Jophe 63

Journal of
Journal of Philosophy & History of Education

Philosophy &
History
63
of Education
J O P H E
63
2013
The Journal of the Society of Philosophy & History of Education

63
vol. 63, no. 1, 2013
Stacy Otto, Illinois State University &

Virginia Worley, Oklahoma State University, Editors
Editorial Advisory B oard

Lucy E. Bailey, Oklahoma State University
Susan K. Birden, Buffalo State College
Michael D. Boone, Southwest Texas State University
Samia Costandi, Ahlia University
John Covaleskie, University of Oklahoma
Dalton B. Curtis, Southeast Missouri State University
Matthew Donald Davis, University of MissouriSt. Louis
Thomas E. Deering, Augusta State University
Brian Dotts, The University of Georgia
Lee S. Duemer, Texas Tech University
Charles J. Fazarro, University of MissouriSt. Louis
Neil Houser, University of Oklahoma
Don Hufford, Newman University
John W. Hunt, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville
Laura Krohn, Oral Roberts University
Susan Laird, University of Oklahoma
Linda C. Morice, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville
Ralph Olliges, Webster University
Basiyr D. Rodney, Webster University
Adam David Roth, University of Rhode Island
Donna M. Sayman, Wichita State University
Douglas J. Simpson, Texas Tech University
David Snelgrove, University of Central Oklahoma
Samuel F. Stack, Jr., West Virginia University
Lu Anna M. Stephens, Lamar University
George Stone, University of the Ozarks
Martha May Tevis, University of TexasPan American
James J. Van Patten, University of Arkansas
ii JoPHE 63
Society of Philosophy & History of Education

2013 Officers
President, Susan Laird, University of Oklahoma
President-Elect, Lucy E. Bailey, Oklahoma State University
Past President, Virginia Worley, Oklahoma State University
SecretaryTreasurer, John W. Hunt, Southern Illinois University
Edwardsville
Program Chair, David Snelgrove, University of Central Oklahoma
Journal Editors
Stacy Otto, Illinois State University
Virginia Worley, Oklahoma State University
The copyright of the Journal of Philosophy and History of Education in the name of
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of Education as the first source of publication.
The Journal of Philosophy and History of Education is a publication of the Society of

Philosophy & History of Education. Following the 2012 annual meeting of the
Society of Philosophy and History of Education in St. Louis, Missouri, a call
for papers was issued and submissions subjected to the blind review process.
The opinions expressed in the respective works are those of the individual
authors and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Society, the editors,
the Editorial Advisory Board, or the publishers.
Membership in the Society is open to anyone interested in the profession of

education. Only members may present papers at the annual meeting. Dues vary
in accordance with the vote of the membership and may be mailed to the
Secretary-Treasurer or the current Program Chair. Other SOPHE information
may be obtained from: http://sopheconference.com
Copyright 2013 Society of Philosophy and History of Education

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JoPHE 63 iii

vol. 63, no. 1, 2013
Table of C ontents
From the Editors ...................................................................................................... v

Dedication to Dalton B. Rusty Curtis .............................................................xi
In Memorium, Chipman Gray Chip Stuart ................................................. xiii
2012 Presidential Address, Let Our Songbirds Sing
Virginia Worley................................................................................................ xvii
The 2012 Drake Lecture
Samia Costandi ................................................................................................ xxv
US Supreme Court Decisions and Educational Legislation
Academic Freedom in the Post-Garcetti Era:

An Historical Analysis of Court Cases
Lee S. Duemer & Fred Hartmeister .................................................................. 1
The One-to-One Moment: Digital-Age Tools and the Challenge of
Democratic Education in a Post-No Child Left Behind Era
Basiyr D. Rodney ............................................................................................... 19
The Thread of Influence from Mendez v. Westminster to Delgado
to Hernandez v. Texas to Brown
Martha May Tevis .............................................................................................. 35
Critical Race Analysis
Applying Critical Race Theory in Analyzing Two Films by

Charles Guggenheim
Matthew Davis, Melanie Adams, Carlos Diaz-Granados, Wendy
Freebersyser, Miranda Ming, & Leon Sharpe ................................................ 45
Microaggression as Foucaultian Subjectivism: A Critical Race
Analysis of the Classroom Dynamic
Kevin Murray ...................................................................................................... 59
Educational Analysis
The Postmodern Secular University and Voluntary Student Religious

Groups: What Would Mr. Jefferson Do?
William. M. Gummerson .................................................................................. 69
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Genealogy, Nietzsche, and the Historical Analysis of Concepts

Marcus Edward Johnson .................................................................................. 93
The Relation Among Philosophy, Psychology, and Social Theory in
St. Louis Public Schools Educational Foundations and Subsequent Curricula
Kenneth M. Burke ........................................................................................... 107
Recent Evolution of Public Education in the US and Finland:
Can the Finnish Model Work in the US?
John W. Hunt .................................................................................................... 121
Using Deweys Curriculum Theory to Analyze, Evaluate, and
Reconstruct Educational Entities
Douglas J. Simpson, Peggy Johnson, Yvonne B. Bowman,
Halston Bryan, Dilber Celebi, Emily G. Hammer, Ericka Hendrix,
Elizabeth I. Isidro, Mohja Jerbi, Mary-Katherine E. Plowman,
Latosha S. Scott, Melanie M. Smith-Parker, & Connor K. Warner ......... 137
Biography, Philosophy, and Teaching
Confronting the Unexpected in the Friendship of Flora White (18601948)

and Robert Strong Woodward (18851957)
Linda C. Morice ............................................................................................... 155
Teaching to Transcend: A Personal Educational Philosophy
Don Hufford .................................................................................................... 169
Naming Her World: A Freirean Analysis of a Young Woman with Asperger
Syndromes Post-High-School Experience
Donna M. Sayman & Dan Krutka ................................................................. 181
Problems of Democracy
Democracy and Citizenship Education: Fostering Clarity of Meaning

through John Dewey
Sam F. Stack, Jr. & Robert A. Waterson ...................................................... 195
John Dewey and Hannah Arendt on Totalitarianism, Education,
and the Problems of Democracy
David Snelgrove ............................................................................................... 209
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JoPHE 63 v
From the Editors
I know no safe depositary of the ultimate powers of the society but the people
themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their
control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them,
but to inform their discretion by education.
Thomas Jefferson to William C. Jarvis, 1820
I thought my graduating into freedom from high school the year of the
United States bicentennial must surely be significant. Seeing 17761976
plastered everywhere seemed to confirm the importance of this accident
of birth. Freedom held particular significance for me for a variety of
reasons even then, so my nostalgia and sense of romance nine and ten
years later during the Statue of Libertys 100th birthday restoration and
following celebration is not surprising17761976, 18861986. Liberty
was everywhere, for the nation was gathering funds to spruce up the
United States most sought-after woman. I saw her pictured behind
scaffolding bars standing strong, resolutely holding the torch high even
through her imprisonment. Beautiful. Even behind bars. She is mine.
She is standing there for my liberty, I mused in my romantic haze. I
watched the 1985 PBS Ken Burns film, The Statue of Liberty,1 back then,
and it is my revisiting it this summer that has recalled these past events
to mind. I have always loved Liberty. I have always wanted to see her
standing strong in the harbor. Almost 30 years after her 1985
restoration, I at last see her in person but only from the distant Empire
State Building one dark, cold, windy night. How small she looks. How
insignificant.
Liberty calls to me as she looms, in my mind, overhead with
immense power and resolve holding the torch to cast light broadly
around her to prevent us from losing our way, tightly above her as if to
reassure she will not drop the torch, she will not disappoint us in our
path to freedom but stand firm, arm high to light the way no matter
what. Lady Liberty recalls admirals with sword arm raised high, last to go
down as the ship sinks, the soldier elevating the flag above the fray even
as his comrades fall. Like Minerva, goddess of wisdom but also of war,
Liberty has a sternness about her, for, as Rousseau emphasizes, Freedom
is a heavy taskmaster. Her guarding over and protecting freedom
welcoming to her lands those entering the harbor must be an even more
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onerousperhaps forebodingtask. Immigrants included in Burns

film, those who came by boat into the harbor, remarked on their feelings
still welling inside them when they think of that day when they saw
Libertythe thrill, the relief, the sheer joy at having arrived in the US,
land of freedom, their guiding light and protectress welcoming them to
their new home. These immigrantsthose who came to become US
citizens, who came to make this place homeclaim there is no place like
the United States of America, no place so free, no place so great, no
place so wonderful. Freedom rings here, this greatest, freest country
Enlightening the World.
Then, cutting through the adulation, one hears author James
Baldwins bitterness as he recites the US Constitutions opening lines
freedom in this United States is not his; still it is withheld in 1985.
Against Lady Liberty, liberty in Burns film, immigrants now citizens
defining freedom and extoling the virtues of and living in the US, one
HBO-produced program2 shows how backward freedom lovers must
seem in 2013, for the programs newsman makes devastatingly poignant
the United States decline as a democracy, as a free country, as a
protector of civil liberties. Yet many, if not most, US citizens talk about
the US as exceptional and live their lives demanding entitlement due
them as exceptional Americans in an exceptional country.
Let us look as the facts.3 The United States is not doing well ranking
no. 17 in democracy out of 117 countries, below Norway, Iceland,
Denmark, Sweden, New Zealand, Australia, Finland, Switzerland,
Canada, and the Netherlands; ranking no. 46 in civil liberties; ranking no.
57 in the fairness of elections, free choice of candidates, and campaigns
transparency; ranking no. 17 in political participation; but ranking high
no. 2in the number of children under 17 living in households of
poverty. While I caution one needs to know how researchers define
democracy, civil liberties, political participation, and poverty and while
different agencies have done the research often using different numbers
of participants and criteria and with different intent, it is nevertheless
quite clear the US no longer distinguishes itself as the freest, most
democratic country in the world. Notably, such countries as Norway,
Sweden, Finland, Denmark, the Netherlands, Iceland, New Zealand,
Australia, Canada, Switzerland, and the UK consistently produce higher
rankings related to freedom and democracy and care for citizens
including fair wages and feeding, sheltering, and educating children.
Even such countries as Uruguay and Chile, which many assign to the
Third World, often score higher than the United States when it comes
to letting freedom ring.
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JoPHE 63 vii
Although one may at first blame the neoliberal economy on US

citizens apparent privileging and valuing of capitalism over
democracyand it is indeed at least partially to blame for US
democracys current identity crisisif one takes the rankings even
moderately seriously, one sees the US ranks only no. 5 of 25 countries
surveyed (tying with South Korea at 76% of its citizenry) whose citizens
claim to be better off living in a free market economy than within some
other economic structure. The US scores below Kenya, no. 1 (84%),
Palestine, no. 2 (82%), India, no. 3 (81%), and China, no. 4 (79%). Do
we not still say communist China and capitalist USA?
And so, I at last come to the Journal of Philosophy and History of
Education 63 and why we open this issue questioning we the peoples
understanding of democracy and freedom, understanding our place in
our nation and world. During each of the last three years Stacy and I
have co-edited this journal, we have noticed what seemed to be an
inordinate number of submissions focused on democracy. While
philosophy and history of education are within the social foundations of
education and most certainly focused upon what one generally considers
democratic values of equity and justice, we nevertheless have noted
submissions with democracy and its liberties at their center to so
outnumber other submissions we have had difficulty finding expert
reviewers for all these articles. Although the first year we thought this
occurrence perhaps a one-shot deal or simply a reflection of authors
choice of their lives work, the second year we asked if authors speaking
to the particulars of democracy reflects the current historical moment or
if, perhaps, this attention supports democracys recurrence as a
perennial and inexhaustible theme [in] western history and philosophy of
education (JoPHE 62, 2012, xvii). In this, our third year co-editing, we
note, as we did last year: the US citizenry in general seems to have lost
its understanding of the term democracy and all-but lost its taste for
democracys collectivist intent (xvii). We consider the contemporary
economic and political context and the state of contemporary public
schooling hypothesizing this concentration of articles in some way
focused on and questioning democracy and liberty in the United States
may reflect national malaise or at least malaise among educators in the
Society of Philosophy and History of Education concerning the health
of Democracy and Liberty in the United States of America. We consider
how the nations poor health influences public educators, education, and
schooling.
This notion of malaise leads me back to Liberty and Burns film.
When US Americans knew the French were gifting them Lady Liberty,
they made jokes, published scathing cartoons, drew caricatures of her,
her creator, the French, and the ridiculous politicians who accepted her
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into our waters, for we were, it seems, offended the French would thrust
this tub of metal on us sticking us for the bill for the pedestal. We the
people did not want her. Burns shows in his 1985 film citizens
irreverence, lack of diplomacy, loud indignation, and then the
contradiction of the dedication celebration: the wealthy invited, circling
the island in their yachts leaving no room for the tired, poor, and
huddled massesthough Emma Lazarus poem, The New Colossus,4
commissioned for the dedication would not appear on Libertys pedestal
until 1903. Although I watched this portion of Burns film with chagrin,
those early events made me think about how those in the US seem
always to have been quick to question and critiqueeven if in nave
waysquick to rise up against things they deem wrong,
unconstitutional, undemocratic, or a burden on we the people, especially
a financial burden. Sometimes these uprisings have been mere pockets
of citizens; these pockets often have grown into recognized national
concerns. Looking at this concern for our democracy in demise, one can
only turn to education, democracys foundation, cornerstone, and
touchstone, to try and identify reasons Democracy and Liberty are
finding themselves uncomfortable in our midst.
Democracy requires an educated we the people. Democracy
requires thinkers, analysts, problem solvers, for, again, Freedom is a
heavy taskmaster. Those in the US historically have been suspicious of
the well-educated, of intelligence, perhaps because in this nations
beginnings the well-educated were aristocrats and we the people wanted
none of that. The general attitude is that a student with average grades,
average intelligence, and average work ethic (whatever that would mean)
is well rounded, socially adept, and able to identify well with others
struggles and therefore able better to teach than someone smarter would
be. The best and brightest are anti-social eggheads, heads in the clouds,
too smart to communicate well with those less-intelligent, lacking in
empathy for and patience with those less intellectually well-endowed or
less willing to work to become thinking people who analyze, critique,
and problem-solve. We the people, we the nation of this United States
of America now suffer the consequences of this historical bias, this
distrust of education and intelligence, this embracing of less than the
best when it comes to educating our children in, about, and for democratic
life and living in a free nation. What will it take to turn ourselves around?
What will it take for we the people to learn the meaning and value of
democracy, freedom, and education in, about, and for democracy and
freedom?
The many submissions to JoPHE 63 focusing on democracy and
liberty certainly alert us of rumblings in the ranks of the best and
brightesteducators accepting responsibility for being the conscience of
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JoPHE 63 ix
we the people critiquing, prodding, questioning, holding up the mirror to

we the people, working to awaken this peoples rabble-rousing genes to
spur us to action before the nations organs begin shutting down. We
begin volume 63 with Lee S. Duemer and Fred Hartmeisters Academic
Freedom in the Post-Garcetti Era: An Historical Analysis of Court Cases
leading this issues first section, US Supreme Court Decisions and
Educational Legislation. Each section that follows begins with a lead
article: the research team of Matthew Davis, Melanie Adams, Carlos
Diaz-Granados, Wendy Freebersyser, Miranda Ming, and Leon Sharpe
launch the section, Critical Race Analysis; William M. Gummerson
opens Educational Analysis; Linda C. Morice leads Biography,
Philosophy, and Teaching; and Sam F. Stack, Jr. and Robert Waterson
begin the section, Problems of Democracy.
As always, we thank the authors and reviewers for their thoughtful
contributions and for being gracious and timely in their work and
communications with us.
Virginia Worley
Oklahoma State University
Endnotes
1 The Statue of Liberty, DVD, directed by Ken Burns (Boston, MA:

Florentine Films, WNET, 1985).
1 We Just Decided To, The Newsroom, Home Box Office (New York:
Time Warner, 2012).
3 rankingamerica.wordpress.com; The author of this blog, Mark Rice,
Professor and Founding Chair, Department of American Studies, St.
John Fisher College, Rochester, New York, also writes for The
Huffington Post and Forbes. He continually collects and posts research
reporting all sorts of US ranking facts plotted against other countries
rankings. See his blog posts for details on and graphic representations
of the numbers quoted herein; he includes all original sources.
4 Emma Lazarus, The New Colossus, Selected Poems and Other Writings,
Gregory Eiselein, ed. (Peterborough, ONT: Broadview, 2002), 20.
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JoPHE 63 xi
Dedication
Dalton B Rusty Curtis
Dr. Dalton B. Rusty Curtis has always been an inspiration to all whose
lives he has touched with his depth of knowledge, scholarly publications,
and presentations.
Rusty earned his Bachelor of Science and Doctor of Philosophy
degrees from the University of Oklahoma and Master of Arts from the
University of Rhode Island. He has served as an instructor at the US
Naval Submarine School in Groton, Connecticut, as a high-school,
social-studies instructor in Moore, Oklahoma, and as a faculty member
at Southeast Missouri State University teaching courses in history and
philosophy of education. For the past decade, Dr. Curtis has taught
courses in early and modern European history and historiography. In
addition to his teaching, Rusty has served in several administrative
positions including Director of Honors, Associate to the Provost,
Director of the General Education Interdisciplinary program, and
Department Chair.
In 2001 Dr. Curtis became Professor of History at Southeast
Missouri State University. He has published extensively in such scholarly
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publications as the Journal of Philosophy and History of Education, Educational

