rich core curriculum as the thing I will cling to with both hands, I was not referring to the common-core standards, which are not a curriculum at all. It is true that I've been an outspoken advocate for the standards. But that is chiefly because they encourage (but cannot mandate) the kind of specific, knowledge-rich curriculum that I believe best serves the democratic purpose of public education.
You want to talk about that purpose. Very well. You wrote that knowing "why" we teach must precede any discussion of "what" we teach. I have come to see the two as inseparable—the "what" is a function of the "why." But let's have it your way. I was struck—and I must confess, quite surprised—by your assertion that you want "schooling for ruling in a society in which every adult is a member of the ruling class." Isn't the very idea of a "ruling class" anathema to democratic impulses?
