Influences and Ideas

Here I will share links to articles, videos and other e-media that relate to the concept of democratic education. I will also provide an abstract for each link.

Has American become an authoritarian state?

Henry Giroux, an advocate of critical pedagogy and author of On Critical Pedagogy, Schooling and the Struggle for Public Life, and Pedagogy and the Politics of Hope, concisely shares his vision (version?) of democracy and critiques current political and economic trends. Giroux laments the weak nature of American democracy, where 'democratic action' is typically an individual action, and provides an alternative framework for thinking about a democracy as a shared way of living.

Discipline is the Problem -- Not the Solution

In this article, Alfie Kohn discusses the fundamental link between the educational environment, including the tools and techniques used by teachers to manage that environment and the students within it, and democratic life. It is his assertion that, to the extent students are coerced, they will not learn the tools necessary to live with each other and work together without external authority.