Education and democracy go hand in hand

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 14/11/2022 (1383 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Saving democracy and renewing education go hand in hand. Op-ed writer Sandra Yaffe, in Time for next steps in democracy’s evolution (Oct. 31), suggests democracy’s continued health rests on two conditions: actively engaging and involving people in social decisions, and actively involving people where they live in political decisions affecting their lives and their communities.

I could not help thinking what a great opportunity and challenge her ideas hold for political and educational communities recovering from COVID-19 and the province’s abandoned Bill 64.

COVID fears divided and isolated us. Bill 64 attempted to eliminate boards of trustees, silence and divide teachers, principals and superintendents, and pit parents against each other and educators.

In a sense, COVID destroyed the spaces where we could engage one another and participate in the back-and-forth of democratic contestation, and Bill 64 declared the very people responsible for achieving our educational aspirations could not be trusted and needed to be removed from democratic contribution.

However, these stories have an upside. While COVID is not gone, many have taken the steps to diminish its current and future impact and most of us have begun to participate freely again, albeit somewhat tentatively, in the social lives of our communities.

And Bill 64 is gone for the moment, but we have been alerted to how fragile are some of the political relationships and professional arrangements we had taken for granted.

More important, we also learned that if we set some of our more petty differences aside and work together, we can turn the political tide, and we have a collective responsibility to do so.

It is a time ripe for re-examination and re-evaluation for the things we stand for and value, both in democratic politics and education.

If we care about democracy, we might first concentrate on voting. While most people would scream to high heaven if they lost the vote, many did not bother or were not able to vote. If that isn’t cause for concern at home, we just need to look to the south to see how unscrupulous politicians try to negate, denigrate and suppress voting.

Instead of lamenting low voter turnout, we might think about why people did not vote and why circumstances made it difficult for some to vote, and find ways to remove apathy and barriers, including finding ways for shut-ins and the unwell to participate.

Voting is not just a privilege and a right; in a healthy democracy, it must be a welcome responsibility. This is where the connection to education begins.

Children are not born democratically responsible; they must be taught and learn how to be good citizens as well as good neighbours and workers.

Educating and training good workers for a global economy is important, but emphasizing participating in the economy to the exclusion of participating in the polity puts both the economy and democracy at risk.

Put another way, the economic freedoms and benefits most of us enjoy are only possible in a democratic society. Public education can assist in our keeping a proper and balanced relationship in the forefront.

Many of us had high hopes for educational renewal when the most recent educational review, the precursor to Bill 64, was announced. However, we quickly learned that many of the voices in the educational community were seen as problematic and needed to be curtailed or excluded.

Their involvement was seen as self-serving protectionism and obstruction, as was the need to eliminate local objections by centralizing authority in provincial offices and agencies.

Thankfully, the means to breathe new life into both democracy and education have not been lost.

Local governments, municipal councils and school boards have just had their standing and mandates reaffirmed. Parents, teachers, principals and superintendents have not had to give up their responsibilities to children and each other.

Children are once again, in most settings, able to be with other children as they find their ways and their places in the world.

What we need now is not to waste this opportunity in time as we all step up to support democracy and public education. We might start by asking publicly once again, “What do we want from government in terms of our opportunities to participate in decisions which affect us individually and collectively, and what do we want for our children as a consequence of their spending 12 years in our schools?”

These questions call on everyone to be part of the answers — politicians, educators and citizens.

John R. Wiens is dean emeritus at the faculty of education, University of Manitoba. A lifelong educator, he has served as a teacher, counsellor, work education co-ordinator, principal, school superintendent and university professor.