Draws on Wilhelm von Humboldt's typology of the active human being to debate the questions whether and how individuals can produce their social and political world. Discusses, with reference to Marie Condorcet and Immanuel Kant, procedures of the public that are necessary prerequisites for actions aimed at forming the world. (DSK)

Discusses four Romantic themes that are crucial to writing workshop practice (self-expression, liberation from convention, celebration of emotion, and a valuing of folk cultures), explaining how the writing workshop approach embodies these themes; summarizing criticisms of these approaches; sketching a conception of student voice that looks…

The Agenda for Education in a Democracy has focused on the simultaneous renewal of schooling and teacher education for children's well-being. Well-educated individuals easily acquire specific workplace skills when necessary. Educating for the future means educating broadly and deeply and valuing childhood for its own sake. (MLH)

Notes that taken together, Thomas Jefferson's contributions to the history of writing technology demonstrate a virtual "computer." Links Jefferson's development of writing technology to his democratic political philosophy. Argues that this link should interest writing teachers. Suggests that Jeffersonian optimism effectively counters…

Examines John Dewey's critique of idealism in his Quest for Certainty (1929) and other works, and argues that his case was overstated and pedagogically misleading. Proposes that Dewey's is an unnecessarily restrictive view, and one that has helped to cut out an epistemological orientation that had significant heuristic value for education.…

A study conducted by the Indiana Youth Institute ("De-Track Schools," 1991) indicts a tracking system that helps many academically talented students prepare for college, but fails to prepare noncollege-bound students for much of anything. Tracking, as typically practiced, benefits teachers, not students; is contradictory to American…

The authors debate religion's rightful role in public education. Losito argues that an unduly high, thick wall separates religion and public education; the curriculum has been sanitized of a constitutionally, pedagogically appropriate study of religious ideas and events. Gordon asserts that including religion in education would conflict with both…

Cooperation, not competition or individualism, is at the heart of forming a more perfect union, establishing justice, ensuring domestic tranquility, providing for the common defense, and securing the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity. It's time to recognize the relationship between cooperative learning and commitment to the…

Describes the development of the Library Bill of Rights and adoption of revisions to it in 1948. As the McCarthy era unfolded, librarians aligned themselves with an ideology of pluralist democracy and championed intellectual freedom. Highlights include specific intellectual freedom cases of the time and the involvement of the American Library…

Discusses reason-driven, dichotomized attributes of the 20th Century. Asserts that the 21st Century should be the age of synthesis. To achieve that end, proposes three major tasks of education: Educating the whole person, building progressive self-identity, and developing strategies for productive conflict solution. (PKP)

In this article, the author analyzes public education, and whether America can survive without it. There is a deep sense in which the phrase "public education" is redundant: Education is public, above all in a democracy. To think of it any other way is to rob it of its essential meaning. For education is an essential public good addressed to young…

The persistent inflow of Hispanic immigrants threatens to divide the United States into two peoples, two cultures, and two languages. Unlike past immigrant groups, Mexicans and other Latinos have not assimilated into mainstream U.S. culture, forming instead their own political and linguistic enclaves-from Los Angeles to Miami-and rejecting the…

The public schools in the US should go beyond teaching fundamental skills in a democratic society. The teachers should be allowed to interact with students as whole persons and new policies should be developed that treats the schools as a whole community because the future of the children and democracy depends on them.

English language arts teachers play a vital role in helping students to connect skills they learn in school with the larger purposes of democracy. Hence it is noted that the future of the US depends, at least in part, on the commitment of the language arts teachers toward democracy and social justice.

This paper attempts to develop a more sophisticated notion of multiculturalism in Britain. It starts by examining the philosophical basis of the Crick Report on citizenship education to resolve the theoretical tension between liberal and multicultural approaches to the subject. To achieve this resolution, it compares the Crick Report to the Parekh…