Studies, Vitae Scholastic, Fides et Historia, Journal of Thought, Focus on
Learning, Encyclopedia of Educational Reform and Dissent, and Proceedings of the
Southwestern Philosophy of Education Society, also serving as a contributing
author to Lives in Education: A Narrative of People and Ideas and Thirteen
Questions: Reframing Educations Conversation. He has presented papers at
the History of Education Society, International Society for Educational
Biography, American Educational Studies Association, the American
Educational Research Association, the Southern History of Education
Society, the Association of General and Liberal Studies, and the Society
of Philosophy and History of Education. Currently, Dr. Curtis is
researching modern British history and the post-World War II writings
on the politics and education of the late philosopher Michael Oakeshott.
To help fund his research, in 2008, he was awarded a $6,000 grant to
research the Oakeshott collection at the London School of Economics
and Political Science.
Rustys professional honors include being the 2004 William Drake
Lecturer for the Foundations of Education Society, the Southeast
Missouri State 2010 Friends of History Lecturer, and a member of the
inaugural Seventy-Five Who Made a Difference in the lives of others
by upholding the educational ideals of the University of Oklahoma
College of Education through their professional endeavors.
Dr. Curtis service as a naval officer for 25 years gave him an
opportunity to travel to Europe and Asia. As an historian for the Naval
Historical Center, he led a group of naval historians and a naval artist to
the island of Luzon in the Philippines to identify and collect documents
and artifacts and to conduct interviews at the Subic Bay naval facility six
months before the materials were returned to the government of the
Philippines.
Although a highly productive educator who juggles his professional
schedule with his wifes schedule as vice president of a local hospital, Dr.
Curtis finds time to enjoy his life and relationships. Beyond his travel as
a naval officer, Dr. Curtis has traveled for pleasure through Europe,
enjoys all kinds of athletic activities, and spends many hours enjoying his
daughter, grandsons, and attending or participating in their various
sports activities.
Dr. Rusty Curtis is a scholar, gentleman, and model for those of us
in the higher education profession. His positive, upbeat, collegial spirit is
an inspiration to all who know him.
James J. Van Patten

University of Arkansas
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JoPHE 63 xiii
In Memorium
Chipman Gray Chip Stuart
In teacher education, we spend much time trying to codify what good

teachers do and figure out how to get new teachers to do those things.
In this sense, it seems we have never strayed far from the ideals of our
ancestors in the normal schools.
Great teachers, it seems to me, rarely follow those norms. Dr. Chip
Stuart was not like the good ones we try to make, but like the great ones
we celebrate from the pastas eccentric as Socrates or Jesus or Abelard.
He often did the unconventional, sometimes perhaps even the illegal,
but he challenged his students to learn and provoked them until they
could not do otherwise.
The topic of my first class as one of Dr. Stuarts students was
issues in education. When I saw that he had arranged the desks in a
semi-circle around the outside of the room, I thought this might be one
of those touchy feely classes where we all could see each other and share
our feelings. Not so. Dr. Stuart distributed to each of us a blank 5 x 9
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card on which he had us answer a number of personal questions

questions about our families, our childhoods, and our religious
convictions as well as basic demographic information. We learned the
next class meeting that he had spent much time studying those cards
trying to find a way to offend each and every one of us.
At the second class meeting, he stood at the front, pounded the
podium, and declared angrily, I have three Bible thumpers in here, and
I dont know what Im going to do about it. I saw sweet little blue-
haired teachers leave his classroom cursing like sailors. A Church of
Christ minister was among us, and Dr. Stuart grabbed the sides of the
ministers desk, leaned over into his face, and dared him to explain why
he believed all that religious non-sense. Easy access to grabbing each
students desk turned out to be the reason he wanted us sitting in a semi-
circlenot so we could engage in some group therapeutic exerciseso
Dr. Stuart could get right in your face when he challenged your thinking.
In this case, the minister, unintimidated, rose to the occasion, made his
case effectively. Dr. Stuart smiled with satisfaction. He was vigorously
opposed to mindless religion, but he could be appreciative of any view
thoughtfully articulated.
While I was amazed at Dr. Stuarts unconventional approach to
teaching, what I came to think of as teaching through intimidation, I
soon learned that many of his students came to appreciate it quickly.
That very year, he won an award as the outstanding college teacher for
the state of Oklahoma. It was an award based upon student
nominations.
I confess I was slow in learning to appreciate Dr. Stuarts style. I
thought of myself as a serious young scholar and wanted to analyze
issues in great detail. Dr. Stuart would throw out an issue, get us all riled
up about it, and then move on to the next issue. I had the nerve to
confront him about it after class one night. His response was that most
teachers were too bogged down in the daily grind of their schools to
ever have a new idea, and his goal was to shake them into questioning
their convictions. If he could shake them up in this way, that was
enough for now.
I did not think it was enough, then, but after a few years of teaching
teachers, I began to see what he meant. In fact, I began to borrow more
and more of his techniques. Eventually, he became not only an
inspiration to me, but also a personal friend. About 20 years after I
graduated, I called him and told him that I was getting to be a better and
better teacher and that the better I got, the more like him I became. His
response, predictably, was to attack me, to question everything I said,
just as he always had.
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JoPHE 63 xv
Chips teaching seemed to be based on the Chinese proverb, Man

must be sharpened on man, like knife on stone. It is the abrasion that
makes us better, and he could be abrasive. He believed that we must
learn through conflict, and we must never stop learning. He knew how
to get under my skin. I was one of those religious types, and he
provoked my anger more than any other adult I have ever known. I do
not recall having ever raised my voice in anger to another adult in my
life, but near the end of my dissertation writing, Chip and I stood in the
door of his office yelling at each other. He later told me that on that very
day I had, as far as he was concerned, already successfully defended my
dissertation.
I do not believe in ghosts, but I confess that Chip haunts me to this
day. I feel him as I stand in front of my class teaching. I sense him
standing behind me, looking over my shoulder, accusing me of
mediocrity. Is that the best you can do? he prods. She deserves a
better response than that! You need to go back and do your
homework. Dont be such a pretentious intellectual snob!
Sometimes the ghost of Chip annoys me as much as he did in life,
but I love the way he makes me better, even though he is gone. That
puts him in the company of the great ones, indeed.
Wayne Willis
Morehead State University
Dr. Chip Stuart was born in Kernersville, NC in 1932. He left school at 15, joined
the Air Force at 18, and later earned his college degree at San Marcos College. He
worked as an industrial arts teacher in Texas before completing his Ph.D. at the
University of Texas. He taught in the College of Education at the University of
Oklahoma for more than 20 years where he became a major influence in the lives and
careers of many in our discipline and in this society.
xvi JoPHE 63
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JoPHE 63 xvii
2012 SOPHE Presidential Address
Let Our Songbirds Sing

Virginia Worley, Oklahoma State University
As I was struggling with what to talk about tonightstruggling with

what is timely, important, necessary but not clich, not the same thing
we hear over and over againit occurred to me that in all the
discussions, all the school closings, all the philanthropist- and business-
overtaken schools, all the government regulations, we do not talk about
the child. We certainly do not talk about our childrens happiness or the
childs learning to live life well. What is happiness? Who even knows
what that is? Happiness is over-rated. School isnt about being
happy. School is about learning, and learning is hard work. Many agree
that school is also about socialization (Martin, 1996). Socialization too
can be hard, so why would and why should school, learning,
socialization make someone happy?
It concerns me a great deal that even as scholars have been using
theory (Foucault, 1977) to critique the prison-like structures of US
public schools, few talk about creating an environment where children
learn to live their lives joyfully, learn to create the person they like and
want to be, the life they like and want to have. Educators know many
children come to school without having eaten breakfast; educators know
many children go to school after a horrible morning at home; educators
know, for many children, school is the only fairly stable thing in their
lives; educators know, for many children, the school place is the only
place where children have a chance to form positive relationships, to see
men, women, and children interacting in healthful ways. Yet, when we
talk about normalization (Foucault, 1977) and about how the
delinquency and criminality (Foucault, 1977; Winnicott, 1990) we foster
in public schools crush creativity, human reason, and choice, we are still
not talking about making children happy, keeping alive their creativity,
encouraging their curiosities, and teaching to their interests.
This idea of teaching to childrens interests is certainly not new.
Philosophers and historians of educational thought refer often to John
Deweys (1902) work and his insistence that teachers must cater to a
childs concernsthe things the child encounters in his or her lifeand
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then we see through the laboratory school (Mayhew & Edwards, 1936),
teachers building curriculum around childrens needs, concerns, and
interests: food, clothing, shelter, the basic elements children need and
about which they care. Dewey was neither the only nor the first to
introduce teaching to a childs interests, interests which often concern
the childs immediate needs. His contemporary, Marie Montessori
(1912/2012), and even Jane Addams (1899/1985), shared his views
though they actualized them in different ways. Before Dewey (1916),
Montessori (1912/2012), and Addams (1899/1985), John Amos
Comenius (1631/1967), Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1762/1979), and
Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi (1781/2007) advocated teaching the child
based upon the childs needs and interests, teaching the child in and for
the world in which he or she lives.
It is to these philosophers theories, especially their writings about
freedom, democracy, and educating for freedom and democracy, that
many scholars turn to critique contemporary US public education, to
problem-solve, and to propose new or at least different ways of
educating children within contemporary US public schools. In fact, we
seem to have had a surge of scholars writing about democracy in
education, educating for democracy, educating for democratic
citizenship, and even about democratic education as well as writings
about the teaching counterparts to these: teaching for democracy,
teaching for democratic citizenship, and teaching democratically.
Currently, we have everyone under the sun using the rhetoric of
democracy for their own and all sorts of contradictory means and
endsbut rarely about educating for freedom and what that might
meanand I do not think I have ever heard anyone talk about educating
children to live a happy lifeor a full life, or a creative life. In the 16th
century, Michel Montaigne (1575/1958), statesman and creator of the
essay, wrote about teaching to live life well, teaching to ever-create the
self. Twentieth-century psychiatrist D. W. Winnicott (1986) wrote about
establishing a facilitating environment through which children learn to
live creatively. Social theorist Edith Cobb (1959; 1977/1993) wrote
about people of genius returning to their childhood landscapes
because these were places of freedom, creativity, and happiness
returning to find the spirit of who they are so they can move forward to
the selves they want to create and become. They often return to
revitalize themselves, to rediscover the energy to create as part of their
living in the world.
What would it mean to make children happy in school, to allow and
incite their curiosities to run wild, to let children do things in their own time
(Winnicott, 1986) instead of our adult-educator time, to do nonsense
(Winnicott, 1986)? What would it mean excitedly to teach to childrens
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interests, to facilitate their thriving not merely their surviving? What

would be the value of such teaching and such schooling? If we are not
educating for happy, fulfilling, well-lived lives, are we at least on a path
that prevents normalization, on the road to educating for a thoughtful,
democratic citizenry, educating democratically, and educating for
freedom?
What is the purpose of US public education if not to teach children
to live their lives well, to embrace life and live it joyfully? What is the
purpose of education in the USwhere the rhetoric of democracy is
everywhere used for every possible mean and endwhat purpose if not
to educate for a democratic society by educating for freedom?
Although US education has always been tied to the market at least
to some degree, in 2012 and 2013 the national purpose of public
education most certainly ties to the market and the US economic and
political status in the world. The United States economic low for the last
1012 years has driven presidents and congressmen and women to
identify the US economic and political well-being as the primary
purpose of education. The result is schoolingnot educatingchildren
for a particular function. Most problematic about this purpose is its
implementation and politicians lack of understanding about what makes
children tick, what makes teachers tick, which kind of teacher we need
teaching our children, and, interestingly enough, the failure correctly to
identify what kinds of workers the US does not currently have but needs
for economic solvency and stability. The President, national, state, and
local politicians, in the name of neoliberalism, say they are making sure
children are ready for the working world by putting in place national
standards for school-aged children, by testing children frequentlynot
really to see how children are doing but to see if teachers are teaching
them the right things and making sure students know those thingsand
then punishing teachers whose students did not rise to minimum
standards by putting those teachers on plans of improvement, assigning
teaching coaches to them, and sometimes firing them.
In the name of neoliberalism, government is getting down to
business when it comes to educating this nations children; government
encourages big businesswho of course know about businessto buy
up schools, run them in the ways they know how to run businesses, and
ensure US children are indoctrinated and conditioned in particular
functions that will serve this country well in the future. That is,
contemporary political and economic purposes of public education in
the US translate into schooling children in warehouses of cattle chutes.
Children are herded into their respective chutes, chutes from which
children have little chance of escape, and led to intellectual, emotional,
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psychic, and, sometimes, physical slaughter. Teachers too are in cattle

chutes from which they cannot escapethese positioned to survey the
students in particular chutes assigned themsystematically freed from
making critical judgments. Fear keeps them from making those
judgments.
In other words, teachers and students are indoctrinated,
conditioned, normalized; parents are scammed into believing the
school is taking care of their children; their children will learn and
never be left behind academically; the schoolwhich really means the
governmentknows best. Community members in general are thinking,
We as a nation are getting down to the business of educating our
children, creating not only a literate but educated population. Little do
they know. We are creating the opposite.
Neoliberalism has so much traction that thinking about education
within a neoliberal, economic frame has become normalized
normalized to the point that the neoliberal, political economy and its
schools are the national order. We talk about democracy but do not
seem to understand the danger, the magnitude, and the momentum the
neoliberal, political economy has on educationit all but obliterates
those things we identify as important. Deeply insidious, unbelievably
complicated and far-reaching, the neoliberal, political economy is a run-
away train; high-stakes accountability is a car on that train. I am asking
that we as a society, we as educators, and we as the Society of
Philosophy and History of Education look at childrens happiness, their
intellectual, emotional, and psychic well-being, and the nations well-
being against the effects of the neoliberal, political economy.
Let us look first at the claim that neoliberalswho include
President Obamaare creating schools where children will learn what
they need to function in a technologically sophisticated, global society.
In contrast to this neoliberal claim, a tension exists in this political
economy between the grunt work, the non-living wage, service jobs
high-school and, often, college graduates fill, and the consistent brain
drain we hear about that compromises the US economybrain drain
meaning we have plenty of people coming out of schools to become car
washers, mowers, janitors, and servers in restaurants and an absence of
creative, visionary people needed to propel the US into solvency,
economic stability, and being a viable participant in global political and
economic markets.
And still, no one has mentioned our childrens
happiness and learning to live life well.
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In contrast to the claim children are being prepareda purpose

of education Dewey (1916) certainly undercutsfor the global
workplace, business pours millions into training workers to work
collaboratively as part of a team, millions into leadership training.
Employers complain this generation of workers does not show up for
work; when their workers show up, they come late; when finished with a
task, they cannot figure out what to do next but must be told each little
thing to do. Employees wait be told so they can then obey or complain
about being told what to do. Employers complain this generation of
workers thinks everyone owes them something and are basically
stupid. We know entitlement is now a new treatment category in
psychology, yet I am not thinking many people are going to see
psychologists or psychiatrists about their feelings of entitlement. So, the
claim of readying, schooling, or training our children for the global
world of work is both unfounded and invalid as is the claim we will leave
no child left behind.
Within No Child Left Behind is the claim every child will have the
opportunity for an equitable education. In most states, with this claim
has not come a redistribution of property taxes to ensure every school
building is safe, clean, and well maintained, to ensure every child has
updated resources, to ensure every child has a qualified teacher, to
ensure every child has equal access to the teacher and to instruction, to
ensure every child has a ride to school.
The claim each child will be ready to work successfully in a
technologically sophisticated global economy is also dashed when we see
to what this claim refers: the information age. We are in the age of
information and that information comes through technology. People
latch onto the idea of being within the information age, are pleased with
their childrens computer skills, ability to surf the web, produce
assignments through word processing, make beautiful charts using
Excel. Wowthe technology my kid knowsis really giving my kid a
leg up! Has no one told parents information and knowledge are two
very different things? Has no one made clear to parents technology is a
tool not an end in itself? Has no one made clear to society at large all the
information and technology skills in the world are useless if one cannot
reason, connect, and synthesize information to make knowledge, if one
does not have the imagination to think beyond information on a screen
to know what to do with that information?
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Rather than addressing another claim neoliberalists make, I want
next to mention that we know and have known for many years what to
do to live happy and psychically healthy lives. We also know from such
theorists as psychiatrist D. W. Winnicott (1984/1990) and postmodern
theorist Michel Foucault (1977) the consequence of not having a
psychically happy and healthy life is delinquency and often criminality.
Even with this knowledge, the neoliberal approach to schooling is to
crush all signs of creativity, curiosity, critical thinking, and interestand
all in the name of democracy, freedom, and national well-being.
In the neoliberal, political economy, everyone becomes consumers,
consumers of anything and everything, and consumers of nothing. No
longer is learning itself a means of transformation. Now education is
merely what allows one to make the money it takes to transform ones
life by buying things: money is transformative. There is no place for
learning; there is no place for creativity; there is no place for nonsense.
There is only a place for consuming. The Bravo networks celebrated,
brawling Atlanta, New York, and New Jersey Housewives are products
of the US education system. Consumption and evils connected with a
need incessantly to consume seems to be all these rich women have
learned. They know how to consume, and their sense of happiness and
well-being connects intimately to having and consuming, to having not
being (Fromm, 2005), to living extravagantlynot to living life well.
What is the purpose of US public education? Do we as a society
care about children, their happiness, their curiosities, their interests? Do
we care about their learning to live their lives well, their learning to think
and live creatively? Encouraging creative thinking means encouraging
the brain. Encouraging creativity and the brain means children come to
feel in control of themselves and their lives; they come to see the things
they can do. Neoliberal political, economic schooling means children are
repeatedly told what they should not do. Each shouldnt is a wall or
boundary that prevents the child from trying, from taking risks. One
teacher confides she is afraid when her students creativity comes out
afraid of the students getting wild. Yet, when they go to the art museum
and create together with an artist from the museum, her student with the
most behavior problems is the best student and the best-behaved
student in the class.
We must stop being afraid; we must stop fearing childrens
imaginations, creative production, boundless energy, and joy for living.
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Where is our outrage? Where is the rebel in us? Where is the activist self
when it comes to facilitating, fostering, protecting, and advocating for
childrens happiness, creativities, curiosities, and interests? We must help
each child find that place where he or she is magnificent, for if that child
does not find that place, the child will not find the visionary, the creator,
the leader inside. Let us use strategies for creative exploration, provide
environments that lift the spirits, help children keep their brains healthy
and fit but also engage their emotions in powerful ways, create rich,
creative environments, help children identify things they value and need
to enjoy life. Telling songbirds not to sing is pointlessone must cut
out their voices or kill them altogether. So many beautiful shapes, colors,
ages, and songs of birds enter classrooms everyday in the US only to
leave voiceless, broken, lifeless. As philosophers and historians of
education, we can get out ahead of the slaughter with our voices and our
penstell our president, congressmen and congresswomen; tell our
state legislators and school principals to let our songbirds sing and find
the place where they are magnificent, for their magnificence then too
becomes ours.
References
Addams, J. (1985). A function of the social settlement (1899). In E. C.

