What is the purpose of education? What are students being educated for? Who is

entitled to receive an education? These questions are at the core of understanding why

free public education is an imperative component to the maintenance of a healthy society

which holds onto and strives toward democratic ideals. Through this course my personal

philosophy of education has undergone minor changes, however to a large degree the

foundation of my philosophy has remained intact and in fact, has been reinforced by the

information presented in the readings, videos, and discussions, as well as my time spent

observing at Busan Foreign School.

If the aim of a democratic society is to uphold its values and practices by

educating and enculturating the youth, it is only natural that schools play a substantial

role in this process. There is, as it has been noted in the reading, a distinct difference

between schooling, training, and education. “Schooling simply refers to the totality of

experiences that occur within the institution called school, not all of which are

educational” (Tozer 2009 p. 7). “Training may be described as a set of experiences

provided to some organism (human or not) in an attempt to render its responses

predictable according to the goals of the trainer” (Tozer 2009 p. 8). Education is an

aggregation of one’s life experiences that allows one to “create” oneself (Tozer 2009 p.9).

In my view, schooling and training alone, although important elements in one’s

education are not sufficient in preparing individuals for participation in a democratic

society. Education, on the other hand, is an all encompassing concept. Education, in its

rawest light, is the sustenance in which people take in, in order to better themselves, each

other, and the society in which they live. The text states, an educated person is someone

who has developed “a wide range of human capacities that equip one to fill a variety of

roles in one’s culture: as a worker, a citizen, a parent, a person who relates ethically to

others, a person who uses leisure in productive ways, and so on” (Tozer 2009 p. 9).

Moreover, the purpose of education is to advance human understanding. This

understanding extends to at least three spheres: of oneself, of others, and of one’s place in

the world.

Realizing that each individual has their own ideas and thoughts, and those ideas

and thoughts have been shaped by a seemingly infinite number of variables, one can

assume however, that each individual shares a common value. This common value,

although represented in various forms, is simply the desire for well-being or happiness.

Like Thomas Jefferson and others before and since, I think education or rather the

lifelong pursuit of education is inextricably tied to the advancement of human well-being.

The core and common value of a desire for well-being feeds into and in effect, spurs the

desire to understand and therefore the two cannot be separated. Furthermore, these

desires may be thought of as being naturally symbiotic.

My philosophy of education recognizes that the aim of a teacher should not be to

merely teach or train, but to assist and guide students to the best of her ability in

developing those various educative capacities that enable them to live well, pursue their

own happiness, and effectuate the improvement of democracy. Furthermore, “At the

heart of the democratic ideal is the belief that children will be afforded the opportunity to

mature into independently thinking adults who can analyze and criticize their society”

(Tozer 2009 p. 11) to effectuate its improvement. Overall, through trials and tribulations,

this is an ideal in which the United States has consistently, throughout its relatively short

history, fallen short.

From the founding of the nation to the present day, the United States has

struggled to definitively address those fundamental questions posed at the opening of this

essay. If we are to judge the historical roots and salient trends of the development of the

nation’s public school system through the lens of the present day understanding that all

“children can learn” (Tozer 2009 p. 404) and that they should be taught equally and

equitably, it would undoubtedly fail. The Jeffersonian era marked education as

indispensable to a healthy democratic society, although it excluded women and minorities

from the process. Such discrimination can be placed in its historical context and

understood as views that were products of the era, however such views detracted from

today’s democratic ideals of equality and equity for all, and in effect set the nation on a

misguided path in which the consequences are still felt resoundingly today.

