Rethinking Race, Class, Language, and Gender by Orelus Pierre Wilbert;

Author:Orelus, Pierre Wilbert; [Orelus, Pierre W.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Published: 2011-07-06T16:00:00+00:00

Part III

Redefining Democracy, Schooling, and Social Justice in the Supreme State of Western Neoliberalism and U.S. Imperialism

Is democracy possible in a neoliberal and capitalist state? Can we have a democratic school system within such a state? This section and the dialogues that follow attempt to shed light on these questions. The concept of democracy has been at the center of many political debates and can be traced back as far as the time of Plato. This concept occupied a central role in Plato’s work, namely in his book Republic.1 Specifically, through this book, Plato advocated for democratic values and principles, which he argued should be the cornerstone of any society or government.

Furthermore, Plato emphasized the great value and role of democracy in the construction of an equitable society. Moreover, he argued that embracing and implementing democratic values and principles in any given society can be conducive to the political stability of a country and the overall well-being of its citizens. Finally, Plato was against oligarchic and authoritarian forms of government often ruled by the wealthy at the expense of the poor.2

Many scholars from various fields and with different foci, such as education, philosophy, and political science, have taken on Plato’s work on democracy and expanded it. For example, John Dewey, the prominent American philosopher and educator, was a champion for a democratic school system. Dewey advocated for creating democratic space within the U.S. school system. He believed such a place was essential for the creation of good citizenship. Dewey also believed that students and professors should be allowed to discuss social and political issues in schools without the intrusion and infringement of the government.3 In other words, Dewey believed that students’ and professors’ voices should not be silenced if democracy is to exist. As Maxine Greene eloquently put it, “Without a Dewey, there would have been little concern for ‘participatory democracy,’ for ‘consensus,’ for the reconstitution of a public sphere” (p. 92).4

Taking Dewey’s view on democracy and schooling a few steps further, I argue that in order to have a democratic school system, students should be allowed to voice their opinion about what kind of education they feel they deserve to receive. Also, students should be given the opportunity to actively participate in the co-construction of knowledge with their teachers. In my view, a school system within which students are expected to merely receive and regurgitate the information that their teachers pass on to them is not democratic. As the Brazilian educator Paulo Freire pointed out in his seminal work, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, students should not be passive recipients of prefabricated knowledge that professors pour into their heads. Freire called this form of teaching practice a banking form of education. Freire explains what this form of education entails in the following terms:

(a) the teacher teaches and the students are taught;

(b) the teacher knows everything and the students know nothing;

(c) the teacher thinks and the students are thought about;

(d) the teacher talks and the students listen—meekly;

(e) the

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