Lagemann (Ed.), Jane Addams on education. New York: Teachers
College Press.
Cobb, E. (Spring 1959). The ecology of imagination in childhood [work
in progress]. Ddalus, 88 (540).
Cobb, E. (1977/1993). The ecology of imagination in childhood. Dallas, TX:
Spring.
Dewey J. (1902). The child in curriculum. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press.
Dewey, J. (1916). Democracy and education. New York: Macmillan.
Comenius, J. A. (1631/1967). The great didactic. (M. W. Keatinge, MA,
Trans.). New York: Russell & Russell.
Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison, (A.
Sheridan, Trans.). New York: New American Library.
Fromm, E. (2005). To have or to be? New York: Open Road Integrated
Media.
Gunzenhauser, M. G. (2012). The active/ethical professional: A framework for
responsible educators. New York: Continuum.
Harrison, S. (2002). The happy child: Changing the heart of education. Boulder,
CO: Sentient Publications.
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Hursh, D. W., Goldstein, R., & Griffith, D. (2000). Social struggles:

Schools and universities collaborating for social justice in
conservative times. In D. W. Hursh & E. W. Ross (Eds.), Democratic
social education: Social studies for social change. New York: Falmer.
Kohli, W. (2000). Teaching in the danger zone: Democracy and
difference. In D. W. Hursh, & E. W. Ross (Eds.), Democratic social
education: Social studies for social change. New York: Falmer.
Ladson-Billings, G. (2000). Put up or shut up: The challenge of moving
from critical theory to critical pedagogy (a formative assessment). In
D. W. Hursh, & E. W. Ross (Eds.), Democratic social education: Social
studies for social change. New York: Falmer.
Lipman, P. (2011). The new political economy of urban education: Neoliberalism,
race, and the right to the city. New York & London: Routledge.
Martin, J. R. (1992). The schoolhome: Rethinking schools for changing families.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Mathison, S. (2000). Promoting democracy through evaluation. In D. W.
Hursh, & E. W. Ross (Eds.), Democratic social education: Social studies for
social change. New York: Falmer.
Mayhew, K .C., & Edwards, A. C. (1936). The Dewey school: The laboratory
school of the University of Chicago, 18961903. New York & London: D.
Appleton-Century Company.
Montaigne, M. (1575/1958). Of the education of children. In D. Frame
(Trans.), Complete essays of Montaigne. Stanford, CA: Stanford
University Press, 106135.
Montessori, M. (1912/2012) The Montessori method. USA: Renaissance
Classics.
Pestalozzi, J. H. (2007). Leonard and Gertrude, (E. Channing, Trans.).
Boston, New York, & Chicago: D. C. Heath and Co.
Ross, E. W. (2000). Diverting democracy: The curriculum standards
movement and social studies education. In D. W. Hursh, & E. W.
Ross (Eds.), Democratic social education: Social studies for social change.
New York: Falmer.
Rousseau, J.-J. (1762/1979). Emile, or on education, (A. Bloom, Trans.).
New York: Basic Books.
Winnicott, D. W. (1984/1990). Deprivation and delinquency, (C. Winnicott,
R. Shepherd, & M. Davis, Eds.). London & New York: Routledge.
Winnicott, D. W. (1986). Home is where we start from: Essays by a
psychoanalyst. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
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2012
The Drake Lecture

Samia Costandi, Ahlia University, Kingdom of Bahrain
I struggled while preparing for the Drake Lecture. Indeed there were a
few passionate topics vying for my heart and attention. As I ran the
gamut of what would be an appropriate choice when addressing a group
of fellow educationists more intelligent, more seasoned, and more
eloquent than I, I settled upon that topic which troubles me most. On
such an important occasion, it is perhaps incumbent upon one to
prioritize the urgent rather than the fascinating, interesting, or cutting-
edge. I chose that which keeps me awake at night, tossing and turning
and wondering. And I decided to take Socrates with us on this journey.
Socrates: A difficult act to follow. The most interesting fact is he
never wrote a word, yet he endures. I have always imagined him as a
short, ugly manas a feminist, I suppose I purposefully reverse the
patriarchal urban legend that his wife was an ugly, controlling woman
and why he wandered the streets of Athens with no desire to go home!
He loved to talk; he loved to teach. He challenged anyone he found
before him in the marketplace, needling people with questions. The
most important result of this gadflys life, I believe, is he made
philosophy accessible to us alljust as it should be.
What are some of the questions that might haunt Socrates were he
alive today? I think he might wonder, how, after more than two
millennia, we human beings continue to kill each other with evermore
sophisticated weapons and in evermore vicious ways; how we have yet
to succeed in eradicating famine and hunger from the earth; how we
shamelessly create new forms of slaveryeconomic, sexual, and other
through child and female trafficking; how we compromise our global
environment to the point where we are but a few summers away from
ice breaking off and then disappearing completely from the Arctic,
melting due to global warming; how drug trafficking continues to
increase and how attempts to fight drug addiction are constantly stifled
by growing, powerful gangs and cartels; and, last but not least, how
media outlets engage in sophistry the vast majority of the time and in
intelligent discourse only 10% of the time. Indeed, Socrates likely would
wonder how our young have ceased to look both into our faces and into
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the face of the sun, and how their eyes instead are glued to small
screensslaves to iPods, iPhones and the vagaries of Facebook
rendering them nearly completely without will, agency, sensitivity or
consciousness.
The thing Socrates likely would most lament is the complete demise
of democracy: how those who purport to cherish and adhere to it have
instead rendered democracy lame and ineffective despite all the
intellectual and organizational means at their disposal. He would think
we have completely failed in reshaping the concept of democracy from
its elementary forms, this after he gave his life for democracy to become
entrenched as a viable concept in political philosophy; he would wonder
how our political system has watered and whittled democracy down to
intrigues, machinations, and hackneyed debates advanced by media
outlets during campaigns paid for by lobbyists, rather than advancing
meaningful processes to create serious societal change.
Here we stand in the first decades of the 21st century, yet what
greets us from the most powerful nation and the alleged leading
democracy on the globe is the threat of yet another Middle-Eastern war
being launched against yet another so-called renegade state, Iran. As if
the war on Iraq has not taught us a lesson! Socrates would weep, indeed,
cry out to our politicians, You cannot impose democracy on others,
you ignoramuses! Instead of growing democracy, Iraq has been
rendered into fragmented sectarian enclaves waging the most insidious
wars between those enclaves while the spoilsthe countrys oilpour
into Halliburtons coffers!
In Representations of the Intellectual (1994), the late, eminent Professor
Edward Said speaks of the pressures of professionalism that
challenge the intellectuals ingenuity and will (p. 76). Said discusses
pressures, yet none of these are unique to any of the worlds societies.
He names specialization as the first pressure, arguing the higher one
goes in the education system today, the more one is limited to a narrow
area of knowledge (p. 76). In other words, such pressure leads one to
lose sight of anything outside ones immediate field or discipline; this
pressure leads intellectuals to swim in the sea of technical formalism.
For specialization also kills [ones] sense of excitement and discovery,
both of which are irreducibly present in the intellectuals makeup (p.
77).
The second pressure Said names is expertise or the cult of the
certified expert (p. 77). Said explains:
To be an expert you have to be certified by the proper
authorities; they instruct you in speaking the right language,
citing the right authorities, holding down the right territory.
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This is especially true when sensitive and/or profitable areas of

knowledge are at stake. (p. 77)
None of us remains unaware of the industry and special-interest lobbies
created and maintained by gun manufacturers, the oil industry, and
tobacco corporations, among others. The 1999 film The Insider, starring
Russell Crowe, continues authentically to reflect the moral dilemmas an
intellectual faces given the lobbyists position.
According to Said, the third pressure of professionalism is the
inevitable drift toward power and authoritytowards the requirements
and prerogatives of power, and towards being directly employed by it
(p. 80). Said recounts the extent to which the agenda of the national
security determined priorities and the mentality of academic research
during the period when the US was competing with the Soviet Union for
world hegemony (p. 80)and surely one can recall similar agendas of
the Soviet Union, China, and many other superpowers at the apogee of
their historical domination in the past and today! US Departments of
State and Defence provide money not only for science and technology
research (for example to Stanford and MIT), but to humanities
departments in universities conducting anti-guerrilla warfare research in
support of Third-World policy which leads to the creation of
international terrorist networks of mercenary states (Mitchell &
Schoeffel, 2003, p. 4), which Noam Chomsky describes (from Oliver
Norths trial) as leading to the publication of a 42-page document
spelling out these states names and ends by focusing on Nicaraguan
operations. I am sure Chomskys life and work are not foreign to many
of us here today and I believe his future legacy, whether or not one
shares his ideas, attests to how far a true intellectual is willing to go to
walk the talk or adhere to the tenets of ones moral values in such a
way as to exemplify the true independence of ones spirit of analysis and
judgment. When he decided to leave MIT in order to pursue intellectual
independence, Chomsky chose what Said terms the risks and uncertain
results of the public sphere (p. 87) rather than a very well-paid job at
MIT as a linguist (which Chomsky had already acquired and which
would have given him lifetime security, status and wealth). In Saids
words Chomsky represents an amateur speaking truth to power (p. 97) in
broad realms that go beyond his narrow professional careerand which
ought to be the intellectuals contribution (p. 86).
Although one cannot blame academics for the application of their
research by the US or any other government, in covert activities,
sabotage, and even outright war (pp. 8081), one can perhaps ascertain
it is incumbent upon academics clearly to delineate when someone
encroaches on their intellectual space, the intellectual space of
uncompromising freedom of opinion and expression [which] is the
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secular intellectuals main bastion: to abandon its defence or to tolerate

tampering with any of its foundations is in effect to betray the
intellectuals calling (p. 89). A good example of guarding that space
jealously is continually to challenge society and government to define
think tank. Is not a think tank an organization that funnels
government or corporate money to generate research that helps in
creating a countrys foreign policy? Does not a think tank, in many
instances, cater to lobbyists who support certain governments
ideologies, strategies, and foreign policies?
Saids basic questions for intellectuals are [H]ow does one speak
the truth? What truth? For whom and where? (p. 88). If we agree with
Said that one of the main intellectual activities of the 20th century has
been the questioning, not to say undermining, of authority (p. 91), if we
concur in that domain and with influential schools of philosophers in
which Michel Foucault ranks very highly, and if we see any merit in
Foucaults critique of objectivity and authority and agree he performs a
positive service in highlighting how humans construct truths in a secular
world, we might then pose several questions: Why have we moved to the
other extreme? Are we adrift in self-indulgent subjectivity? Why is
there a total disappearance of what seems to have been objective moral
norms and sensible authority? And, why is it thatat the beginning of
the twenty-first centurythe other scandalous development surfacing is
our institutions of higher education moving completely away from being
republics of scholars to stakeholder organizations? (Bleiklie & Kogan, 2007).
Let us perhaps hope, along with Said (1994), we can be fastidious in
considering the threats to the individual intellectual of a system that
rewards intellectual conformity, as well as willing participation in goals
that have been set not by science but by the government (pp. 8182).
Let us acknowledge with Said research and accreditation are controlled
in order to get and keep a larger share of the market (pp. 8182).
One of the shabbiest of all intellectual gambits is to pontificate
about abuse in someone elses society and to excuse exactly the same
practices in ones own. (p. 92). Said offers examples of Alexis de
Tocqueville speaking on Algeria and John Stuart Mill on India. How
often have we as educators and intellectuals found ourselves in situations
where the temptation is to turn off ones moral sense, or to think
entirely from within the specialty, or to curtail scepticism in favour of
conformity (pp. 8687)? Said answers, Many intellectuals succumb
completely to these temptations and to some degree all of us do. No one
is totally self-supporting not even the greatest of free spirits (p. 87).
If anyone among us wonders, along with Socrates, why a Palestinian
Canadian academic is pontificating in this forum about what US and
other Western academics ought or ought not be doing rather than
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discussing the challenges Arab world academics face on many levels, I

say it is because in our societies we are direct recipients of the full-blown
consequences of US foreign policy which affect our societies and
educational systems gravely; we suffered under the British and French
Empires, and now we suffer under the hegemony of US foreign policy.
That is the truth of the matter. So, in a sense and in the words of bell
hooks (1999), I am talking back.
You can imagine how infuriating it is for disinherited Palestinians to
see Israelis continue to occupy their homes in East Jerusalem on land
that constitutes less than 3% of the original 13% of the 40% of land
owed them by their negotiation with Israel. Where the occupation of
Palestine is concerned, the US supports Israel unequivocally and Israel
acts with impunity. Today the disillusionment Palestinian and other Arab
intellectuals feel (especially those who studied in the West, like myself) in
regard to US intellectuals springs from the idealist dreama dream we
wholeheartedly believein the ability of Western universities to generate
intellectuals who refuse blindly to support their countrys crimes and
who will not become in Saids (1994) words denatured by their fawning
service to an extremely flawed power (p. 97). Where are the
intellectuals with an alternative and a more principled stand that enables
them in effect to speak truth to power (p. 97)?
But let me go back now because I hear Socrates calling to accuse me
of going on a long tangent. So I revert to our original question: How
can each one of us contribute to providing some solutions to the urgent
problems I sketched at the outset of my lecture? I hear Socrates retort:
Are you saying the onus is on educators and intellectuals to provide
solutions?, adding Why should this be so? Are educators and
intellectuals the ones who will find solutions to famine and hunger, to
drug trafficking and addiction, to global warming, and to sexual slavery
and human trafficking? Their plates are full already! How will they find
solutions to all seeing they themselves are disempowered politically? The
philosopher is not yet king, as my disillusioned student, Plato, would
say! (I have summarized the dialectical engagement that went on
between me and Socrates to save time!)
Perhaps now I am ready to spell out my pedagogic creed in the
true tradition of Dewey (1897).
1. I believe educators generally are well-versed in the values that
concern the whole human race; educators are capable of generating a
consensus on what is universally considered objective moral norms
and sensible authority. Of course, by objective I do not mean absolute
or unchanging but objectivity garnered through reason that is embodied.
Mark Johnson (1993) critiques the absolutist objectivist world view in
The Moral Imagination: Basically, the decisive line is drawn between
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the mental, conceptual, rational, cognitive, a priori, and theoretical, on

