Awakening Democracy Through Public Work: Pedagogies of Empowerment by Harry C. Boyte

Author:Harry C. Boyte [Boyte, Harry C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Politics
ISBN: 9780826522177
Google: OKwZtQEACAAJ
Goodreads: 39651096
Publisher: Vanderbilt University Press
Published: 2018-01-15T06:32:21+00:00

The seemingly sharp distinctions are framed by the argument that there are a few “universals” to political life, applying across widely varying cultural and community contexts, but nothing is ever “either-or.” As Gerald Taylor puts it, “We’re the same people after all, whether we are in a public or a private setting.” These concepts are best understood as fluid and influenced by context. Different settings such as a church service or a school or a geographical community, take on varying public and private qualities. A church, explained Arnie Graf, a long time IAF organizer, is more personal than a political convention.

Differentiating between public and private relationships has proven to be very useful for students learning public work approaches. It forms the basis of the collective evaluation that Public Achievement teams conduct at the end of every meeting and action. This fosters a culture and habit of mutual accountability and joint responsibility for the work of the group. It follows the pattern of experiential learning, drawing lessons from the ups and downs of a team’s life and the successes and challenges of a team’s work. Collective evaluation can be a difficult practice to implement initially—being held accountable can be uncomfortable—but when conducted in a supportive way it is transformative.

The concept emphasizes a public world of diverse interests, views, and backgrounds where the main point is to create public relationships for public work, not to find personal love or intimacy; this framework is often missing in schools with a focus on therapeutic approaches. In Dennis Donovan’s undergraduate class at the University of Minnesota, which distills lessons of Public Achievement, students say that learning the difference between private relationships and public relationships is extremely helpful in negotiating many settings. “Before this class I was constantly trying to impress and get praise from everyone in my life whether it was a teacher, boss or coach,” said Max Thommes, a UMN football player in Dennis’s class. “That was a very stressful and demanding way to live my life. Does my teacher like me? Why does the head guard always pick on me during training?” Learning to distinguish public from private relationships was a revelation. “This class really taught me about where to get my loving from, my friends and family. With public relationships politics plays a huge role in a person’s decision making. This does not mean you shouldn’t do your homework or not be on your coach’s good side. Instead you just need to understand that those relationships do not make or break you.”47 As special education students learned this distinction in Public Achievement, they developed what Alyssa Blood calls a “public persona,” a citizen identity, as Chapter 7 describes.

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