Education Philosophy

Education: The Measure and Means of Democracy in Society

My Life’s Education

Early on a cold morning, Thursday November 7, 1974; to an Irish Mother and Armenian-Italian father, inside a Racine, Wisconsin hospital that no longer stands; After subjecting my mother to 11 hours of horrendous labor; I was thrust upon this world with no understanding of who or what I would become. Only possessing my innate abilities to breath, eat, sleep, and cry I was officially matriculated to this world’s classroom awaiting to be nurtured through all of life’s lessons in and outside educational establishments. Without a predetermined lot in life; that autumn morning, a fantastic set of circumstances converged resulting in the random probability of my life becoming a reality and setting into motion what type of personality I would possess and develop, what values would forge my character, and what the combination of these would result in the interests I pursued.

The earliest recollection of myself put me square into my toddler years at three years of age. In 1977 I was no longer the only child; a sister was born in 1976, giving me a younger companion; we were inseparable. This strong connection between my sister and I would remain until this day. I possessed a naturally bossiness which I like to term as a ‘Born Leader’ and an insatiable appetite for exploring and adventure. On numerous occasion the local police would bring home to my mother a dirty usually clad only in underwear little boy asking, “Does he belong to you?” to which my mother would embarrassingly reply with the positive. From the morning of my birth until I was well able to walk we resided in a rural house that had loads of construction surrounding us; to which I would frequently escape to from my mother’s watchful eye. Moving away from this house and area would not end my curiosity for the unknown world around me and my desire to explore it.

A Red Radio Flyer wagon was our vehicle and the miles of urban sidewalks was our wilderness; now with a younger sister in tow, I commanded frequent journeys that would take us quite a bit of distance and time from our home. I’d load up the Radio Flyer with snacks and supplies and instruct my sister to pull the wagon, usually with me in it, this was to hone that born leadership trait I assume. No matter how watchful my mother tried to be I like a cunning prison inmate always was eyeing an escape and now I had a partner in crime to accompany me. Needless-to-say our mother spent a lot of worried years looking for her children who cleverly slipped her protection to go on Lewis and Clark style adventures of the unbeknownst to us dangerous urban landscape. This lack of awareness or concern for dangers of the unknown that presented itself in my early life’s personality would not be extinguished, but rather only grow stronger and more brazen to lead me on adventures with results both prosperous and barren.

As I grew older a bold confidence developed in me. I also saw the world through very objective eyes always having what I thought of as an innate sense to see through bullshit. These qualities made me question everything including instruction and advice from those set-in place as authority figures. Having a very autonomous and free-attitude towards rules and what is right and wrong I rarely adhered to rules strictly but rather situationally. In my young formidable years, this personality led me to have what could be considered questionable character by adults or other more studious and authority minding children. Growing up in the Midwest in the 80s and 90s there was diversity present in our community made up of both rural and urban inhabitants, but there was also a very noticeable amount of prejudice and segregation of races and socio-economical classes that I witnessed from family members, church-goers, and community leaders. This white-moderate-racism, economical-divide, and lack of progressive and continued education that existed in the roots of the community that I was molded in created a great internal frustration within me that drove a desire to escape from my town just as I had done as a young child from my home.

1993 I graduated from high school. The 12 years of my formal education up until that point was exclusively conducted in essentialist educational institutions. Grasping and understanding the material and instructional information was never a problem for me. The problem unknown to me or my parents then was the type of school and structure I was sent to learn in was not conducive for the type of personality or character I possessed. My ego driven utilitarian approach to following rules and instruction led me to having a very mediocre measure of achievement; however, my aptitude afforded me the opportunity to participate in the international baccalaureate program in Math, Sciences, History, and English. With these classes weighted one point higher than normal class grades; the Ds and Cs I received translated to Bs and Cs thus resulting in a graduating GPA just under 3.0.

I had a good measure of physical prowess and liked to engage in fitness and athletics. As a young boy, I played a great amount of basketball, but once reaching high school and realizing that my height would never stretch past 69” I abandoned it for track and ultimately Tennis. I found Tennis to suit my personality. It was aggressive and allowed for independent performance, especially with Andre Agassi making a splash in the professional ATP world; it really spoke to my renegade attitude and ideals. Football, Baseball, and Basketball were the Big-3 staple sports that every Midwestern boy dreamed of playing and or supporting. Finding Tennis allowed me to make a statement against that mainstream normalcy. What I learned through fitness and athletics from my young days would follow me through life; continually leading me to always seek out activities whether for work, school, or leisure that not only challenged my mind but my body as well.