the one side, and the physical, perceptual, imaginative, emotional, a
postreori, and practical, on the other side (pp. xxxvxxxvi).
Educators understand through their experiences in the classroom
and outside of it what Johnson draws out theoretically about the static,
non-developmental, and non-evolutionary, absolutist view of our
identity as moral agents:
We are beings whose identities emerge and develop in an
ongoing process of interactions within our physical,
interpersonal, and cultural environments. To function
successfully within these changing environments our reason
must be expansive, exploratory, and flexible. The locus of our
moral understanding is thus our imaginative rationality (a
human, rather than Universal, Reason) that allows us to envision
and to test out in imagination various possible solutions to
morally problematic situations. By giving us alternative
perspectives, it also thereby gives us a means of criticizing and
evaluating those projected courses of action and the values they
presuppose. (p. 219)
I believe Johnsons work should become mandatory reading for
multiple academic disciplines. His work bridges the rifts between mind
and body, between reason and emotion, between beliefs and moral
tenets, between personal perspectives on morality and universal ones,
between aesthetic valuing as an instrument for individual growth and
development, and the study of art as canon. Although the names are too
many for me to enumerate here, for decades feminist writers have
discussed this same disembodiment.
What educators intuitively know and practice and come to
understand through academes paradigmatic shifts, the world of
business is barely scrabbling with today. Let me make clear I am not
comfortable labelling business as a social science; I believe it has yet to
earn this title. Lately business has begun to adopt from the discipline of
psychology, for example, select notions on emotion, motivation, and
leadership; businesses use theseand I realize I am a cynic in this
regardpurposefully to soften business practices brutalities committed
upon our world, to deflect harsh and oppressive practices, whether in
construction or in the garment industry or elsewhere, inherent in
employing thousands of workers from developing countries for minimal
pay (and in certain cases almost no pay by international standards).
Business uses the social sciences to engage in condescending attempts to
add life to the sterile and cold, sanitized offices and practices of big,
calculating, voracious, rapacious corporations.
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As a result I naturally am extremely sceptical of the business world

and its scandalous non-adherence to a moral order or moral codes of
behaviour, least of which is that business has been disadvantaging
teachers for centuries by refusing to place an equitable monetary value
on educators work in terms of effort invested and service rendered. Of
course, when confronted with the accusation, business adduces the
nature of the teaching professionhistorically described as noble,
sublime, and altruisticcalling educators work difficult to evaluate
materially! What trickery! Let us begin by pointing to the millions upon
millions of dollars in illegal profit the world of business and its CEOs
have stolen and continue to steal from ordinary peoples pensions in the
recent unravelling and multiple crises of the banking industrys sub-
prime investments.
Let us admit it: business and politics have failed todays young
generations completely. Members of society have created monsters out
of politics, religion, and technological advancements; the younger
generations are now faced with the complete dehumanization of political
systems, religion, and human sexuality. Greed is the god of infidels who
rake in the fruits of decent peoples labour.
To add insult to injury, the practices of business render people
unable to do more than survive at a minimal level, for now there is no
time to do anything besides earning ones daily breadif one is lucky
enough to have a job, that is. Business practices also succeed in
alienating us from our brothers and sisters in other cultures. In the
polemical tug-of-war between philosophical notions of the universal and
the particularbetween mine and yours, ours and theirswe have yet
to succeed in choreographing the dance that will allow us to keep our
individuality as different civilizations. In the words of the Lebanese-
French, eminent writer Amin Maalouf (1996) in his book In the Name of
Identity: Violence and the Need to Belong:
At the same time as we fight for the universality of values it is
imperative that we fight against the impoverishment of
standardization; against hegemony, whether ideological,
political, economic or operating in the media; against foolish
conformism; against everything that stifles the full variety of
linguistic, artistic and intellectual expression. Against everything
that makes for a monotonous and puerile world. A battle in
defence of certain practices and cultural traditions, but one that
is clear-sighted, rigorous, discriminating, not oversensitive, not
unduly timorous, always open to the future. (p. 107)
Karen Armstrongwho spent seven years as a Roman Catholic
nun before leaving her order in 1969offers an example of the kind of
educator who can bring peoples and nations together in her books A
8
xxxii JoPHE 63
History of God (1993), The Battle for God (2001), Islam: A Short History
(2002), and Buddha (2004), and, last but not least, Holy War: The Crusades
and Their Impact on Todays World (1988).
2. I believe teachers need to be vocal, need to make their voices
heardloudlyand uniquely are endowed to lead society when it
articulates the injustices hurled upon its members, not least of whom
are children, women, the poor, the disenfranchised, and the
disempoweredin spite of all the invidious declarations and new laws
created in the West to curb dissenting peoples voices in demonstrations
in New York and in London. Alas! The last bastion of democracy in the
world has been demolished! It does not surprise us when other nations
do it, but for such a thing to happen in England and in the United States
of America? If they put their minds to it, together teachers can
intelligently and in subtle ways usurp power from those who abuse it. I
can hear the curmudgeons say along with the gadfly, Come on, you are
an idealist. What is this? The next thing we will hear you say is,
Educators of the world unite!
Make no mistake, I am not an idealist; I am an existentialist at heart.
And who among us can dispute the only truths we know for sure?: We
are born and we die. However, the existentialists tragic awareness of
lifes absurdity does not necessarily lead to nihilism. It takes real courage
to create the path of ones life and to live it to the fullest, while being
aware of and sensitive to Sartres (1964/1981) dictum that ones freedom
ceases to exist when one trespasses on the freedom of others. Hence,
the difference between a teacher and a cynic; the cynic mocks serious
human effort to confront the absurdity of the world we live in, whereas,
from my own perspective, the teacher is represented by Joseph
Campbells (1973) hero with a thousand faces who sees beyond the blind
spot of humanity and obtains the boon, the hero who leads society to a
better place. If, as Albert Camus (1955) says in The Myth of Sisyphus, The
absurd is born out of this confrontation between the human need and
the unreasonable silence of the world (p. 28), then educators, of whom
we are but a microcosmic example, heroically attempt to redress that
silence by helping students and learners shape their lives and by
facilitating the enrichment of experience against the rebirth of the
world in its prolixity, hence continually dealing with paradox: an
arduous undertaking.
Thus, it would benefit society to employ educators as consultants in
every single sector of government; educators must even partake in the
creation of new laws that defend further the interests of the
disenfranchised, the weak, the poor, and the oppressedwho now
constitute the majority of humanity!
9
JoPHE 63 xxxiii
3. I believe educators can restore faith in humanity as a whole

because they are individuals immersed in acts of love every single day
and the most well-equipped to act as the conscience of society.
Without love, one cannot teach. Let me quote the Bible here, since I am
an Arab Christian. I offer my favourite verses from the First Epistle of
St. Paul to the Corinthians:
13.1 Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels,
but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging
cymbal.
13.2 And though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all
mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that
I could remove mountains, but have not love, I have nothing.
13.3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and
though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it
profits me nothing.
13.4 Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love
does not parade itself, is not puffed up.
13.5 Does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not
provoked, thinks no evil.
13.6 Does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in truth.
13.7 Bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things,
endures all things.
13.8 Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will
fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is
knowledge, it will vanish away. (emphasis added)
Besides Mark Johnson, Carol Gilligan, Maxine Greene, and Fritjof
Capra, important educators whose work deeply touches me along my
educational journey are Joseph Campbell, Leo Buscaglia, and Sam Keen.
The late Buscaglia, Professor at Large at the University of Southern
California, wrote a book on love published in 1972. I am sure many of
you are aware of his work: his non-credit course Love A1, and his
lectures on PBS as well as his best-selling books. His work may have
been mocked by critics, but he was hailed by students as a hero. He
contends love is not an ethereal emotion sketched from the imaginations
of romantics; love is real, is hard work, requires getting ones hands dirty,
is sweat and blood on a daily basis, is powerful and enduring.
Some of my friends say I am figuratively manic when it comes to
swaying from one extreme to the other, the pits of depression during
times when one feels despondent because one is working against all
odds, against systems that are rapacious and voracious, to the heights of
euphoria when a student finally does well after failing, or when a student
0
xxxiv JoPHE 63
who never talks begins to speak in class. Or, perhaps, when a student
who started out as a religious fanatic begins to see the value and
importance of the scientific method and garners insights about what the
late Stephen Jay Gould (1999) calls the non-overlapping magisteria of
science and religion in his wonderful book Rocks of Ages: Science and
Religion in the Fullness of Life.
As teachers we have all come to appreciate the importance of
spontaneity in our lives, in our classrooms. Sometimes our students
teach us its importance. Sometimes we remind them of its value.
Buscaglia (1972) says, I cry all the time. I cry when Im happy, I cry
when Im sad. I cry when a student says something beautiful, I cry when
I read poetry (p. 37). Buscaglia (1978) talks about death as our ally, our
hope in self-creation, our strength in connectiveness, our uniqueness in
purpose, our rapture in intimacy and love, and also in love our source
for overcoming our doubts, frustrations, and pain. Love is hard work;
for teachers love is about daily toil, about going many extra miles and
about infinite patience.
In todays living universe, even scientists are not impartial
observers. The scientist is a participant whose observation or attempt
to determine initial conditions, has an irreducible effect on the rest of
the universe (Peat, 1987, p. 37). A pluralistic approach is suggested in
science as it is in multicultural education. One can liken the tension
between the particular and the general to the close hold of a waltz in
its particularity and intimacy as opposed to being flung in the air by
ones imagination and experiencing the flow of creativity; one constantly
asserts his or her independence as well as ones commonality within such
multifarious diversity. Amin Maalouf (1996) eloquently spells out the
fundamental rights of all human beings constituted by their
commonality:
Everything that has to do with fundamental rightsthe right
to live as a full citizen on the soil of ones father, free of
persecution or discrimination; the right to live with dignity
anywhere; the right to choose ones life and love and beliefs
freely, while respecting the freedom of others; the right of free
access to knowledge, health and a decent and honourable life
none of this may be denied to our fellow human beings on the
pretext of preserving a belief, an ancestral practice or a
tradition. In this area we should tend towards universality, and
even, if necessary, towards uniformity, because humanity, while
it is also multiple, is primarily one. (pp. 106107)
Let us abandon academe for a moment and go to the streets of
Syria. There thousands of people are giving their lives in order to achieve
freedom, in order to create a democratic society in their country, to have
1
JoPHE 63 xxxv
the right to speak, the right to change their government, the right to
choose a government that will protect their human, civil, and legal rights
in order to live life with dignity and integrity. In this world, the most
important questions are, Who is going to be the guardian of that
heritage of sacrifice and selflessness, the interpreter of those noble
actions? Who is going to translate those lost and sacrificed lives into
won freedoms and entrenched values, transformed governments and
new programs, schools, universities, research centres, books, town hall
debates, commentaries in newspapers, publications, and a new reading
of history that will officially be adopted in the countrys elementary and
high schools? These are the challenges in all Arab Spring countries.
In these politically sensitive and difficult times when human lives
are overwhelmed by and riddled with natural, spiritual, emotional,
political, social, and environmental disasters, allow me to say the only
light I see at the end of this tunnel is the light emanating from teachers.
And although, as Said (1994) reminds us, we have moved so far away
from what would be considered today utopia a hundred years ago,
when Stephen Dedalus could say that as an intellectual his duty was
not to serve any power or authority at all (p. 82), perhaps we should
agree with Said that instead of denying the impingements of
professionalism and their influence on academics, we need to search for
a different set of values and prerogatives (p. 82) fuelled by care and
affection rather than by profit and selfish, narrow specialization. I agree
with Said who asks, How does the intellectual address authority: as a
professional supplicant or as its unrewarded, amateurish conscience? (p.
83).
4. I believe educators experience informs them self fulfilment
does not exclude unconditional relationships and moral demands; on
the contrary, it requires them (Taylor, 1991, pp. 7174). Experience is
what enables teachers to create in their work a culture of authenticity
that helps society deal with modernitys malaise, unaddressed but rather
complicated by post-modernity! Taylor theorizes three malaises as
individualism, the loss of the heroic dimension of life, and the primacy
of instrumental reason. I believe Taylors work explains those changes
that have led to the present centurys confusion and chaos at its outset.
In Sources of the Self: The Making of Modern Identity (1989) Taylor traces the
development of individual identity that, until modernity, was submerged
in societal frameworks and interpretations. As crucial and dramatic
changes ensued over a span of a hundred years (namely during the mid-
19th to mid-20th centuries), uncertainty, confusion, conflict, and fear
prevailed:
[People] lack a frame of reference or horizon within which
things can take on a stable significance, within which some life
2
xxxvi JoPHE 63
possibilities can be seen as good or meaningful, others as bad

or trivial. The meaning of all these possibilities is unfixed,
labile, or undetermined. This is a painful and frightening
experience. (pp. 2728)
We should not expect our young to understand their world if we
continue teaching history, or any other subject for that matter, in the
same ways taught previously. Commentary and interpretation are key to
unravelling hidden meanings underpinning mysteries; teachers are
facilitators who equip students with critical thinking skills that allow
them to unravel hidden meanings. In Taylors words, only through
adding a depth perspective of history can one bring out what is implicit
but still at work in contemporary life (p. 498). Good teachers do that;
many good teachers do that already.
5. I believe teachers can facilitate a more-authentic
understanding of life as lived within communities by connecting the
academic disciplines and making them relevant to childrens and
families everyday lives. To this end, multidisciplinary and
interdisciplinary research and teaching are of paramount importance
in reducing students conflicting as well as reductionist views of the
world.
Many of todays world problems stem from a lack of understanding
of the other, from the inability to comprehend the others worldview,
from being incapable of putting oneself in the shoes of the other. In
1978 the great educational philosopher and educator Maxine Greene
published Landscapes of Learning. Greenes philosophical orientation is
existential and phenomenological; I find her books to be highly
insightful and inspiringas I am sure do many generations of students
and teachers. In one essay she adduces the character Meursault in
Camus The Stranger (1946) to demonstrate the terrible alienation US
citizens experienced given the new freedoms of those decades
following Watergate, the Vietnam War, and the birth of the Hippie
movement.
the new freedom we are witnessing is linked to a terrible
alienation, what used to be called anomie. I think that many,
many people are moving through their lives as strangers, in the
sense that Meursault was a stranger. They are not reflecting;
they are not choosing; they are not judging; in some sense, they
have nothing to say. (Greene, 1978, p. 151)
While not attempting to moralize or to pass judgement, Greene
sketches an apt diagnosis of what is going on. She describes startling
divorce rates, changes in gender roles, alterations in family life, the
proliferation of violent movies, and their need by people seeking
immediate thrills and the satisfaction of immediate needsthe need, for
3
JoPHE 63 xxxvii
example, to feel alive, rather than numb. She says, few [undertakings]
rest upon actual face-to-face communication among distinctive
individuals trying to interpret their intersubjective lives. Frequently, they
are responses to discouragement with the social world as it exists (p.
151). Even in individuals attempts at self-mastery through exercise,
long-distance running, or the practice of Zen, Greene namesagain
without attempting to condemn or moralizeself-mastery as a choice of
private passions as alternatives to membership, to existence in
community (p. 152). She then describes the moral life:
The moral life is not necessarily the self-denying life nor the
virtuous life, doing what others expect of one, or doing what
others insist one ought to do. It can best be characterized as a
life of reflectiveness and care, a life of the kind of wide-
awakeness associated with full attention to life and its
requirements. I have an active attention in mind to life in its
multiple phases, not the kind of passive attention in which one
sits and stares. In active attention, there is always an effort to
carry out a plan in a space where there are others, where
responsibility means something other than transcending ones
own speed, or ones own everyday. A person is not simply
located in space somewhere; he or she is gearing into a shared
world that places tasks before each one who plays a deliberate
part. It is only in a domain of human expectations and
responses that individuals find themselves moved to make a
recognizable mark, to make a difference that others see. And so
they trace out certain dimensions of the common space that are
relevant in their concerns. (p. 152)
Hers is a very elegant and graceful description of what teachers do,
what everyone in this hall is doing in their lives. Greene speaks of the
drifter, who she describes as someone to whom nothing matters
outside her or his own self, as someone who cannot be free. She speaks
of the possibility of freedom as something that has always to be acted
upon and grounded in our being; we cannot be imitators of one another,
hence freedom cannot happen in a vacuum. We must place ourselves in
situations which allow for the release of individual capacities. Greene
believes individuals need to self-identify, to understand ones preferences
and reflect on them, and to reflect on them in the framework of some
norm, set of values, or standard:
The individual who does not choose, who simply drifts,
cannotfrom this additional vantage pointbe considered
free. The one who basks in the sun, with little sense of sharing
the world with others, is only barely aware of what he or she
prefers. (p. 153)
4
xxxviii JoPHE 63
Who is Greene describing but teachers? Do you not recognize

yourselves in this description? This is what teachers do day in, day out.
Teachers are the ones permitting individual capacities to be released,
permitting individuals to identify themselves. These practices are all at
the heart of what educators do. In the words of Parker Palmer (1998),
We teach who we are (p. 1).
In an essay that began in 1994 as a public lecture at the Doris Sloan
Memorial Education Symposium at the University of Michigans
Museum of Fine Art, Michael Brenson (1995) borrows a statement from
the back cover of a book of Chekhov stories: in his stories Chekhov
held life, like a fluttering bird, in the cup of his hand (n.p.). Brenson
suggests we substitute art for life and language, that the bird in hand
gives one a sense of how precious the relationship between art and
language can be. I suggest we substitute life for the lives of students and
the hospitable space of the classroom for the hand. If the hand does not
make the bird feel welcome, it will fly away; if the hand squeezes the bird
too tightly, it will smother.
References
Armstrong, K. (1988). Holy war: The crusades and their impact on todays world.
New York: Anchor.
Armstrong, K. (1993). A history of God: The 4000-year quest of Judaism,
Christianity and Islam. New York: Ballantine.
Armstrong, K. (2001). The battle for God. New York: Ballantine.
Armstrong, K. (2002). Islam: A short history. New York: Random House.
Armstrong, K. (2004). Buddha. New York: Penguin.
Bleiklie, I., & Kogan, M. (2007). Organization and governance of
universities. Higher Education Policy, 20, 477493.
Brenson, M. (1995). Resisting the dangerous journey: The crisis in
journalistic criticism. Arts, Culture & Society: Promoting Discourse. The
Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Retrieved from
http://www.warholfoundation.org/grant/paper4/paper.html
Buscaglia, L. (1972). Love. New York: Fawcett Crest.
Campbell, J. (1973). The hero with a thousand faces. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press.
Camus, A. (1946). The stranger. New York: Knopf.
Camus, A. (1955). The myth of Sisyphus: And other essays. New York:
Vintage.
5
JoPHE 63 xxxix
Dewey, J. (1897). My pedagogic creed. School Journal, 54, 7780.

