Pre-Departure Thoughts

This was literally on the news one day.

My research topic is fundamentally about democratic education and teaching justice. In a multicultural or emerging multicultural society, democratic processes and institutions become the necessary “space of reasons” in which to coexist and to collaborate (Lynch 2015). Moreover, it is a necessary condition of learning democracy that students criticize, accommodate and coexist with ideas and beliefs totally different than their own.

The fundamental challenge of any democratic society that must deal with higher levels of multicultural interaction is how to find the basic “platform” of agreement. World-views principally rely on core epistemic beliefs - that is, many specific beliefs about the world or society rely or are founded on core foundations (set individually, religiously or by the community, real or virtual). Whether not “knowledge” per se is foundational or not is a controversial epistemological question; however, to worry about what Lynch (2015) calls epistemic principles is still a serious educational problem. According to Lynch, “epistemic principles gives us our standards of rationality” (p. 57). In other words, in order to resolve differences of opinions (even about scientific evidence), there must be a decision about values (who someone or a community values as how to decide what paradigm to use in order to see the world). If those fundamental epistemic principles are not prima facie compatible, how do you resolve this in a multicultural society? Moreover, using traditional, segregated units of study may not work - as Lynch skeptically notes:

"This darker thought is that changing people’s minds—or changing our own minds—if the change concerns a very fundamental principle, can never be a rational process. Manipulation, conversion, power is all there really is. There is no such thing as rational persuasion when it comes to first principles." (Lynch 2016). 

Statue "grave yard" in Budapest - dialogue in the U.S.?

Kymlicka stresses the need in public education to inculcate the 'civic virtues' if a democratic society is going to function properly. These virtues include public reasonableness and civility, which "involves upholding norms of equality within this public life of society, including civil society, and thereby upholding essential liberal values" (2002, p. 302). However, he notes that “As to transnational / cosmopolitan citizenship, there is a fundamental tension in the way a more transnational democracy will undermine local or national democracies (e.g. EU Parliament taking away veto power from national governments). If so, the "primary locus for the exercise of democratic citizenship will be the Nation-States” (Kymlicka p. 315). Moreover, Haidt (2016) worries that incoming immigration challenges to a more normalized (or homogenous culture) can be a “normalization threat” especially in liberal/cosmopolitan countries that preach tolerance.  His analysis actually turns the argument: multicultural education does not foster more toleration through interaction; instead, it pushes an “authoritarian button” psychologically in people who fear a fundamental moral threat to their way of life. However, education can still be a vehicle to highlight differences and similarities through dialogue and formal debate in the classroom. 

If, as the argument goes, a country or society maintains a cohesive and peaceful democratic society, it is because of a process in which to resolve epistemic and other disagreements. It will by definition be easier to resolve those issues if the society is more homogeneous. In Europe, crisis of cross-cultural issues (migration, immigration and trade) seem to emerge when terrorism and economic harm are linked with cultural penetration of geopolitical space or even epistemic space (See Lynch and Haidt). Teaching students to learn how to engage with opposing cultures and beliefs seems even more critical than ever.

In the United States, democratic institutions have been learning to deal with multicultural education in many of the inner-city and urban areas - due to race, religious diversity and ethic cross-integration in especially public schools. Many educational best practices as well as my pedagogical practices have attempted to use student-centered and dialogue based lesson planning in order to “teach democracy.” More specifically, debate and dialogic forums are tools that I try to use in order to encourage students to communicate differing ideas about key epistemic problems as well as step away from rooted “epistemic principles” (or the lack thereof) and criticize and/or appreciate their own. According to my experience, debate enables students to become autonomous democratic vehicles and advocates - but advocates that learn that problems are resolved in a space of reasons and building differences and similarities in values.  Kohlberg (cited by Parker, 2003: Power, Higgins, & Kohlberg, 1989) encouraged what he researched as the necessary context to “best support toward post conventional principled reasoning [about justice, fairness and democracy] , would be frequent and extended involvement in discussion of genuine value conflicts”(p. 63).

Finally, educational, social, and political problems in the United States that I feel as a duty to address: building respect for cultural diversity while resolving the polarization within U.S. politics and society; many discussions of the 2016 presidential election cite social media, smart phones, internet, “google-knowing” and the rise of misinformation systems as the cause of the election of Trump and other Nationalists or populist tendencies. More simply, access to smart phones and instant internet access in the classroom is fundamental changing the way teachers and ‘connect’ with their students (good and bad). 

__________

Hess, D. (2005).  Wise practice in an innovative public school. In E. A. Yeager & O.L. Davis (Eds.), Wise social teaching in a age of high-stakes testing (pp. 131-151). Charlotte, NC:IAP

Johnston, P. H.  (2004). Choice words: How our language affects children’s leaning.  Portland, Maine: Steinhouse.

Lynch, Michael (2016). The Internet of Us: Knowing More and Understanding Less in the Age of Big Data.  New York: Liverlight Publishing.

Lynch, Michael (2016) After the Spade Turns: Disagreement, First Principles and Epistemic Constractariansim. International Journal for the Study of Skepticism 6 (2016) 248-259.

Kymlicka, Will (2002)  Contemporary Political Philosophy: An Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Parker, W.C. (2003).  Teaching democracy: Unity and diversity in public life.  New York: Teachers College Press.

Savage, T.V., Savage M.K., Armstrong D.G. (2006) Teaching in the secondary school.  (6^th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

Shulman, L.S. (2004). Those who understand: Knowledge growth in teaching. In L.S. Schulman. The wisdom of practice: Essays on teaching, learning, and learning to teach. (pp. 187-215). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.