I held no great sense of accomplishment graduating high school. I felt like a marathon runner that hobbled my way through the last mile of the race to finally cross a finish-line that had been abandoned by fans as the star runners had long since finished the race. However, my since of adventure and curiosity for the world was more intact than ever and now with the boring restraints of public school behind me I was on my way to Iowa State University to try my mind at the rigors of a mechanical engineering degree. I was also looking forward to playing tennis for a Division I school. A little over a year into school the tennis team was completely removed from the school so athletic funding could be focused on the Big-3 sports that were failing programs when I attended ISU. In conjunction with the dejection I felt from losing tennis, my ambition for structured learning seriously waned and I found myself disenchanted with the field of engineering and higher education.

I left college in the midterm of my sophomore year which put me just shy of 21 and headed back to Wisconsin to reevaluate my life and ambitions. My best friend who went straight into vocational work in the auto glass industry after high school; introduced me to the world of automotive restoration and repair. I never was allergic to work especially the manual variety. Through high school I worked a non-conventional job with my neighbor cutting down trees. I spent many a hot and cold days climbing with a chainsaw limbing and cutting trees then lifting all the heavy branches and trunks left behind. Growing up in Wisconsin shoveling snow and mowing lawns also contributed to my willingness to accept jobs in manual labor and not look down upon others that also choose to do so. I found working with my hands installing automobile sunroofs and convertible tops suited me very well. The high pay also suited me well. I traded my pursuit for a higher education in an essentialist institution for, at the time, a more gratifying vocational education in the automobile industry.

Seemingly but not deliberately finding my calling in a job with technical and manual requirements; I soon along with my best friend, heard the unknowns of the world calling. Wanting to parley our automobile technician skills in a new clime we both packed up our lives and headed west to Phoenix, Arizona to answer the call for employment with Safelite Auto Glass. Phoenix contained and embodied everything that my young ambitious mind was yearning for: warm weather, beautiful scenery, excellent work, and exciting new people. Warm weather year-round meant outdoor fitness and activities like mountain biking while just a couple hours north, in Flagstaff, snow covered mountains laid for us to snowboard down in the fall and winter. Installing auto glass with Safelite proved very prosperous for our young 22 years; that allowed us to partake in every bit of excitement that Phoenix and the southwest had to offer.

September, 1997 I found myself longing for a change. After two-years of fun in the Phoenix sun the itch to explore the world again was plaguing my whole being. I narrowed down my options for life in that moment to three choices: (1) Finish my college degree in Arizona at one of the three major universities, (2) Become a firefighter, or (3) Join the Navy and become a diver. Where I came from and the type of person I was, (3) seemed to be the long shot choice. I wasn’t even confident the military was right for me as I had long hair with a free and unruly spirit that enjoyed partaking in the young cannabis scene. However, seeing a Discovery episode on Navy Divers flipped a motivated switch in me and set in motion events that would enhance my life, education, and character to lead me to where I stand as a man today. After one outrageous going away party my Phoenix friends and acquaintances sent me off to the Navy in October of 1997.

Travel…That is what my heart and mind desired. As a young man growing roots bored me and left me wasting away in mediocrity in whatever I was doing or pursuing. While I feared the rigors and strict structure of the military may not compliment my personality well; I was surprised that I found the Navy to be very easy on my mind and challenging enough to keep me from losing ambition. Travel became the cornerstone of my learning and world view. I loved the nervousness of preparing for a new destination and then the feeling of awe and wonderment that flushed over and through me when I arrived to see the new place and culture. Fresh places and people renew motivation inside me and challenge me to learn and think in different ways. I love the wide openness the world has to offer and the diversity it shares; with all that will except it. Seeing the old-world structures of Europe, the exotic jungles of Asia, and the deserts of Africa has fulfilled my education that was left void by conventional schooling. I learned a great trade in the Navy as an Underwater Construction and Demolition Technician; however, it’s the traveling, the places I’ve seen, the people I’ve met and the cultures I’ve witnessed that Have had the most profound impact on my literacy, understanding of who I am, and what education should be in this world.

As I ‘ve grown in age and rank through my time in the Navy; the job I’ve done, people I’ve met and government processes I’ve learned have led me to understand how important education is to preserving our country’s democracy and the philosophical approach I believe is needed to secure our educational success in humanity. Now in the twilight of my Navy career with my professional travel ending I’ve taken it up recreationally with my wife and we are broadening our views and understanding of the world together. To fill the void of excitement from constant travel I’ve settled into finishing my degree. Choosing a B.S. in Criminology and have found it to be the perfect fit for my personality.