hooks, b. (1999). Talking back: Thinking feminist, thinking Black. Boston:
South End Press.
Gould, S. J. (1999). Rocks of ages: Science and religion in the fullness of life. New
York: Ballantine.
Greene, M. (1978). Landscapes of learning. New York: Teachers College
Press.
Holy Bible, New King James Version. (1982). Nashville, TN: Thomas
Nelson Co.
Johnson, M. (1993). The moral imagination. Chicago: The University of
Chicago Press.
Maalouf, A. (1996). In the name of identity: Violence and the need to belong.
New York: Arcade.
Mitchell, P. R., & Schoeffel, J. (Eds.). (2003). Understanding power: The
indispensable Chomsky. London: Vintage.
Palmer, P. (1998). The courage to teach: Exploring the inner landscape of a
teachers life. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Peat, F. D. (1987). Synchronicity: The bridge between matter and mind. New
York: Bantam.
Said, E. (1994). Representations of the intellectual. New York: Pantheon.
Sartre, J. P. (1964/1981). The words. New York: Bantam.
Taylor, C. (1989). Sources of the self: The making of the modern identity.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
xl JoPHE 63
1

vol. 63, no. 1, 2013, pp. 118
Academic Freedom in the

Post-Garcetti Era: An Historical
Analysis of Court Cases
Lee S. Duemer, Texas Tech University
Fred Hartmeister, Texas Tech University
Introduction
While employers may not retaliate against faculty for speech protected
under the First Amendment, there is no mention in the First
Amendment of any Constitutional protection for academic freedom.
Any recognition of academic freedom is the result of interpretation of
the First Amendment, rather than any specific mention.1 Therefore,
any understanding of a contemporaneous meaning of academic
freedom requires one to explore court decisions as to what speech is
protected.2 More specifically, one needs to understand the relationship
between academic freedom and freedom of speech protected under
the First Amendment. The complexities of this relationship are
essential because the US Supreme Court historically has not given
academic freedom Constitutional protection.3
Academic freedom is the freedom to research and publish
findings, freedom in teaching subject matter within the curriculum, and
freedom to decide whom to admit to study (student admissions).4
Academic freedom serves the common good, allows universities to
contribute to society, and is essential to the mission of universities so
scholars have the freedom to teach and disseminate knowledge
without fear of repression. There admittedly is considerable variation
in how academic freedom is defined, and it is exactly this tension that
calls for an historical examination of relevant cases. The 2006 Supreme
Court decision in Garcetti v. Ceballos characterizes academic freedom
very differently from how it is defined by the American Association of
University Professors (AAUP) 1940 statement. The AAUP statement
is grounded in the idea universities exist for the common good,
particularly public universities. It is only logical that public universities
address societal problems since they are supported by taxpayers
respective states.5
Any scholarship grounded in the study of recent history must
ensure data analyzed are the most timely and accurate if the purpose is
2
2 L. Duemer & F. Hartmeister
to examine the state of recent events based in a longer historical trend

with the intent of illuminating implications.6 We focus the scope of our
historical examination on court cases pertaining to four-year, public
colleges and universities in order better to understand the implications
of change, because the Garcetti decision pertains only to government
employees. Additionally, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals decision in
Evans-Marshall (2010) concludes the concept of academic freedom is
only applicable to post-secondary education.7 A timely historical
examination of recent cases is essential to provide meaningful
conclusions of how academic freedom has been understood by courts
and the implications of the courts decisions for faculty. We
acknowledge the study of recent history admittedly risks the possibility
of exaggerating the significance of relatively recent events and is limited
by lack of hindsight and perspective, and acknowledge the criticism of
those who deem such scholarship insufficiently historical.8
Stephen Aby and Dave Witt examine the outcome of the Garcetti
ruling in terms of increasingly hostile academic environments for
faculty.9 Robert Roberts examines some lower-court cases regarding
academic freedom since 2006, yet does not draw conclusions regarding
speech in the classroom.10 Another recent examination of Garcetti
looks at its implications for faculty governance at public institutions.11
Our contribution to the literature is to examine the recent history of
court rulings regarding academic freedom better to understand how
courts have defined the scope and protection it affords, and the
implications for faculty. We focus our examination on that period since
the 2006 US Supreme Court Garcetti v. Ceballos ruling. We chose this
demarcation because the Garcetti decision has since been used as
guidance by lower courts in evaluating individual challenges alleging
academic-freedom violations.
Historical Background of Academic Freedom and Garcetti v.
Ceballos
The concept of academic freedom was inherited from German
universities in the nineteenth century.12 Academic freedom exists in
two forms, lehrfreiheit and lernfreiheit. Lehrfreiheit refers to freedom to
conduct research, and lernfreiheit is the freedom to teach without undue
constraint. These concepts allow the scholar to uncover knowledge in
their disciplines as they see fit, and transmit that knowledge to peers
and students. Academic freedom is not absolute, in fact some degree of
institutional authority is necessary so faculty can research and teach,13
but the intertwined nature of individual and institutional academic
freedoms has been understood by some as essential in that institutional
freedom cannot exist without the existence of individual freedom.14
Ream and Glanzer argue shifts in the nature and definition of academic
freedom are the result of interpreting it within different views of both
3
Academic Freedom in the Post-Garcetti Era 3
humanity and relationships with institutions.15 The most recent shift

represents how academic freedom is defined with respect to the tension
between individual and institutional freedoms in increasingly complex
organizations.
During the early-20th century, some American faculty began
formally to organize and assert their rights to academic freedom. In
1913 Arthur Lovejoy, a philosophy professor at Johns Hopkins
University, formed a national association of faculty at nine leading
universities. Those 600 faculty formed the basis for what would become
known as the American Association of University Professors (AAUP).
The AAUPs 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure
(since revised several times) emphasizes the value of affording and
protecting individual rights of faculty and students in conjunction with
their institutions to fend off external or political intrusion.
The US Supreme Court decided Garcetti v. Ceballos in 2006 and it is
considered a landmark case in defining the limits of free speech among
public employees.16 The suit originated in 1989 when Richard Ceballos,
a deputy district attorney in the Los Angeles County District Attorneys
office, questioned the accuracy of an affidavit issued by his office.
Ceballos claimed he was later subjected to retaliation in the form of
reassignment and denial of promotion.17
Ceballos initially filed an internal grievance that was denied; he then
filed suit in US District Court alleging his First and Fourteenth
Amendment rights had been violated. At the time, Gil Garcetti was Los
Angeles District Attorney; therefore he was named as the defendant in
the case. The District Court granted summary judgment for the
defendant on the grounds that Ceballos speech took place in the
context of his employment and therefore was not protected under the
First Amendment. The case was appealed to the Ninth Circuit Court
which reversed the District Courts decision and concluded Ceballos
speech was protected because it dealt with a matter of public concern
pertaining to possible corruption or wrongdoing by law enforcement
officers.18
The case was appealed to the US Supreme Court which ruled
against Ceballos in a 54 decision. Justice Kennedy wrote the majority
decision, resting his opinion on whether or not the plaintiff spoke as a
private citizen or public employee to determine if Ceballos speech was
protected. The majority concluded that, since Ceballos spoke in the
capacity of a public employee, his speech was not protected under the
First Amendment. The result was public employees could have no
expectation of First Amendment protection within the context of their
job duties with respect to speech that could affect the organizations
operations. Furthermore, the majority decision concluded there could be
4
no distinction where such speech by a public employee took place. For

example, such an employee still could not expect First Amendment
protection when speaking about matters related to job responsibilities,
even if the speech took place outside the workplace.19 Therefore, when a
citizen accepts government employment, the citizen must by necessity
accept certain limitations on his or her freedom.20 Under the Garcetti
decision the factors that determine protection are only whether the
individual spoke as a citizen, and if the speech pertains to a matter of
public concern.21
The Garcetti decision does not pertain directly to higher education
but has been used by lower courts as the basis to judge protected and
non-protected speech. In fact, Justice Souters dissenting opinion in
Garcetti specifically cautions how Garcetti might affect higher education in
that the ruling was not intended to imperil the First Amendment
protection of academic freedom in public colleges and universities.22
Justice Kennedy also addresses this point in his majority opinion.
Justice Souter suggests todays decision may have important
ramifications for academic freedom, at least as a constitutional
value. There is some argument that expression related to
academic scholarship or classroom instruction implicates
additional constitutional interests that are not fully accounted
for by this Courts customary employee-speech jurisprudence.
We need not, and for that reason do not, decide whether the
analysis we conduct today would apply in the same manner to a
case involving speech related to scholarship or teaching.23
This limitation in Justice Kennedys majority opinion often is referred to
as the Garcetti reservation.24 The Garcetti reservation is critically
important in understanding the limitations of academic freedom because
it leaves unclear what, if any, protections are afforded faculty speech. As
government employees, public university faculty have contractual
obligations to their respective states. The Garcetti case does not
specifically address scholarship and teaching, and leaves to lower courts
and subsequent cases to decide the boundaries between academic
freedom and ones responsibilities as a public employee. In our analysis
of post-Garcetti cases we examine how courts have defined that
boundary and the implications for faculty speech.
Analysis of Selected Post-Garcetti Cases
Dr. Kevin Renken, while a tenured professor at the University of
Wisconsin-Milwaukee, applied for a National Science Foundation (NSF)
grant. He was required to seek matching funds from the university,
which were granted, but with restrictions that Dr. Renken concluded
were in violation of NSF regulations. He brought his concerns to his
dean and others, finally rejecting a compromise by the university.
5
Consequently the university returned the funds to NSF and reduced

Renkens pay. He then brought suit against the university claiming he
was retaliated against because of voicing his concerns. The case was
heard in the US Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in 2008 and the court
concluded that, under Garcetti, Dr. Renkens speech was as an employee
rather than a citizen so not protected under the First Amendment. The
court interpreted his grant work as part of his teaching duties because he
would have received a reduced teaching load had he served as principal
investigator of the project.25 The Renken ruling represents a departure
from previous decisions in that a faculty members research was tied to
teaching rather than standing as an independent category. The courts
rationale is economic in that research takes the place of teaching for
which the professor is compensated in the form of reduced teaching at
the same salary.
The case of Gorum v. Sessoms may at first appear to pertain to
academic freedom in the context of grading; however, the substance of
the case is based on freedom of speech. It represents a clear illustration
of how courts interpret facultys limitations to speak within their job
roles. Dr. Wendell Gorum was a tenured professor and chairman of the
Mass Communications Department at Delaware State University. In
January 2004 the university registrar began an audit of grade changes
Gorum submitted following a discrepancy in the transcript of a student
athlete. The audit revealed Gorum had changed withdrawals,
incompletes, and failing grades into passing grades for 48 students
(mostly athletes). He also assigned grades to students for courses they
never actually attended. This was done without informing or obtaining
consent from those faculty members who originally assigned grades. A
faculty committee concluded Gorum had indeed made changes in
violation of university policy and recommended a two-year, unpaid
suspension, the loss of his chair position, and a probationary period
upon his return on the grounds that a lack of university oversight
fostered a climate where grade manipulations occurred.26
The president of the university, however, concluded Gorums
actions rose to the level of dismissible misconduct and initiated
termination proceedings, which the universitys board of trustees
eventually approved. Two years after his dismissal Gorum filed suit in
Delaware federal court. Gorum claimed his dismissal was not prompted
by unauthorized grade changes but by at least two other preceding
events associated with free speech: he had opposed the hiring of the
university president and rescinded an invitation to the president to speak
at a fraternity prayer breakfast. The court ruled Gorums speech
occurred in the context of his role as an employee and furthermore did
not pertain to a matter of public interest. On appeal to the Third Circuit
Court of Appeals, the appellate court also concluded Gorums dismissal
6
was made irrespective of speech not protected in any event.27 The Gorum
ruling separated First Amendment protection from Gorums
administrative functions, and, as a result, administrators could not expect
to be protected from actions carried out through their administrative
roles.
The case of Hong v. Grant is based upon workplace speech and
academic freedom, but without as many ancillary issues as in Gorum. Dr.
Juan Hong was a tenured professor of chemical engineering and material
science at the University of California, Irvine. Hong claimed in 2004 he
was denied a merit-based salary increase because of criticisms made
about both departmental policies including hiring and promotion, and
the departments reliance on part-time faculty to teach lower-level
courses. In 2004 Hong applied for a merit-based pay increase following a
one-year deferral due to unsatisfactory research performance.28 In his
application Hong described his own performance in securing peer-
reviewed publications as average to minimal, and his success at
attracting (or procuring) research grants as zero.29 His application was
denied because university administrators concluded his performance was
inconsistent with expectations of one at the rank of full professor. Hong
filed suit in 2005 and the case was heard in US District Court for the
Central District of California. In 2007 the court granted summary
judgment for the defendants on the basis that Hongs speech was not
protected. The court specifically states:
The First Amendment does not constitutionalize every criticism
made by a public employee concerning the workplace. If a
public employees speech is made in the course of the
employees job duties and responsibilities, the speech is not
protected under the First Amendment. Because all of Mr. Hongs
criticisms were made in the course of doing his job as a UCI
professor, the speech is not protected from discipline by
University administrators. Moreover, Mr. Hongs criticisms
pertained to the internal hiring, promotion and staffing
practices of UCI and are of very little concern to the public.30
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the lower-court
decision on the basis administrators who evaluated Hongs merit-based
salary increase were immune from suit since they functioned within their
professional discretion; however the court still commented on Hongs
First Amendment claim. The courts ruling states, it is far from clearly
established today, much less in 2004 when the university officers voted
on Hongs merit increase, that university professors have a First
Amendment right to comment on faculty administrative matters without
retaliation.31 The Hong ruling went further than either of the two
proceeding cases in clarifying how academic freedom has no
7
constitutional protection. This case additionally suggests any speech that

might occur in the workplace could be subject to administrative
sanctions.
The 2010 Kerr v. Hurd ruling has helped more sharply to define the
boundaries of First Amendment protection for faculty. Dr. Elton Kerr
was a medical doctor specializing in obstetrics and gynecology who filed
suit against his former department chair and physicians group at Wright
State (University) School of Medicine. Kerr alleged he had been
retaliated against by having his salary lowered and subjected to other
disciplinary actions based on his advocacy of forceps deliveries versus
caesarian procedures. The defendants asked for summary judgment and
the court ruled in their favor on eight of ten complaints Kerr brought.
However, the court did allow Kerrs complaint of violation of free
expression to proceed for a jury trial.32
The Kerr case is a departure from previous cases in that his advocacy
of forceps delivery directly pertains to his specific subject matter
expertise discussed in classroom and clinical settings. The court draws a
connection between academic freedom and First Amendment protection
where the expressed views are well within the range of accepted
medical opinion.33 The court further details academic freedom is
primarily the domain of university-level instruction. Unfortunately, there
is not a definitive outcome with respect to a jury trial, and since the case
was not appealed we do not have the benefit of appellate court review. A
13 April 2010 filing in the court of US Magistrate Judge Michael Merz
vacating the trial date suggests the parties agreed to a settlement, though
the specifics are not a matter of public record.34 Therefore, the Kerr case
does not demonstrate any specific First Amendment protection for
academic freedom, but merely shows one may legally be entitled to a jury
trial when considering freedom of speech in some instructional settings.
In 2009 the Southern District of Mississippi Federal District Court
ruled in the case of Nichols v. University of Southern Mississippi. Dr. Clint
Nichols was an untenured professor in the University of Southern
Mississippis School of Music when in November 2007 he and a student
spoke about homosexuality and New York Citys entertainment industry
following a class session. Nichols made several comments about
homosexuality that offended the student and, when the student
disclosed he was homosexual, Nichols stated he would pray for him. A
short time later Nichols was informed his contract with the university
would not be renewed at the semesters end because his comments to
the student were in violation of the universitys nondiscrimination
policy.35
Nichols filed suit against the university charging violation of First
Amendment protection among several other claims; however, for the
8
purpose of our analysis his freedom of speech complaint principally is