Through all the changes in the political economy and ideological shifts, the

developing public school system over time, has reflected the dominant White Euro-

American male culture. Through the common school era and into the era of

industrialization and mass immigration the nation was increasingly confronted with a

growing multicultural populace along with intensifying tensions. The public schools

were seen as the institution capable of creating a cohesive nation built on democratic

“American” values. However, history shows that educational policy continued to detract

from the democratic ideals of equality and equity, as it continued to explicitly and

implicitly discriminate against women and minorities while it privileged the dominant

White Euro-American male culture. Educational policies that supported assimilation

over pluralism, differentiated curriculums such as vocational tracking for women and

minorities and academic college preparatory tracks for privileged members of the

dominant culture, and the advancement of meritocracy are examples of how the dominant

culture has maintained its power and control in society and how the non-dominant

cultures have been disadvantaged.

Understanding the historical, theoretical, and cultural backdrop of American

public education enables me to recognize the contemporary problems facing schools and

students across the nation today and specifically how the nation continues to be

misguided in its attempts to improve education for all. It seems as though John Dewey’s

call for “the all-around growth of every member of society” (Tozer 2009 p. 152) as

serving the democratic mission of the nation’s public institutions was buried under the

nation’s interest in preserving its dominance in the world and maintaining the values of a

free-market capitalist economy, which not without coincidence, has continued to

privilege the dominant culture. The national government’s increasing involvement in

education shortly after the Cold War did aim to rectify gross inequality and inequity

especially with the ESEA; however through our reading of Jonathan Kozol’s The Shame

of the Nation, the starkness of the nation’s failure to educate every student equally and

equitably has grown since then and is still growing today.

Schools today across the nation are still employing the tenets of social-efficiency

progressivism. Differentiated curriculums are still commonplace, especially in urban

centers where there is an overwhelming majority of minority students from poor and

working-class families. Compared to the wealthier mostly White suburban school

districts which promote and emphasize college preparation and academic pursuits, these

underserved, understaffed, overcrowded, and underfunded urban schools reflect the

social-efficiency progressivism that emerged in the early 20th century that emphasized

vocational training and employable skills. Kozol (2005) writes of a teacher in an inner-

city school who, in frustration, has no choice but to teach a curriculum that debases

educative practices and meaningful learning by applying behaviorist pedagogy that

emphasizes training rather than education. He writes, “She also spoke with sharp

discernment of the race-specific emphasis of the curriculum. “If we were not a

segregated school,” she said, “if there were middle-class white children here, the parents

would rebel at this curriculum and they would stop it cold—like that!”” (p. 75)

High-stakes testing also emerged from the social-efficiency progressivist

movement as a way to provide “scientific” reasoning to support meritocracy and

differentiated curriculums and it is used as an important tool for measuring academic

achievement today under No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top. Kozol (2005) has

also noted in his observations that an overreliance on numerical results are dictating not

only the curriculums and how the children are taught, but also student behavior. He notes,

“In some schools, even such ordinary acts of children as their filing to lunch or recess in

the hallways or the stairwells are subjected to the same determined emphasis upon

empirical precision” (p. 79).

For Kozol and others who share his determination to affect change in education

today, the bottom line is ensuring a high quality education that is equal and equitable for

every child. The nation has abandoned, it seems, those democratic ideals in favor of

efficiency and competition, vestiges of an unenlightened time. It is unfortunate that

Dewey’s call for a developmental-democracy approach to education did not take hold.

He recognized the challenge that continues to face public schools today. He writes:

“The problem will be to develop the insight and understanding that will enable the

youth who go forth from the schools to take part in the great work of construction and

organization that will have to be done, and to equip them with the attitudes and habits of

action that will make their understanding and insight practically effective” (Tozer 2009 p.

164).

This problem is as salient now, as it was at the turn of the 20th century. The

question is whether or not public schools today, under the auspices and direction of the

national government, are able and free to develop the insight and understanding that

Dewey articulated in their students that will ultimately effectuate the improvement of

society by advancing democratic values and practices. The answer is an emphatic “no.”

However, this is not to say that public education should be scrapped. In an article titled

“Why We Still Need Public Schools,” Nancy Kober (2007) underscores the need for

public education to better society and reinforce democratic values and practices. She

states, “In a democracy, certain functions, including education, are intended to promote

the public good as much as private interests. Without public schools, education would

become a private interest, much to the detriment of society” (p. 15).

