To preserve and protect the civic values and principles of the Constitution, educators must develop in students a deeper understanding of and a commitment to these values. To do this, educators should confront students with cases in history and current events involving fundamental paradoxes of U.S. constitutional government. Students should be…

Television has become such an important factor in our culture that it must be made a part of the educational curriculum if our free and democratic society is to survive. Those who know how to use the television medium are able to brainwash the rest of us easily, for most of us are television illiterates. The development of print literacy, opposed…

The old saying, that a single spark can start a prairie fire, appears in many forms and in different cultures carrying a range of shifting implications and meanings. In this article, William Ayers writes that in some instances, prairie fires are not always catastrophic. They are naturally occurring events necessary and renewing; removing the thick…

Students have learned social and political responses to the power structure of the schools. A critical self-study by schools is one kind of democratic reaction to the challenge students are offering. (DW)

This article illustrates how the generic employability skills approach to critical thinking suffers from serious conceptual and epistemological difficulties that impact deleteriously on both its practical effectiveness and democratic appropriateness. Unlike technical skills, employability skills, in this case cognitive capacities such as critical…

Most would agree that education is a social good and necessity, yet serious inequities and inequalities remain in our educational system. The largest sources of support for public schools are the local school district and the state. The revenues they contribute come from property and sales taxes, both of which are regressive and inequitable. Our…

AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS ARE CONFRONTED WITH THE NECESSITY OF TEACHING ABOUT PREJUDICE AND DISCRIMINATION AS FACTS OF LIFE, AS CONDITIONS WHICH PREVENT THE FULL DEVELOPMENT OF EVERY PERSON, AND AS PROBLEMS WHICH MUST BE SOLVED IF DEMOCRACY IS TO FUNCTION HERE AND BE ACCEPTED AROUND THE WORLD. AN OUTLINE ON THE SUBJECTS OF PREJUDICE AND…

The Analysis of Public Issues Approach to ethics education assumes that controversy is inevitable within a society committed to human worth and made up of diverse groups. This cognitive approach is based on the Oliver and Shaver book, "Teaching Public Issues in the High School." Controversy ensures that societal problems are brought to…

This paper, the fourth in a series of five on the current state of citizen education, examines citizen participation in contemporary democracy. The content is presented in four parts. The first covers the areas of citizen participation and levels of analysis and includes the domains of citizenship, citizenship as behavior, and micro and macro…

The values and progress of the middle school movement are examined in this speech. The impact of the recent emphasis on basic skills and conventional instructional methods on the middle school concept of humanistic education is explored. The author foresees either a frightening, Orwellian future for middle school education in which adolescents are…

This paper examines ways in which early childhood education can provide the vital foundation for lifelong attitudes and values toward the democratic process. One goal of early childhood education is to empower the social bonding which brings collaborative relationships to their full potential and gives the child a sense of connectedness to others.…

This summary deals with the major results elicited from six reports concerning two research projects entitled "Non-Subject-Specific Goals for University Education" and "Student Democracy--Co-Planning at Different Educational Levels." The reports include the following: (a) "Debate Analyses as Goal-Seeking Instruments,"…

To determine if opinion change might be dependent in part on the interpersonal needs of the participants of seven seminar sections, need level was measured by FIRO-B (Fundamental Interpersonal Relations Orientation) in three areas: inclusion, control, and affection. Three nonresidential groups met weekly for 15 weeks; four residential groups met…

This program outline is intended for teachers K-12. The outline provides teachers with the philosophy and goals of teaching citizenship education as a means of instilling an appreciation of the American democratic heritage. The emphasis is on citizenship preparation through an integration of the study of government, history, sciences, mathematics,…

John Dewey's 2-year visit to China after World War I resulted in a continuing influence of his ideas on institutions and beliefs of modern Chinese education. Looked at against background of both traditional and Communist China, Dewey's ideas serve to illustrate the thesis that, while he is vilified, Deweyism is alive in Communist China and that…