relevant. The defendants requested and were granted summary dismissal
in addition to the court concluding the defendants were immune from
any further suit in the matter since they operated within the capacity of
their professional discretion, and since it was within the universitys right
not to renew Nichols contract. With respect to Nichols claim he was
retaliated against based on abridging his First Amendment rights, the
court concluded Nichols had not shown his comments outweighed the
universitys interests in promoting efficiency. The court considered
whether his speech had the potential to affect regular and successful
operation of the enterprise, affects morale and discipline, fosters
disharmony, impedes the performance of the employees duties, or
detrimentally [affects] working relationships that depend on loyalty and
confidence.36 Nichols was found to have interfered with normal
operations by violating the universitys nondiscrimination policy in a
manner that undermined his relations with students and potentially with
other faculty.37 The Nichols ruling is consistent with the previous Hong
ruling. Faculty speech, including informal conversations outside the
classroom, cannot enjoy constitutional protection.
The case of Savage v. Gee involves a university librarian rather than a
faculty member, but still pertains directly to academic freedom.38 Scott
Savage was a librarian at The Ohio State Universitys Bromfield Library
who served on an incoming-freshmen-book-selection committee. His
suggestion of a book developed into a highly contentious email
discussion with other committee members with two members
complaining Savage demonstrated anti-gay bias. Over a little more than a
year this discussion escalated to claims of political bias, sexual-
orientation harassment, and free-speech infringement. Ultimately, Savage
resigned his position and filed a series of lawsuits in both state and
federal court.
In 2008, Savage filed suit in US District Court for the Southern
District of Ohio on the grounds he was constructively discharged for
exercising his First Amendment rights.39 Concluding Garcetti does not
apply, the district court judge reasoned Savages voluntary role in
recommending books for a book list cannot be classified as scholarship
or teaching in the Garcetti sense.40 In affirming, the Sixth Circuit Court
of Appeals rejected the librarians claim his speech was protected
because, in the opinion of the court, curricular issues are not a matter of
public concern.41 Therefore, his role in the book selection committee
only loosely, if at all, related to academic scholarship.42 At first glance,
the Savage case appears inconsistent with the Kerr decision (regarding
forceps delivery), which protects speech pertaining to accepted curricular
content. However, a careful reading distinguishes service activities, such
as membership on a book selection committee, from scholarship. While
9
this case does not directly address scholarship, it makes clear university
community members service activities are not protected.
In October 2011, the US District Court for Louisiana ruled on the
case of van Heerden v. Louisiana State University (LSU). Ivor van Heerden
was an associate professor of research who also served on the state
Department of Transportations Team Louisiana, a group of scientists
charged with researching the cause behind flooding in New Orleans
following Hurricane Katrina. As a research associate professor, van
Heerden was not tenured but employed on the basis of a renewable,
one-year contract.43
van Heerden made a number of public statements and published a
book about post-Katrina flooding suggesting the US Army Corps of
Engineers failed properly to design or maintain the levees, and
consequently were to blame for the massive flooding. On a number of
occasions LSU administrators ordered van Heerden to refrain from
making public statements or testifying about his conclusions. In April
2009 he was informed his contract with LSU would not be renewed. In
February 2010 van Heerden filed suit against LSU and several
administrators alleging his contract was not renewed as retaliation for
protected speech, as well as charges of conspiracy and infliction of
emotional distress.44
The court summarily dismissed nearly all claims van Heerden
brought with the prominent exception of his claim he was retaliated
against because of protected speech. Judge James Brady allowed van
Heerdens claim he was unfairly dismissed to continue. Brady concluded,
though admitting it was a close question, van Heerdens speech was not
in his official job capacity as an LSU employee because at the time he
communicated within his role as member and spokesperson for Team
Louisiana. In his decision Brady also shared Justice Souters concern
that wholesale application of the Garcetti analysis to the type of facts
presented here could lead to a whittling-away of academics ability to
delve into issues or expressions that are unpopular, uncomfortable or
unorthodox.45 From a scholarly perspective, Judge Bradys ruling allows
van Heerden to proceed toward trial regarding his claim of protected
speech.
Another pending case is Adams v. The University North Carolina at
Wilmington. Michael Adams is a tenured associate professor in the
Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice. In 2004, Adams applied
for promotion to full professor. After some deliberation his
departments senior faculty voted 72 against his application. The
facultys recommendation centered on the fact most of Adams writings
were not published in peer-reviewed journals and were unrelated to his
academic discipline. The department chair, Dr. Kimberly Cook,
0
concurred with the facultys recommendation, declining to recommend

Adams for promotion at which point the promotion process ended as
the department chairs support was a prerequisite for Adams
applications advancement.
In April 2007, Adams filed suit in the US District Court for the
Eastern District of North Carolina alleging his First Amendment rights
were violated because university administrators retaliated against him
due to his religion. Adams refers to himself as a born-again Christian
and many of his writings were critical of university administrators. The
district court granted the defendants summary judgment in March
2010.46 Adams filed an appeal heard by the US Court of Appeals. In
their April 2011 ruling the appellate court upheld some parts of the
lower courts ruling, but reversed others. Most significantly, the appellate
court found the trial court had misanalysed Garcetti within the context of
a public universitys academic setting. The appellate court remanded
Adams First Amendment viewpoint discrimination and retaliation
claims back to the US District Court where the case is pending.47
Possibly the highest-profile free speech case is that of Dr. Ward
Churchill, a tenured professor of ethnic studies, at the University of
Colorado in Boulder. The day after the 11 September 2001 attacks
Churchill wrote an essay entitled, Some People Push Back: On the Justice of
Roosting Chickens, in which he states the attacks on the US were a natural
consequence of US foreign policy, referring to many victims of the
World Trade Center attacks as little Eichmanns, analogous to Nazi
war criminals. The essay received little notice until 2005, when a student
newspaper article attracted widespread public attention to Churchills
essay.48
In February 2005, university Chancellor Phillip DiStefano
announced his office would conduct a thorough examination of
Professor Churchills writings, speeches, tape recordings and other
works49 to determine if his conduct provided sufficient grounds for
dismissal. The investigation took a very different course when the faculty
review committee uncovered evidence of research misconduct including
four instances of falsifying evidence or misrepresenting facts, and three
instances of plagiarism. The Chancellor then requested a standing
committee on research misconduct carefully to investigate allegations
identified by the faculty review committee. Their final report to the
president found Churchill had demonstrated conduct which falls below
minimum standards of professional integrity.50 The committees
recommendation was mixed: two recommended dismissal and three
recommended suspension without pay and reduction in rank to associate
professor. The president accepted the recommendation Churchill be
1
dismissed, and following another hearing the Regents dismissed the

professor by a vote of 81.51
Churchill filed suit claiming he was retaliated against because he
exercised free speech. A jury trial verdict found his termination was
substantially motivated by First Amendment protected speech; however,
the jury also concluded he was legitimately terminated due to research
misconduct.52 In 2010 the case was reviewed by the Colorado Court of
Appeals which affirmed the lower court ruling in toto.53 In subsequent
review the Colorado Supreme Court affirmed the lower court holding on
10 September 2012.54 The states highest court reasoned that although
the universitys bad faith investigation into the professors academic
record indeed could chill the exercise of free speech, defendants are
nevertheless entitled to qualified immunity since the federal case law in
this area is too unsettled to defeat the Regents claim of qualified
immunity.55 On that basis the court held the trial court did not err in
granting the Regents motion for a directed verdict on Churchills bad-
faith investigation claim.56 After failing to prevail in the Colorado state
courts, Churchill petitioned the US Supreme Court for further review.
However, on 1 April 2013 his petition for certiorari was denied.57
Implications
Viewed through its judicial progeny, one unfortunate implication of
the Garcetti ruling is courts have begun limiting constitutionally derived
freedom of expression protections for public employees in post-
secondary, academic settings. This assertion appears particularly to be
accurate when one parses the two prongs of Justice Kennedys
reservation in the Garcetti majority opinioni.e., speech related to
scholarship or teaching.
Our analysis of post-Garcetti cases supports the notion courts are
beginning to give greater credence to the scholarship or research side of
the equation, and less to the teaching or instructional side. This move is
premised most noticeably by the courts research-supportive rationale
expressed in van Heerden. Though Adams, like van Heerden, awaits final
disposition, the appellate courts recognition of the plaintiffs viewpoint
discrimination and retaliation claims solidly is grounded in the
professors scholarly productivity: this despite the court having
construed the case as falling beyond the strictures of Garcettis
reservation. Finally, although the Kerr result appears at first glance to
center on instruction, it nevertheless is reasonable to bridge the
plaintiffs informed medical opinion (i.e., favoring forceps delivery over
caesarian birth) to his scholarly endeavors.
In contrast, the remaining post-Garcetti cases reviewed herein center
to a much greater extent on the teaching or instructional prong of the
Garcetti reservation. From this perspective, the likelihood of a
2
favorable outcome premised on a plaintiffs claims of academic freedom

becomes decidedly more remote. For example, despite Professor
Renkens procurement of external research funding, in his case the
appellate court characterized grant work as part of teaching duties
without affording any significant research-based, academic freedom
protection. Despite Professor Nichols reliance on the First Amendment
as a basis for protecting the after-class comments made to a student in
which he conveyed his views on homosexuality, the court sided with the
institutional defendant. The courts in Hong, Gorum and Savage largely
failed to recognize any viable connection to either teaching or
scholarship; however, given the circumstances in all three cases, the
closest link to the Garcetti reservation, if any, qualifies more as
instructional than scholarly. Finally, although the Churchill case remains
unresolved as of this writing, it is worth noting that, in its present
configuration, the case is now represented far more strongly in terms of
Churchills research misconduct than as a reflection of his academic
freedom deprivation.
In addition to speaking openly on matters of public interest, rulings
following the Garcetti decision may limit the ability of government
employees to draw attention to wrongdoing, waste, or corruption.
Unless otherwise protected with statutory whistleblower status, an
employee who communicates information about wrongdoing to his or
her superior has less constitutional protection than if the assertion
publically is disseminated. Justice Stevens foresaw this phenomenon in
his Garcetti dissent when stating he found it perverse that the majority
ruling encouraged employees to take their concerns to a public forum
rather than expressing them directly to their supervisors.58
Taken as a whole, the cases examined here do not offer clear
judicial guidance on the boundaries of academic freedom. The one case
that most clearly illustrates the boundaries of academic freedom is
Nichols v. University of Southern Mississippi. Even this case, however, offers a
limited understanding of how far an institution can go to limit academic
freedom in that Nichols was a non-tenure-track instructor whose
university employment status was absent the procedural protections
tenure affords. The Kerr case likely would provide the clearest example
of academic freedom protection limits; however, the case appears to
have been settled and its final disposition remains not a matter of public
record.
At this time a definitive case with a definitive outcome is still
lacking. Because academic freedom is oftentimes tied to tenure, what is
needed is a case in which a tenured professor challenges dismissal on the
basis of instructional or scholarly speech. Several possible scenarios have
been suggested and several examples bring this question forward. Arthur
3
Butz is an associate professor of electrical engineering at Northwestern

University, becoming prominent for his denial of the Holocaust. While
he has published on the topic, he has never mentioned his opinions in
the classroom and neither does his field of study have direct relevance.
The case of Kaubak Siddique, associate professor of English and
journalism at Lincoln University, is another example. Siddique is also a
Holocaust denier and has spoken publically on the topic. In the case of
Siddique, his areas of expertise, English and journalism, both relate
directly to large bodies of literature and scholarship that provide
evidence of the Holocaust and as a result raise the question that if he
claims to be an expert in these areas his denials of such literature
implicate his professional competence.59
An additional misfortune is that available cases (even potential cases
such as Butz and Siddiques) cannot effectively be used by professional
organizations to illustrate the importance of academic freedom.
Churchill, for example, is a far-from-sympathetic poster child who can
hardly be used to convince legislators and the general public academic
freedom is in higher educations and societys best interests. Regardless
of the eventual outcome of Churchill, it will be difficult to persuade
listeners a professor who commits academic misconduct, or makes
offensive remarks about homosexuals, or performs below accepted
levels for their rank is deserving of protection. Conversely, both van
Heerden and Adams hold promise as a basis for reinforcing the public
good associated with scholarship and research.
An important commonality across all these speech cases is they do
not originate out of external threats to institutions, as in the case of
loyalty oaths during the Cold-War period, but rather out of internal
disputes between faculty and administrators. Courts historically have
been hesitant to overrule internal university decisions based on the
assumption administrators are presumed to be competent individuals in
a specialized setting exercising professional judgment, unless otherwise
demonstrated.60 The selected cases examined herein reveal disputes
between faculty and administrators heavily weighted in favor of
institutions and their respective administrators. As a whole these speech
cases show academic freedom increasingly is perceived by courts as
attached to institutions rather than individuals. While each of these cases
are highly contextual, sometimes complicated and often emotionally
charged, it seems courts are generally unsympathetic to faculty claims
based on First Amendment protection. There are additional implications
as faculty ranks incorporate larger numbers of non-tenure-track and
part-time faculty. Such individuals generally have short-term
appointments or contracts that span a single year, semester, or even a
single course.
4
Not surprisingly, our review of these cases reveals further ambiguity

on the boundaries of faculty expression. Several cases directly address
expression in the classroom; however, the boundaries remain unclear
with regard to protection for faculty speech related and necessary to
ones duties, but occurring in other contexts. For example, is faculty
advisement of students protected? Likewise are faculty protected for
mentoring advice, comments made in university committees, faculty
search committees, promotion and tenure recommendations, or
expressing disagreement about an administrative decision? The courts
rationale in Hong v. Grant suggests limitations may exist. Put another way,
an institution which chooses to define protected speech in the narrowest
terms possesses a blunt weapon with which to challenge the content
of a professors expression.61
More broadly, there are further post-Garcetti implications for
university faculty. At risk of sounding cynical, those who are not
government employees and may be less informed on a subject appear to
have greater freedom to comment on issues of public concern than
highly respected, highly educated researchers and faculty members. An
unintended consequence becomes the nature of public discourse on
matters of common interest gets dumbed-down because those
perhaps most qualified to offer insights on such matters cannot do so
without fear of retaliation. If a public employees specific job relates to
addressing issues of public concern, such as university facultys, they
have less speech protection than non-governmental employees.
In all fairness to the principles of academic freedom, one must
concede some degree of oversight is necessary to protect the institution,
the profession, and society in general. A professor should not use
classroom time to advocate on subjects that have no pertinence to the
curriculum. Furthermore, academic freedom does not serve anyones
interest when used as a shield to protect incompetence and unethical or
harmful behavior. If institutions want to foster an environment where
faculty will be able freely to express their concerns on academic matters
and internal policies, they will need to establish clear protections
including defining undesirable speech, the context in which it might
occur, and what the consequences will be. For example, it is common
practice for religious institutions to specify the boundaries of academic
freedom with respect to matters of faith, and the AAUP statement on
academic freedom suggests any such limitations should be stated in
writing at the time of the appointment.62 Faculty at public universities
serve the dual role of professors and government employees. Public
institutions would be wise to consider delineating the boundaries of
academic freedom with respect to their facultys roles as government
employees. Such policies need explicitly to state that even discourse such
5
as internal criticism remains protected so long as ones speech does not

represent a threat to public safety, interfere with the legitimate
operations of the institution, or violate confidentiality laws. 63
Endnotes
1 Keyishian v. Board of Regents, 385 US 589, 603 (1967).