Philosophy on Education

The long story of who I am is a testament to my formal and informal education. A great deal of my young life was spent learning in traditional essentialist institutions of the public and state school systems. Graduating from traditional schooling to experiments with vocational learning I discovered; although not immediately, that education takes on many forms and environments. I no longer reserve the term education for conventional schools or classrooms; but rather for all of life’s situations and experiences in and outside of formal settings. I firmly believe that the world is our classroom and upon birth we are matriculated into its nature.

I believe that our experiences through life’s situations are also a valuable teacher and therefore leaving me to feel very much in line with John Dewey and his ideas of progressive and pragmatic schooling. Sometimes through failure and bad decisions the best ideas and outcomes arise and we as humans will learn more deeply from them as opposed to listening to a teacher lecture on what the correct information is. As I experienced more of what the world has to teach; my understanding of education has thusly changed. From a young boy’s idea that education is society’s measure of a person and a necessary requirement to which we are forced to undertake; to now, an older man’s reasoning that it’s what builds our society and gives us the means to grow and be prosperous: socially, economically, and emotionally. Horace Mann’s late 18th Century ideal that an honest and diverse education that’s afforded to all without segregation is required for our democracy to thrive; lines up perfectly with what I now believe education to be. Education isn’t merely the means used to produce a healthy democratic society but also its measure in grading the health of the society’s democracy as well.

I understand and appreciate the need for essential and perennial instruction in schools; however, I believe a more progressive and pragmatic approach should be applied to teaching them. Math, sciences, reading and writing all need to have a standard and required aptitude that the population should be instructed against; however, their use and application changes and evolves over time as society changes and evolves. The current system that utilizes philosophies of essentialism and perennialism concentrate too boldly on standardized test scores as the measure of system wide success; while merely conditioning citizens on what to think rather than how to think. All of this is being done under a capitalist principle of the highest yield at the lowest cost; essentially reducing our public education, which should be a democratic institution, into a commodity driven industry that wants the highest test scores at basement level prices. In this section I will point out a better way to approach the whole concept of education that will teach people the concept of thinking objectively while learning as well giving a whole encompassing theory on how the philosophy of a progressive and pragmatic education should be looked at so it’s more universally received by the public allowing for sight past a cost-effective based system.

Neil DeGrasse Tyson, while giving a commencement speech to the graduates at Western New England University in May of 2012 (Tyson, YouTube, 2012), conveyed this message perfectly to address; what he terms, ‘Fuzzy-thinking’, through a contrived yet poignant story about how we in society honor those that only know what to think rather than how to think. The story centers on the job interviewing process for two architects. The employer’s questions to the two candidates is: What is the height of the spire of the building we are in? Candidate A full of information and knowledge replies easily from what he says he’s memorized; the spire is exactly this height, to which he is correct. Candidate B; however, not knowing the height from memory tells the employer that he will be right back and goes outside to measure his shadow in the sun and compare it to the length of the shadow cast by the spire in question; returning with an estimated-ratio answer very close to the exact answer of candidate A. Tyson argues that candidate B, while not full of information, is infinitely more intelligent because that candidate understands how to think rather than only memorizing what to think.

To deliver education that teaches how to think over merely what to think a great paradigm shift needs to be made in how we approach education itself. America looks at education as a quantitative commodity that has a measurable output in metrics of test scores and dollars spent or saved rather than a qualitative outlook that measures the level of educational success in levels of citizen virtues and stewardship and thusly employing whatever means are necessary to achieve this betterment of society outcome. To achieve a qualitative measure to our education we need to reconsider how we package and sell our ideal of education in the United States. Instead of seeing only the “What” or measureable output our education system produces We need to emphasize the “Why” we educate and its importance; then construct the how around that ideal to deliver an educational product (the what) that will have mass appeal and support without regards to funding or restrictions to curriculum.

