DEMOCRACY, GOVERNANCE AND DEVELOPMENT

Democracy, Governance and Development

Democracy, Governance and Development

As schools across the Ireland hectically scramble to infuse as much math and science time into the curriculum, our nation must consider how well-rounded citizenship education has been put on the backburner. With political apathy continuing to rise, almost as fast as the increasing violent crime rate (FBI Violent Crime Index, 2005/6), our nation's schools must reconnect students to the betterment of their communities. John Dewey's philosophy on citizenship education endorses a better model for citizenship education by prompting student inquiry, encouraging social action, and broadening cultural perspectives. These three major elements endorsed by John Dewey, serve to formulate a critical citizenship education model for use by schools. This critical citizenship education model will be compared with a more limited traditional model for citizenship education. When the comparison between the two models is complete, there will be little hesitation that Dewey's critical model for citizenship education provides students with the skills and dispositions needed in a global age; unlike the more popular and outdated traditional model for citizenship education.

A critical model for citizenship education assigns teachers to “protect the spirit of inquiry” within students” (p. 34). As students come to school with prior understandings and experiences, the teacher strives to arouse curiosity and thought in guiding students to make new connections. Students are encouraged to reflect upon new and multiple perspectives in analyzing and furthering their thinking. Through the arousing of student intellectual curiosity, students come to understand, “...that the facts which directly meet the senses are not the whole story, that there is more behind them and more to come” (p. 32). This metacogntive transformation within the student provides them with the skills necessary to openly and critically think. Being a vital element of effective citizenship, students gain what Dewey (2004) calls a 'disciplined mind'. In having the ability to foreshadow the consequence of possible courses of action, and being able to use reason over beastly impulse, students come to rely on the use of reason in difficult and trying times. Through the emergence of the independent/ disciplined thinker, students become better suited for the responsibilities and expectations of citizenship.

Despite citizenship education needing to encourage student inquiry, Dewey, in The School and Society, (1902) digs deeper to state, “education without its relation to human activity is less than a world” (p. 18). John Dewey's framework for citizenship education connects students to the reconstruction and betterment of their community. This point is evident when in Democracy and Education (2006) Dewey states, “there is a danger that the material of formal instruction will be merely the subject matter of the schools, isolated from the subject matter of real life” (p. 8). The forging of real life connections between students and the aims of lessons must be a goal for educators. When a disconnect between subject matter and life experiences emerge, instruction has been reduced to meaningless matter. To better connect essential understandings to the lives of students, schools ...