2 James Swezey and Christopher Ross, Faculty Perceptions of
Academic Freedom at a Private Religious University, ICCTE Journal
6, no. 1 (2011): 16.
3 Swezey and Ross.
4 In Sweezy v. New Hampshire, 354 US 234 (1957), Justice Felix
Frankfurter defined academic freedom as an institutions right to
decide who will attend, who will teach, and the subjects to be taught
and how they will be taught. The Sweezy ruling is noteworthy in that it
attached academic freedom to the institution rather than individual
faculty. The AAUP guidelines found in the 1940 Statement of Principles
on Academic Freedom and Tenure with 1970 Interpretive Comments attached
academic freedom to faculty, going beyond the definition found in
Sweezy and additionally stating when faculty speak or write as citizens,
they should be free from institutional censorship or discipline, 3.
5 Clifton Conrad, The Undergraduate Curriculum: A Guide to Innovation and
Reform (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1978), 178.
6 Eugene Provenzo, The Social Reader: A Critical History (New York:
Peter Lang, 2011).
7 Fred Hartmeister, Academic Freedom Jurisprudence and the Post-
Garcetti Community College Campus, (paper presented at the 14th
Annual Texas Association of Community College Attorneys
Conference, Austin, TX, January 2012).
8 Claire Bond Potter, Doing Recent History (Athens, GA: University of
Georgia Press, 2012).
9 Stephen Aby and Dave Witt, Negotiating Academic Freedom: A
Cautionary Tale, AAUP Journal of Academic Freedom 3 (2012) [online
content]. Retrieved from http://www.academicfreedomjournal.org/
VolumeThree/Aby.pdf
10 Robert Roberts, The Deconstitutionalization of Academic Freedom
after Garcetti v. Ceballos? Review of Public Personnel Administration 32
(2012): 4561.
11 John Murray, Academic Freedom and Governance: An Analysis of
Garcetti v. Ceballos and its Aftermath, Journal of Research in Education 20,
no. 1 (2010): 8197.
6
12 Richard Hofstadter and Walter Metzger, The Development of Academic

Freedom in the United States (New York: Columbia University Press,
1955).
13 Anthony Diekema, Academic Freedom and Christian Scholarship (Grand
Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000).
14 Conrad Russell, Academic Freedom (New York: Routledge, 1993);
George Marsden, The Soul of the American University (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1994).
15 Todd Ream and Perry Glanzer, Christian Faith and Scholarship: An
Exploration of Contemporary Developments, ASHE Higher
Education Report 33, no. 2 (2007): 1139.
16 Martha McCarthy and Suzanne Eckes, Silence in the Hallways: The
Impact of Garcetti v. Ceballos on Public School Educators, Public
Interest Law Journal 17, no. 2 (2008): 209235.
17 Garcetti v. Ceballos, 547 US 410 (2006).
18 Ceballos v. Garcetti, 361 F. 3d 1168, 117172 (9th Cir. 2004), reversed,
547 US 410 (2006), 1174.
19 Garcetti v. Ceballos.
20 Ibid., 418.
21 Ibid.
22 Ibid., 438.
23 Ibid., 425.
24 Robert J. Tepper and Craig G. White, Speak No Evil: Academic
Freedom and the Application of Garcetti v. Ceballos to University
Faculty, Catholic University Law Review 36 (2009): 125180.
25 Renken v. Gregory, 541 F. 3d 769 (7th Cir. 2008).
26 Gorum v. Sessoms, 561 F. 3d 179 (3rd Cir. 2009), 5.
27 Ibid.
28 Hong v. Grant, 516 F. Supp.2d 1158 (C.D. Cal 2007), 4.
29 Ibid., 4.
30 Ibid., 12.
31 Hong v. Grant, 403 Fed. Appx. (9th Cir. 2010), 237238.
32 Kerr v. Herd, 694 F. Supp. 2nd 817 (S.D. Ohio).
33 Ibid., 844.
34 Kerr v. Hurd, US District Court for the Southern District of Ohio,
Western Division at Dayton, Case No. 3:07-cv-297 (13 April 2010).
35 Nichols v. University of Southern Mississippi, 669 F. Supp. 2d 684 (S.D.
Mississippi, 2009).
7
36 Ibid., 699.
37 Ibid.
38 716 F. Supp. 2d 709 (S.D. Ohio 2010), affirmed 665 F. 3d 732 (6th Cir.
2012).
39 The term constructive discharge refers to when an employee
resigns because the employer or work environment has become
intolerable. To prove such a condition an employee must
demonstrate the employer intentionally created the conditions, or
their lack of actions resulted in the conditions as defined in Turner
v. Anheuser-Busch, Inc., 876 P. 2d 1022 (Cal: Supreme Court,
1994).
40 716 F. Supp. 2d at 718.
41 Savage v. Gee, 665 F. 3d 732 (6th Cir. 2012), 14.
42 Ibid.
43 van Heerden v. Louisiana State University, US District Court for the
Middle District of Louisiana (2011).
44 Ibid.
45 Ibid., 6.
46 Adams v. Trustees of The University of North Carolina at Wilmington, United
States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina
(2010).
47 Adams v. Trustees of The University of North Carolina at Wilmington, 640 F.
3d 550 (4th Cir. 2011).
48 Churchill v. University of Colorado at Boulder, Colorado Court of Appeals
(2010).
49 Ibid., 2.
50 Ibid., 3.
51 Ibid.
52 Ibid.
53 Ibid.
54 Churchill v. University of Colorado at Boulder, 285 P. 3d 986 (Colo. 2012).
55 Ibid., 77.
56 Ibid., 78.
57 Churchill v. University of Colorado at Boulder, ___ US ___, 2013 US
LEXIS 2688 (decided 1 April 2013).
58 Garcetti v. Ceballos, 547 US 410, 427 (2006) (J. Stevens dissenting).
8
59 Dan Berrett, Academic Freedom and Holocaust Denial, Inside Higher

Education, 26 October 2010 [online content]. Retrieved from
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/10/26/siddique
60 Lawrence White, Fifty Years of Academic Jurisprudence, Journal of
College and University Law 36, no. 3 (2008): 791842.
61 Larry Spurgeon, A Transcendent Value: The Quest to Safeguard
Academic Freedom, Journal of College and University Law 34, no. 1
(2007): 111149.
62 Association of American University Professors, 1940 Statement on
Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure, paragraph 7 [online content].
Retrieved from http://www.aaup.org/report/1940-statement-
principles-academic-freedom-and-tenure
63 Interfering with legitimate operations of the institution is admittedly a
definition open to debate and disagreement. Preventing students from
entering or leaving a building would, at the very least, interfere with
operations, not to mention pose a safety risk. However, would faculty
be protected in the case of passing a vote of no confidence on an
administrator for violations of due process and academic freedom?
Based on judicial trends since 2006 we suspect courts would not
extend First Amendment protection to such faculty.
1

vol. 63, no. 1, 2013, pp. 1934
The One-to-One Moment:

Digital-Age Tools and the Challenge of
Democratic Education in a Post-No
Child Left Behind Era
Basiyr D. Rodney, Webster University
Introduction
Cloud computing in which online applications and services are remotely

shared from the Internet with users has reshaped global
communications (Weinman, 2012; Winner, 1997). Cloud services such as
microblogging (Twitter), social networking (Facebook, Google+),
blogging (WordPress), video blogging and broadcasting (YouTube) have
caused massive sociopolitical disruptions. With these tools citizens have
toppled governments in the Middle East (Khondker, 2011; Skinner,
2011; Stepanova, 2011) and facilitated global protest movements such as
the Occupy movements in Europe and the US (Costanza-Chock, 2012;
Skinner, 2011). All over the world cloud-based tools provide a platform
for voicing disaffection with unpopular economic policy (Costanza-
Chock, 2012; Skinner, 2011; Weinman, 2012). This democratic
groundswell of the vox populi has implications for learning and education
as well, for cloud-based applications and storage that support the
democratic use of social media for protests also can fuel changes in how
learning is delivered and to whom.
The cloud is a communications and information system in which
individuals access managed online services such as document sharing,
electronic mail, microblogging, social networking, video blogging, and
video conferencing as well as many other services (NIST, 2010;
Weinman, 2012). It allows users to access, run, share, and store massive
amounts of information using internet resources. In brief, the cloud
consists of shared, on-demand, pay-per-use resources, accessible over a
wide-area network, available to a broad range of customers (p. 26).
The Problem
Classroom cloud computing necessarily challenges assumptions
about who will or should provide student access to learning
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20 B. D. Rodney
opportunities and knowledge stores in the 21st century; the notion of

learners sharing or trading their privacy in return for control over or
access to their creative products; and how schools and educational
institutions interface with the corporate world in order to give learners
access to powerful, creative learning tools. Despite these questions, the
cloud represents unparalleled access to a worldwide network in some
ways akin to a public utility (Reimer, 1971; Weinman, 2012). This
network is democratic in the sense Reimer (1971) describes, because, like
democratic public institutions, the cloud [O]ffer[s] a service, [satisfies] a
need, without conferring advantage over others or conveying [a] sense of
dependence (p. 108). The cloud has potential for delivering learning to
learners often underserved by the traditional education system. Many
distance-based or online programs are now designed for high-school-
credit recovery, high school remediation or completion, advanced
placement access, and other forms of schooling traditionally reserved for
the brick-and-mortar school (Patrick & Powell, 2009; Sturgis, Rath,
Weisstein, &, Patrick, 2010; Watson, Winograd, & Kalmon, 2004;
Watson, Gemin, & Ryan, 2008).
Why then do we see such limited use of the cloud in democratic
ways? Since there now exist tools and platforms for envisioning a far
more democratic approach to education, what has prevented its wider
diffusion? Despite the fact the cloud opens spaces of learning both in
and outside schools, radical changes in how academic materials are
disseminated remain elusive. A more democratic approach that
recognizes an individuals ability to learn using more open resources
coupled with their own devices remains a realization of only the few.
The National Educational Technology Plan (NETP) describes how
convergence in telecommunication that gave us the cloud has dual
applications in education. The authors recognize Cloud computing...can
support both the academic and administrative services required for
learning and education (US DOE, 2010).
Theoretical Framework
In 1971 Ivan Illich theorized about a learning revolution defined by
democratic learning networks or educational opportunity webs
(Illich, 1971; Reimer, 1971). Illich sees this deschooling concept as the
single most appropriate framework for delivering mass public education.
He argues that in a more democratic world there needs to be new
networks, readily available to the public and designed to spread equal
opportunity for learning and teaching (p. 55). Illich advocates an
educational revolution would come from a twofold inversion, a new
orientation for research and a new understanding of the educational style
of an emerging counterculture (p. 50). In Illichs mind this educational
revolution would be predicated on four goals or liberties:
3
The One-to-One Moment 21
1. Liberation of access to things by abolishing the control

which persons and institutions now exercise over mass or
public educational values.
2. Liberation of the sharing of skills by guaranteeing freedom
to teach or exercise them on request.
3. Liberation of the critical and creative resources of people by
returning to individual persons the ability to call and hold
meetingsan ability now increasingly monopolized by
institutions which claim to speak for the people.
4. Liberation from the obligation to shape individual
expectations to the services offered by any established
professionby providing an individual with the opportunity to
draw on the experience of his peers and to entrust himself to
the teacher, guide, adviser, or healer of his choice. (p. 73)
Illich argues further that, in the 1970s, this revolution was made
possible by the technologies of the time. He suggests individuals co-
create and contribute to a repository or database of audio and/or text
recordings. This repository would be comprised of lessons or resources
on any subject that could be communally stored. Average citizens could
access and co-create these repositories in the form of lending spaces.
They would check out materials about which they wanted to learn, and
return materials once finished. These repositories would be located
across a town or cityin effect throughout a country. Thus, these
would be an informal, co-created network of information repositories
individuals would use to access and share learning resources. These tools
would form the basis of learning webs for the distribution of knowledge
and skills throughout a society. At the root of this model is the fact that
an educational network or web for the autonomous assembly of
resources under the personal control of each learner (p. 50) would be
widely available.
In the current, digital age Illichs vision is largely actualized.
Theoretically the learning web Illich posited now exists in the form of
social networks and web 2.0 digital-age technologies that define the
cloud. Learners now have the added ability to co-create, store, and share
different types of multimedia learning objects. In this regard, the
modern web provides a direct platform for envisioning the liberating
principles Illich deems necessary to the democratic educational
revolution.
This connection of the learner directly to her learning resource
represents truly a one-to-one moment. Beyond offering access to
computers or computing devices to learners, the one-to-one moment
links learners to the highly-democratic, non-hierarchical cloud. With the
access a learner has, she can create, publish, and share information either
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22 B. D. Rodney
alone or with peers. Her connection to the cloud makes her both a
learner and a teacher concomitantly. In effect, she has the access, ability
to share, collaborative resources, and freedom to be guided by mentors
and teachers of her own choosing.
This one-to-one moment means an individual student can be paired
with an individual teachera kind of intellectual sweet spot that
offers possibility for individuals to learn in adaptive, flexible, and
meaningful ways. In Illichs frame there are four different approaches
which enable the student to gain access to any educational resource
which may help him to define and achieve his own goals (p. 56).
Despite its length, Illichs prescience makes relevant I quote in detail.
1. Reference Services to Educational Objects which facilitate
access to things or processes used for formal learning. Some of
these things can be reserved for this purpose, stored in
libraries, rental agencies, laboratories, and showrooms like
museums and theaters; others can be in daily use in factories,
airports, or on farms, but made available to students as
apprentices or on off hours.
2. Skill Exchanges which permit persons to list their skills, the
conditions under which they are willing to serve as models for
others who want to learn these skills, and the addresses at
which they can be reached.
3. Peer-Matching, a communications network which permits
persons to describe the learning activity in which they wish to
engage, in the hope of finding a partner for the inquiry.
4. Reference Services to Educators-at-Large, listed in a
directory giving addresses and self-descriptions of
professionals, paraprofessionals and freelancers, along with
conditions of access to their services. Such educators, as one
will see, could be chosen by polling or consulting former
clients. (p. 56)
Discussion
At the root of the problem of limited democratic learning in the
cloud are multiple societal developments: one an ongoing undercurrent
which seeks to sustain the industrial age conception of the school as the
sole or primary provider of academic learning opportunities (Dede,
2010, 2011). A corollary to this is a prevailing paradigm that maintains
the centrality of the teacher as the main or essential fund of academic
knowledge in the classroom (Mitra, 2005; NETP, 2010; Prensky, 2007).
Yet technology has reshaped both these constructs (Mitra, 2005;
Prensky, 2007). Technology today cannot be seen just as tools,
technology is a societal shift in the ways in which we live, work, and
5
interact in society (Winner, 1997). In this sense learning is also being

reshaped. Families now have an ability, for example, to choose academic
educational experiences outside school.
Educational or learning services can now take the shape of formal
experiences in distance based, online, or virtual schools, or Massive
Open Online Courses (MOOCs). Some 1.5 million American, school-
age children are homeschooled through either exclusively virtual means,
blended programs, or completely unstructured experiences (Bielick,
2008; ed.gov, 2010b). Indeed the number of exclusively homeschooled
children in the US is growing. This group has grown from 1.1 million in
2003, representing 2% of school-age children, to 2.9% in the year 2007
(ed.gov, 2010b). In the emerging century, learners are able to access
learning and design their own learning programs via online knowledge
bases such as Khan Academy along with a plethora of other online
applications. Learners are therefore increasingly accessing academic
learning experiences outside the school, leading to recent calls for a
flipping of the traditional school classroom in which learners access
some academic learning at home and other, more robust services in
school (Bergmann & Sams, 2012, 2012b; Prensky 2007; Tucker, 2012).
A second challenge is schools tend to deploy cloud services in order
to support accountability- and market-driven paradigms (Warschauer,
2005/2006; Weinman, 2012). Since the cloud is both a concept and a
technical infrastructure (NIST, 2010; Weinman, 2012), there exists a
propensity to view its value in line with cost savings (Weinman, 2012)
and with the need for learners to be prepared for jobs in the neoliberal
market economy (NETP, 2010). In their comprehensive definition, the
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), posit primarily
about the technical infrastructure and consumer orientation of the
cloud. There is little mention of the value of the cloud to a democratic
society. The institute defines the cloud thus:
Cloud computing is a model for enabling ubiquitous,
convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of
configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers,
storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly
provisioned and released with minimal management effort or
service provider interaction. (NIST, 2010)
This definition accentuates the fact that the cloud allows users to access
online services using various devices and regardless of location. A
service provider can thus offer more connections, more services, and
more utility to a user based on that individual users individual demands.
This definition, however, does not uphold the value of the cloud as an
infrastructure for a learning web.
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24 B. D. Rodney
In the National Educational Technology Plan (NETP) there is a