With all of this in mind, I return to my philosophy of education as well as my

theory of impact. Much of what has influenced my philosophy revolves around the

democratic spirit heralded by such prominent historical figures as Thomas Jefferson and

education theorists like John Dewey. Education is the protean concept under which

understanding is fostered and nurtured. As a teacher, I will aim to impart the value of

understanding in its broadest sense and how such understanding elicits other human

commonalities which reinforce the advancement of well-being. These commonalities

begin at the individual level and extend to the societies in which one lives. From

understanding, the notions of altruism, cooperation, the efficacy of thought to action, and

motivation, will be fostered.

My theory of impact focuses on developing my students’ understanding of

themselves, each other, and the society in which they live. In effect, such a theory will

undoubtedly enhance my own understanding. To develop their understanding, as an

English teacher, I will opt for a critical literacy approach to teaching. I want my students

to be vigilant and reflective participants in a democratic society and just as it is my goal

to reflect on the nature of myself, my work, and my impact, so too will it be for my

students. Also, within my theory of impact is the realization that in a multicultural

society, culture serves as “our primary context” (Tozer 2009 p. 451) and the lens through

which we view our experiences. As such, this course has made me more mindful of the

fact “that students’ ways of demonstrating intelligence are affected by cultures that don’t

always match the school culture; that different students need different kinds of support to

succeed academically, depending on their home and community lives” (Tozer 2009 p.

451). However, in a society that is becoming increasingly polarized, fragmented, and

segregated, as Jonathan Kozol can attest, the focus is still on the public schools to be the

vehicle in which an integrated society can be supported. In order for this to be actualized

a premium must be placed on pluralism, however without a foundation of commonalities,

common beliefs and values, true cultural pluralism will not come to fruition.

My aim as a teacher is not to disregard the differences between people, whether

they are differences of gender, race, religion, sexual orientation, etc. as I think people and

societies have much to learn and benefit from different viewpoints. However, I think it is

more important to emphasize the commonalities within the classroom. These

commonalities which stem from the basic and universal desire for well-being, will serve

as a strong foundation on which to build a learning environment that promotes

understanding. My experience at Busan Foreign School in South Korea, where over

twenty nationalities are represented in the student body, and my experience living in a

homogenous monocultural society for close to five years have definitely shown me the

importance of assimilation in terms of creating a cohesive, cooperative, and altogether

stronger societal fabric. I have also been able to reflect on pluralism in the United States.

It seems to me that cultural pluralism has been viewed as a problem or an obstacle that

needs to be solved or overcome rather than a celebratory uniqueness that has given the

United States uncountable resources, advances, and advantages since its nascence.

As the world enters the 21st century, one could argue that people, societies,

governments, and economies are more interdependent and connected than ever before.

This reason alone necessitates that students, in little societies of their own, should be

given an education which demonstrates the benefits of altruistic behavior and cooperation.

Inside the classroom, the teacher who hands the reins over to the students, assigns group

work, connects the subject matter to “real” life situations and students’ lives, and acts as a

guide or facilitator, will undoubtedly enhance not only altruism and cooperation among

the students, but critical thinking as well. This is not to say it is an easy task. More often

than not, it is an arduous process; however, its upshot is worth every moment of hardship.

The motivation to learn more is intensified for each student once the teacher takes

an active interest in his or her students’ lives. In constructivist learning and teaching

theory, the teacher who “knows” his or her students and is cognizant of their levels of

prior knowledge, will be able to motivate them to develop their understanding of the

subject material and how it relates to themselves and the society in which they live. In

the words of John Dewey, “if it is taught educatively, and not as a form of animal training,

the active participation, the interest, reflection, and understanding of those taught are

necessary” (Tozer 2009 p. 165).