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Lessons in Democracy

By Kenneth J. Bernstein

What unnerves us most about freedom is the same thing generations of scientists were unconsciously ignoring about the universe—its unpredictability and capacity for disorder. In the classroom, this fear of the unknown has misled many of us into thinking that the relationship between freedom and structure is an either/or proposition. As educators, we’re either providing good, structured instruction, or we’re refereeing spitball fights. But there’s a difference between being authoritative and being authoritarian...

Those words appear in a new book by Sam Chaltain, now national director of the Forum for Education and Democracy, and formerly associated with First Amendment Schools.

The book, titled American Schools: The Art of Creating a Democratic Learning Community , includes a foreword by Sandra Day O’Connor, herself strongly committed to the idea of civic education. O’Connor offers some relevant words that I want to explore further. They are:

"Knowledge about our government is not handed down through the gene pool. Every generation has to learn it, and we all learn best by doing."