Simon Sinek gave a very compelling speech on how great leaders inspire action through a very transformative and polar opposite to the masses way of thinking (Sinek, Ted.com, no date). Devising the term, ‘Golden Circle’ of an organization, (Why, How, What) Sinek informs the audience that most people and organizations think from the outside in; concentrating only on the tangible and quantitative “What” of the product or organization. Meanwhile great leaders and organizations take a more holistic approach to success where they think from the inside out. They inspire and translate the “Why” they do things to those that follow and support them. The latter approach has more success because now people are being informed on the purpose, cause, and beliefs of the organization rather than solely on the usefulness of the organization’s product. While Sinek gears his speech towards industrial leaders I believe this principle and practice could translate very well to our nation’s public school system and education of citizens. Why is it so import that we educate our citizens? To promote and secure our country’s democracy. How should we educate our citizens to secure democracy? Through a progressive and pragmatic implementation of essential and perennial information to include the virtues of citizenship that help shape social reconstruction. Lastly… What should our education be? A publicly offered diverse collection of objective information that is scrutinized by scientific principles and made available to every citizen without segregation or regards for cost. I believe tying democracies importance to education and making each person feel accepted no matter what race, sex, or walk-of-life they are categorized into will help them buy into why a free diverse public education is so important. Reaching all socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds is vastly important because it will close the culture divide between those that believe in a more conservative cost-effective-commodity style education with those challenging for a new progressive future in education.

The New School approach to education talks about the cultural divide that exists between conservative and progressive populations (Kennedy, 2018). For a longtime I considered conservatives stubborn, obtuse, and down-right ignorant when it came to education. They tend to favor our time-honored behaviorism method of teaching that places all the authority and rights at the hands of the adults believing that children are inherent masses of disobedience with no self-guidance or motivation. With glaring examples of this style’s failures nation-wide that has allowed for the ushering in of the “Free-Market” Charter school replacement to the detriment of our democracy provided public schools; I’ve longed blamed conservatives solely for this transformation. I blamed them on two fronts: (1) because of their fond-alignment with those that favor capitalist solutions to public services and, (2) Their affinity for draconian style methods of teaching and unenlightened if not down-right incorrect literature and information texts. After reading Kennedy’s take on school disruption and why the rise of a new form of education is so abhorred by the older and more conservative members of a society. Kennedy writes, “The New School could be said to represent an evolved, postmodern embodiment of the social archetype of the school as interruption of the status quo-a negation of the negation” (p. 107), meaning that the community is afraid that it will lose its beloved culture to the new unknown methods and information “The New School” is relaying in its pedagogy and destroying the community’s epistemology of what education in their society is. Combine these fears with the promise of unknown or unrecognizable achievements presented by new methods of teaching; I can now better understand the conservatives and even the centrists’ desires to hold onto what they feel is a safe recognizable and functioning system that delivers the social and cultural norms they understand.

Childhood learning and democracy should not be separate unrelated issues. One should feed and nourish the other mutually. The adult-child relationship in learning as well as democracy are both built on emancipatory principles. To point out how to democratically interact with a child Kennedy cites Lloyd deMause’s (1974) psychohistorical analysis of the relationship between child and adult. He points out that deMause proposes three basic forms of adult interaction with children when they need something: (1) Projective reaction- The adult sees their own childhood need triggered in the need of the child and projects their unconscious negative feelings upon the child, (2) Reverse reaction- the adult is triggered by the needy child and substitutes them as an adult that was important to them as a child and thus relives the anxiety, and (3) Empathic reaction- the adult can regress back to the level of the child and correctly identify what the child needs without adding any anxieties with their own reactions and still remaining far enough distance from the need to satisfy the child’s need (p.108). This psychoanalysis of the way adults interact with children is fundamentally important to the way we educate children and promote democracy. Adults (teachers) that are able to take an empathetic approach to children (pupils) education and emotional needs will not only be imparting knowledge upon them but also instilling them the tenants of democracy through their very own empathetically democratic actions. We can further correlate how adult projective and reverse actions can be overlooked and rewarded in strictly essentialism and perennialism institutions of education as they favor an authoritarian teacher centric behaviorist approach to educating students. In a progressive New School atmosphere, these types of adult-child interactions would be highly visible and unacceptable. Being empathetic not only to the students’ needs but also those of the parents in the community will promote the ideals of democracy; and will provide the evidence that conservative people need to be assured that a progressive education system will benefit not just “modern thinkers” but them as well.

The United States currently has a very competitive hierarchical approach to education where the teacher is the authoritative figure at the point of delivery and backed up by even greater levels of authority through its bureaucratic channels of legislation. That have effectively removed community needs and the democratic process from its model. School reform in this model only consists of curriculum manipulation to achieve higher standardized test scores, even if that requires lower the academic bar, and selling lower costs per capita to do so. This American mass produced-assembly-line consumable commodity approach to education has wedged open a once tightly guarded door is our society’s democracy; thus, allowing for the transfer of communal education from the public to private sector. Initially under the guise of social justice for disenfranchised ethnic and socioeconomic groups; the charter school experiment and movement started in the United States. Effectively and honestly cutting through the bureaucratic hierarchy of the public-school system these charter schools operated like satellite public institutions still answers to the same oversight channels. These charter school experiments should have been and exercise in pragmatism resulting in their positive and successful practices being incorporated into our country’s democratic educational model.

