education
On a day designated for honoring the life of Martin Luther King Jr., we might want to spend some time reflecting on education.
I’ve been a teacher for 30 years. I’ve had good days and bad in the classroom. But my belief in the value of education to straighten the crooked, right the wrong, make the unfair just and to raise the quality of life has never faltered.
More and more these days, lawmakers want to butt into the business of schools.
They justify doing it for a lot of reasons — none of them with much value. But they sound good and provide what lawmakers want first and foremost: political fund-raising mantra and votes.
The World Forum on the Future of Democracy in Williamsburg, Va., was a great opportunity to reflect on the nature of democracy and what we have learned in the project so far. If I were to take one message away from the World Forum it would be that democracy is no spectator sport. Through the course of the three-day conference we were reminded that a successful democracy requires the active participation of its citizens. A vital question that we have to grapple with in the 21st century is how to ensure this participation in a world where voting and citizen participation is declining.