Addressing the ethical and economic objectives of society pragmatism was not afforded to the public education system but rather to our capitalist “Free-Market”. Instead of instituting the successful practices freely and equally in our country’s public education system and eye and mind concentrated more fiercely on the economic objective allowed for the privatization of our education effectively getting public dollars to flow into the private market. This shift represents more than just an economical shift but also a policy making shift from decisions being made in a public democratic process regarding education to decisions being made privately under the pretenses of better economic value (Lubienski, 2013). I address this issue as a clear and present danger to our public-school systems and the progressive, social-restructuring institutions we desperately need to reinstitute and promote public democracy. To have a free and democratic society the education needs to mirror this and equitable ideals need to be the least of our worries when considering the public education of citizens. How we regard the monetary requirement for military defense of our nation so too should we see our education requirement; a vital need that should have very little regard for a monetary ceiling.

Charter schools raise many questions as to whether they are public or private entities. Operating in the public education market but being private operated allows them to skirt around legislation and create their own set of rules. They play the private entity card when it comes to teacher credentials and salary allowing for less qualified and lower waged employees to fill the roles of teachers. Serving the public they advertise choice and competition creates a better educational product. Top-ranking charters are predominantly filled with more affluent and privileged students from communities that have more concern and access to education; whereas the socioeconomically disadvantaged are left to attend charters that are just as bad if not worse than the public schools they left or that were shut down due to charter school occupation in their communities. This model has resulted country-wide in reinstituting segregation in our schools (p.505). Charter schools undoubtedly do have some progressive and pragmatic promise and some even address social and environmental issues nobly while satisfying economic objectives. This should be the method that our public system uses to vet processes and principles for incorporation into the larger arena of our nation’s public education. All citizens should have the democratic right to access such education. It cannot be allowed to be privatized and auctioned off to the lowest bidder and sold to the highest buyer. This system creates a, dollars over democracy approach to what should be a public service right.

Our education system should be a Values Based Education (VBE) that teaches more than just essential and perennial information in an authoritative manner to students. Teachers should make not just educational but emotional connections with their students that to better facilitate the learning and information retention process. Education is more than just mathematics, literacy and understanding sciences or being behavioral social control. It’s about the flourishment of humanity and how we make better citizens and society. Teachers should show students how to be exemplary adults not just instructing them on qualitative information. This approach that has teachers showing students love, compassion, altruism and understanding will greatly improve the emotions of the students and better create an environment for learning and literacy to grow; resulting in the goal of education upholding democracy and practicing it simultaneously (Hawkes, Ted.com, 2018).

Pragmatic Approach to Schools

Charter schools can prove to be the pragmatic resource that the greater public-school system needs to achieve success in the progressive VBE and incorporating it with our standard pillars of essential and perennial knowledge subjects. High tech charter schools are springing up around the nation with progressive, social, environmental and existential teaching based philosophies as their core operating values. They understand the John Dewey inspired progressive education model and have modeled their curriculum around student wonderment and interactions within the real word while providing an environment to learn in that’s as much aesthetically pleasing as it is globally accommodating and enriching for the students to learn it. High Tech High in San Diego, California is such a charter school that leads the way in providing the progressive model that the nation’s public school system should incorporate into its future model (Neumann, 2008).

High Tech High has an outstanding setting. It pays close attention to the demographics of the local population and matches its enrollment to these numbers almost precisely (p.53). closely matching the local community at large provides a great democratic foundation for the school to build a progressive, diverse and unsegregated education that allows the students to not only interact with the environment but also make an impact on it as well.

HTH provides the modern setting that more closely represents the actual world the students upon graduation will be thrust into. Long gone are the old dusky early 20th century narrow halls that operate more like an assembly line in our essential and perennial styled schools; replaced by HTH’s open and well inviting reception hall that communicates a message that this institution is up to date (p.54). This up to date theme proves to be a more inviting atmosphere for the students to live and learn in. Long gone are America’s days of time-clock-punching assembly line work. HTH understands this evolution in our country’s workforce and its facilities and curriculum effectively reflect this progressive shift. At HTH student art and works adorn the wide-open spaces which is a stark contrast from our old institutions whom hang mostly schedules, bureaucratic information, and non-individualized school self-promotion. This difference really incorporates the students into the educational fold and gives them just as much importance as teachers and testing. The hip high-tech firm feel of HTH’s campus really speaks to the student’s youthful energy and importance while informing the parents and adults of the institution that the priority is providing and education for our future generations that matches the real-world environment as it exists and changes which is sadly missing from conventional public schools (p.55).

I believe HTH understands and beautifully delivers an education to its students that includes standards of essentialist and perennialist requirements while following a progressive approach that delivers an impact on social reforming in the community. HTH takes what is necessary and best from all educational philosophies and bundles it up into a school that delivers and education that perfectly represents democracy while also fortifying its foundation in society through students that know and understand it more deeply than just by its definition.

Visitors to HTH will find that classrooms are not similar to normal public schools. No standards and information will be present on the walls or boards and usually a teacher will not be droning on in front of a body of students about chapters in a text book. Following a perennialist philosophy with real world experience conventional text books will often not be used in favor of academic articles on subject topics. However, teachers still appreciate essentialist subject requirements and will issue text books on algebra for instance when students need a mathematical formula reference when designing robots (p.56). In addition to the inquiry and reference based instruction at HTH experiential and interdisciplinary projects also exist. Recently an ecological study of the San Diego Bay that integrated biology, mathematics, creative writing, and cartography was conducted by students with collaboration from the Jane Goodall Institute, the Marine Technology Society and the Nimitz Marine Facility of Scripps Institute of Oceanography. The students produced, Perspectives of San Diego Bay: A Field Guide, that was published by Next Generation Press which was made available in bookstores in January, 2006 (p.56). In addition to the ample availability of technology labs that include: biochemistry, engineering and animation; the curriculum that successfully spans all the philosophies of education proves that a hybrid approach to education is needed rather than concentration on one philosophy of teaching over another.

HTH’s success gives me great hope for education in America but at the same time it delivers a great amount of frustration as well. Due to the success HTH has in its community a lottery system is in place that restricts enrollment. While they pay due attention to demographics; only the adults or parents in the community that are the most keenly in tune with education or that have better access take advantage of HTH’s offerings; which leaves the majority of our communities nationwide missing out on the high caliber progressive education HTH delivers to its local community. The pragmatism I believe our country’s Department of Education should take is: schools like HTH should be looked at like educational proving grounds and when the practices they employ show successful, they should be implemented into our nation’s public educational system as a whole. HTH should not be the exception; leaving the majority of the population un able to access an education that promotes and protects democracy.

The world is ever changing and charter schools can prove to be a very necessary pragmatic buffer where the evolution of education and social experiential learning can be tested and vetted before being implemented on a grand public scale. Technology and information has improved drastically since the institution of our old educational establishments. What worked well in the early 1900s to the midcentury now can no longer be expected to satisfy the minds, ambitions and literacy of modern generations. Intelligence is defined as an organism’s ability to successfully function in its environment. If we don’t match our schools to our environment how can we possibly consider our population effectively intelligent? If we want our environment to be democratic then so too should be the education in our schools. With the explosion of the internet and social media resources it is now imperative that we incorporate the benefits and dangers they present to society and our democracy. We now live in a time where we have the greatest opportunity to know the greatest amount of stuff; facts and data are at our fingertips and only seconds away. We need to emphasize connecting students with the real adult world and teaching them ways to successfully navigate around the negative pitfalls of the internet and social media. The internet and social media is just one example of our changing environment proving that education should be fluid, progressive, and socially just while incorporating what is positive from all educational philosophies into a publicly provided education that proves the means of democracy while also creating a society where democracy is of the highest possible measure.

References

Hawkes, Neil. Dr. (2018) Values Based Education (VBE) – Education’s Quiet Revolution. https://www.ted.com/talks/neil_hawkes_values_based_education_vbe_education_s_quiet_revolution

Kennedy, David. (2018) The New School. Journal of Philosophy of Education, Vol. 52, No. 1, Pages 105-124

Lubienski, Christopher. (2013) Privatising Form or Function? Equity, Outcomes and Influence in American Charter Schools. Oxford Review of Education Vol. 39, No. 4, Pages 498-513

Neumann, Richard. (2008) Charter Schools and Innovation: The High Tech High Model. American Secondary Education 36(3), pages 51-69

Sinek, Simon. (2009) How Great Leaders Inspire Action. https://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspire_action/transcript?language=en

Tyson, Neil. DeGrasse. (2012) Commencement Address at Western New England University. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsZYLhYYplU&fe