more social and educational view of the cloud. The plan recognizes the
cloud has importance in learning both inside and outside the school. The
NETP definition recognizes the cloud as a structure that:
[C]an enable students and educators to access the same learning
resources using different Internet devices, so that they can
learn anytime and anywhere. Thus, it supports our assertion
that it is now time for our education system to become part of
a learning environment that includes in-school and out-of-
school resources. (US DOE, 2010, p. 58)
Weinman (2012) describes the defining characteristics of the cloud
in an acronym: Common infrastructure, Location independence, Online
accessibility, Utility pricing, on Demand resources. In this configuration,
learners can access cloud services using applications on mobile phones,
desktop computers, laptop computers, and tablet computers. Cloud
services can be accessed in vehicles and even on home appliances
(NIST, 2010; Weinman, 2012). With these publicly available services,
some of which are free or pay-on-demand, learners can connect with
classes, teachers, and diverse multimedia resources.
The National Educational Technology Plan and US Education
Policy Post-NCLB
The US educational establishment as read through policy
documents and actions is in a state of flux regarding the cloud and its
learning potential. The 2010 NETP positions the cloud and its mass-
diffusion of knowledge potential as the main aspiration for US
education. Entitled Transforming American Education: Learning
Powered by Technology, the plan envisions a process that would
create an engaging state-of-the-art, cradle-to-college school system
nationwide (ed.gov, 2010b).
The NETP represents a key policy document the US Department
of Education has developed since the failure of Congress to reauthorize
The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (2001) often called No
Child Left Behind. In fact, this is one of the most far-reaching documents
that offers insight into the post-NCLB era of US education (Dede, 2010;
NETP 2010). The plan focuses on five areasLearning, Assessment,
Teaching, Infrastructure, and Productivityand, along with the funding
competitions Race to the Top and the Investing in Innovation Fund (i3),
represents the current direction and the future of US education. With
more than half of US states (28) awarded waivers, and with 11 waivers
pending, NCLB is essentially fading into the past (Khadaroo, 2012;
Toulson, 2012). Compounded by the continuous failure of Congress to
reauthorize NCLB, the Obama administrations program subsumed
within the NETP represents standing educational policy. In fact
7
Secretary Duncan outlined at the unveiling of the Act that all other
funding streams and grants will hinge upon infusion of technology. In
video remarks he explains, we want to see technology integrated in
everything we are doing (ed.gov, 2010a). The plans goal is twofold:
Raise the proportion of college graduates from around
41% to 60% by 2020
Close the achievement gap so all students graduate from
high school ready to succeed in college and careers
Yet, embedded in the NETP and in other policy documents is the
continued commitment to career readiness (NETP, 2010). The
standardization of curriculum evident in the adoption of Common Core
standards represents a source of tension in a democratic approach to
technological or cloud-driven education (Dede, 2011). Some authors
even suggest the NETP is just a menu from which states and districts
may select different approaches to cloud-driven technology infusion in
schools (Dede, 2010, 2011). In the sense the NETP envisions a learning
future with technology, it is in fact coalescing largely around existing
approaches and applications of the cloud, but the NETP needs to go
farther toward deepening democratic processes and forcing fundamental
questions about transforming education using technology.
The context of one-to-one computing in which a student is linked
to the cloud via their own computing device (Argueta, Huff, Tingen, &
Corn, 2011) is in fact precursory to the full actualization of a vision to
de-school society or democratize education (Dede, 2010, 2011; Wheeler,
2009, 2010). This environment of ubiquitous computing in which
learners are connected to networked learning repositories both inside
and outside schools speaks to emergent possibilities for placing the
delivery of knowledge and its acquisition squarely in the hands of the
learner (Dede, 2010, 2011; Illich, 1971; NETP, 2010; Reimer, 1971).
Despite the fact these questions are fundamental to the adoption of
any new technology, a prevailing sense of determinism that follows such
technologies summarily renders key questions unimportant (Winner,
1997). Yet cloud computing is being deployed in many k12 schools
(Warschauer, 2005/2006). By spawning 1:1 and Bring Your Own Device
(BYOD) programs (Miller, Voaz, & Hurlburt, 2012; Raths, 2013)
schools are acknowledging the power of the cloud to support at least
supplemental delivery of educational services.
The continued deployment of one-to-one computing programs in
schools foreshadows the utility of the clouds learning potential.
National educational technology policy documents allude to this in 2010
when policy authors argue students can learn anytime and anywhere
(US DOE, 2010, p. 58), further positing it is now time for our
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26 B. D. Rodney
education system to become part of a learning environment that includes

in-school and out-of-school resources (US DOE, 2010).
In order to facilitate anywhere and anytime learning, school
districts have initiated one-to-one laptop programs as well as Bring-
Your-Own-Device (BYOD) programs. In 2002 the State of Maine
initiated a statewide 1:1 computing program for its middle schools
(Johnstone, 2003; Maine, n.d.; Warschauer, 2005/2006). This program
has since been expanded to include 55% of high-school students for a
total of more than 50,000 students (maine.gov, n.d.). Across the US the
ratio of computers to learners in classrooms steadily has improved. The
ratio of students to instructional computers with internet access in all US
public schools has trended down from 6.6:1 in the year 2000, 3.8:1 in
2005, and 3.1:1 in 2008 (US DOE, 2010).
The piecemeal adoption of mobile device and 1:1 initiatives are apt
to continue. Early research into one-to-one computing projects suggests
student success is enhanced more by a student-centered or democratic
approach than through a curriculum or accountability focus (Argueta,
2012; Johnstone, 2003). Johnstone describes research on k12 students
with computers and cloud access, saying, Kids with their own portable
computers...do more and better writing, more and better projects, more
and better presentations, more collaborative work (at school), and more
independent learning [at home] (Johnstone, 2003, p. 2).
Making Public Education More Democratic through Technology
Todays cloud makes prescient the ideas of Reimer and Illich a
generation ago. The cloud has facilitated a more-widely distributed and
conveniently accessible learning web. In the current educational
revolution, one sees as widely available the emergence of an educational
network or web for the autonomous assembly of resources under the
personal control of each learner (Illich, 1971, p. 50).
In order for learning webs to be effective, however, both Illich and
Reimer argue liberation of access, skills, resources, and the abilities to
meet (collaborate) and self-select teachers are critical (Illich, 1971;
Reimer, 1971). Accessing the cloud gives individual learners all such
liberties or affordances. This means that providing learners with devices
that allow for production, storage, and access to these repositories is
essential to the democratization of learning. One-to-one programs link
students with devices that allow them to use computers, smartphones,
laptops, tablets, or other computing devices to connect with learning
repositories.
The democratizing element or affordance of the cloud for academic
learning in higher education was captured in the EduPunk movement of
the mid-1990s. A group of university professors became disappointed
9
with the commercialization of learning and the institutionalized values of

teaching as well as online credentialing (Kamenetz, 2011). They argued
for a reaction against commercialization, the elevation of a do-it-yourself
attitude to learning and the substantiation of a think-for-yourself culture
(DeSantis, 2012). Jim Groom, the EduPunk constructs main author,
who publishes a blog of the same name, articulates course management
and other tools restrict the webs real learning potential (DeSantis, 2012).
For EduPunk thinkers, modern, technology-based, learning tools are of
most value in the hands of individual learners rather than institutions.
Many learning repositories concomitant with Illichs theory already
exist via the cloud. He points out deschoolings four goals or liberties are
exercised every day on video broadcasting sites such as YouTube, a
popular video-sharing site on which individuals publish activities,
knowledges, skills, and capabilities to the entire world. In fact, YouTube
reports 72 hours of video are uploaded to the site each minute
(YouTube, 2012). YouTube press statistics reveal a highly diffused
viewer constituency and publishers of its content on the site, reporting
over 800 million unique users visit the site each month, with 60
languages represented and localized in 43 countries. There is no doubt
this cloud-based resource has high utility for learning. Khan Academy is
one well-known example of an internationally accessible learning
repository that delivers learning content to any learner. Khan Academy
is a video repository of over 3,800 video lessons accessible to anyone
with internet access (Khan, 2012).
Novel Visions and Possibilities for Democratizing Learning with
the Cloud
Credentialing and Learner V alidation
This vision of a more democratic education system spawned by
cloud-based technologies has been thwarted by a number of non-
technical developments (Dede, 2010, 2011; NETP 2010). One could
pose the question, why should schools and districts continue to
maintain control of who may access learning webs? In order for the
cloud more directly to foster opportunities for academic learning,
credentialing, or validation must become more democratic (Dede, 2011;
Kolowich, 2013), yet currently the assumption is academic learning,
academic credentialing, and verification of academic capacity are
government or state enterprises (NETP, 2010). For a fundamental k20
shift that facilitates life-wide learning to emerge, credentialing and
control of the infrastructure and credential process must change (Dede,
2010, 2011).
Schooling for A ccountability and Economy
Ongoing dialogue targeted towards infusing 21st-century skills in the
curriculum coupled with the rise of one-to-one programs is suggestive
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28 B. D. Rodney
of a watershed moment in US education. With the reauthorization of the

No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 stalled in Congress, state initiatives such
as adoption of Common Core standards gain momentum. Moreover, the
granting of NCLB waivers as funding for certain key career and work
initiatives remains a central plank of the US prevailing educational
program (ed.gov, 2010b). While raising a labor force for the global
market economy may not make the most highly compelling case for
educational reform (Dede, 2010; NETP, 2010), former supporters of
NCLBs goals and strategies, such as Dianne Ravitch (2010), echo the
sentiments of many NCLB critics that empirical evidence shows clearly
that choice, competition, and accountability as education reform levers
are not working (n.p.). The adoption of Common Core standards calls
for a greater focus on those skills that rely upon cloud use. Skills such as
communication, collaboration, and critical thinking are embedded in the
Common Core where there is greater focus on inquiry, problem solving,
and project development (Bender, 2012).
Corporate Control, Information Sharing, and Privacy
In order for cloud-based learnings democratic potential to be
realized, corporate control over access to cloud-based storage and
applications needs to be fleshed out. Now the norm, in order to gain
access to cloud applications and storage services, corporate gatekeepers
require limited access to personal and typically private user data
(Beresford, Rice, Skehin, & Sohan, 2011). These include but are not
limited to contents of email being read, usernames, online search results,
as well as browsing habits and personal travel data, all coupled with a
corporations ability to promote customized, targeted advertising toward
individual users (Beresford et al., 2011). To be sure, when cloud services
are packaged for schools through special corporate programs advertising
ostensibly is removed, yet all other capabilities for corporations to track
user data and learn from user habits technically are retained.
Furthermore, the arrangement of trading personal information and
submission to solicitations for access to cloud services via online
advertising places learners at risk. Companies such as Box, Drive,
DropBox, and Google provide unpaid access to cloud platforms. In
exchange users must accept agreements to post to a users social
network profile or either place or track certain information on the users
computer.
Reimer (1971) makes a clear distinction between libraries and other,
corporation-controlled, for-profit repositories. While libraries are
restricted by intellectual-property-rights law, learning repositories freely
would be available to the public, a problem that could be offset with
open-educational resources. The Open Educational Resources (OERs)
1
movement is a further attempt to provide open-cloud access and create

flexible, universally available learning systems. Cloud computing plays a
central role in this process. The creation of OERs as a construct for
democratizing learning using technology originated in the 2012 Paris
OER Declaration adopted at the World Open Educational Resources
Congress, an offshoot of a 2012 UNESCO (UNESCO, 2012)
educational conference, positing an initial OER definition: a
technology-enabled, open provision of educational resources for
consultation, use, and adaptation by a community of users for non-
commercial purposes.
A second, emergent solution to high levels of corporate control is
the rise of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), novel types of
distance-based courses that are either fully open, offered to paying
students for credit, or offered at no cost to the general, world-wide-web
community without course credit. Since the first MOOC was taught in
Canada in 2008 to a little over 2,300 students, beginning in 2011 courses
offered at Stanford University have had enrollments of over 100,000
(Prez-Pea, 2012). MOOCs attract tens of thousands of students, most
of whom are neither admitted to nor enrolled at the MOOC-offering
college or university. Students benefit by learning course content,
participating in the open-learning forum, as well as having access to the
expertise of the instructor or the institutions reputation (Prez-Pea,
2012). Many MOOCs originate in highly prestigious, traditional
universities such as MIT and Stanford (Kolowich, 2013; Parr, 2013).
However open-access learning repositories such as Coursera, P2PU,
Udacity, and Udemy now offer open-access, online courses (Rahmat,
2012; Yeung, 2013).
A Student Rights Bill
A significant aspect of open-access, democratic learning
environments is the privacy of the learner and the privacy and
intellectual property rights of learning products the learner creates
(Kolowich, 2013; Parr, 2013). In January 2013, MOOC pioneer
Sebastian Thrun and a group of educational technologists chartered the
Bill of Rights and Principles for Learning in the Digital Age
(Kolowich, 2013; Parr, 2013; Veneble, 2013). Its purpose is to codify
students inalienable rights which transfer to new and emerging digital
environments (Kolowich, 2013; Parr, 2013; Veneble, 2013). The bill
identifies guiding principles to which the best online learning should
aspire (Kolowich, 2013; Parr, 2013; Veneble, 2013). Among the nine
rights included are: pedagogical transparency (a learner must be aware of
the object or goal of the course offering), quality and care (authentic and
humane online learning should not have a commercial approach
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30 B. D. Rodney
students are not being sold a product nor are they the product being
sold [Kolowich, 2013, n.p.]), and financial transparency (online
offerings clearly should declare the cost of offerings, including free
courses) (Kolowich, 2013; Venable, 2013). The existence and
development of this bill is indeed critical to the realization of the
democratic educational ideal.
Conclusions
The emergence of cloud-based learning has altered the ways in
which k12 schools and colleges deliver instruction. Cloud-linked
computing devices provide a similar creative capability for all learners to
engage in critical thinking, problem solving, and experiential learning.
Using these tools, learners are able to access a democratic educational
space: a space in which each student embodies the democratic potential
for production, sharing, collaboration, adaptability, and imagination.
This type of opportunity network is what early supporters of a liberal
or self-designed education had in mind. As the recent National
Educational Technology Plan (2010) suggests, educators are situated
within an era where:
The challenge for our education system is to leverage the
learning sciences and modern technology to create engaging,
relevant, and personalized learning experiences for all learners
that mirror students daily lives and the reality of their futures.
In contrast to traditional classroom instruction, this requires
that we put students at the center and empower them to take
control of their own learning by providing flexibility on several
dimensions. (p. xiii)
What once was a radical vision to deschool society now offers
real possibility for providing mass education on a global scale. Cloud-
based technology, which has facilitated this moment, provides an
invitation for educators to grapple with tough questions about the role
of technology (Winner, 1997) and those attendant, learner-focused shifts
it likely brings.
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1

vol. 63, no. 1, 2013, pp. 3544
The Thread of Influence from

Mendez v. Westminster to Delgado to
Hernandez v. Texas to Brown
Martha May Tevis, University of TexasPan American
Introduction
The path to legal equity for Mexican-American schoolchildren has been
a long one. Court cases in several US border states addressed the issue
of separate and unequal schooling for Mexican-American children, but it
took many cases and growth of awareness of the successes and failures
of other civil rights cases on the part of those fighting for equity to bring
about equal treatment in the law. Four cases show a thread of influence
connecting the attainment of equal rights for Mexican Americans under
the law. In this paper, I review these four cases, follow the influence of
these cases on later cases, and show leaders interest in these cases, from
their awareness to their sometimes-collaboration. I limit my argument
here to civil rights of Mexican Americans rather than Hispanics because,
in the US, persons of other Hispanic heritages were few in number at
this time, for Cubas people would only come to the US following the
rise of Castro.
The leaders I cite are attorney A. L. Wirin (Mendez), attorney
Gustavo Gus Garca, and Professor George I. Snchez (Delgado and
Hernandez), and NAACP attorney Thurgood Marshall (Brown). A. L.
Wirin later would serve 40 years as chief legal counsel for the ACLE in
California; Gustavo Garca would become one of the lead attorneys in
Hernandez v. Texas; and George I. Snchez would be honored
posthumously when the University of California at Berkeley School of
Law cited him as the single most influential individual in securing equal
rights through law for Mexican Americans, and in 1995 when the
Regents of the University of Texas at Austin named the College of
Education for him. Thurgood Marshall was appointed to the US
Supreme Court by President Lyndon Johnson in 1967.
While the fight for equity began to be organized for Blacks early in
the 20th century, Mexican Americans equity fight began in earnest after
three percent of Mexicos entire population moved to the US between
1921 and 1930, following these peoples resulting repatriation. In
1947, a California case was decided, Mendez v. Westminster, that ended
segregation in California schools for children with Spanish surnames and
2
36 M. M. Tevis
of Hispanic descent. Then, in 1948, Delgado v. Bastrop, a case which

ended in an agreed-upon judgment, resulted in a Texas State Board of
Education Policy against the segregation of Spanish-surnamed children.
In August 1951, a field hand murdered a cotton farmer. The resulting
case, Hernandez v. Texas, eventually was appealed to the US Supreme
Court in 1954. This case would produce the first decision to appear
before the US Supreme Court concerning Mexican-American rights, and
the justices opinion was unanimous: Mexican Americans could not be
treated as a class apart. Shortly before Hernandez v. Texas was argued
before the court, Brown v. Board of Topeka had been argued and shortly
after Hernandez was decided, Brown was decided; the court unanimously
struck down discrimination against African Americans.
As large numbers of people crossed the border from Mexico into
the US, these new immigrants found a society where brown skin and
lack of skills were unwelcome. Public swimming pools were closed to
them, education was separate and not equal, punishment was common
for speaking Spanish in school or on the playground, and Mexican
culture was denigrated. Fortunately, access to equal educational
opportunities for Mexican-American children soon would become the
subject of many legal arguments.
Historical Background
By the period 19211930, the economic strains of the Depression in
rural areas where immigrants sought work began to influence the
attitudes of largely white communities already deeply financially
burdened. As in John Steinbecks novel, The Grapes of Wrath, Mexicans
came to the USas did Okies heading to Californialooking for a
better life, yet they found just the opposite.
Education for Mexican-American children stressed
Americanization, cleanliness, vocational skills, and learning English,
although there were some bilingual classes, but the number of Spanish-
surnamed children in graduating classes would prove significantly lower
than the number among that same cohort in the first grade. Until the
latter three decades of the 20th century, separate Mexican-American
schools existed. Separate classrooms were also common. Abuses of IQ-
test interpretation led to segregating Mexican-American children in
special education classes. Those few who reached high school were not
encouraged to go to college. Even today the dropout rate of Mexican
Americans graduating from high school remains disproportionately high.
Mendez v. Westminster School District of Orange County
After World War II, litigation began to force equity of educational
opportunity for Mexican-American children. In 1943, Sylvia Mendez was
denied admission to a white school because she was Mexican
American, since, by law at that time, schooling for Mexican Americans
3
The Thread of Influence 37
was separate. And that separate schooling was not equal. The
Westminster school districts superintendent stated during the court
hearing that Mexican Americans were segregated because of their lack of
English skills and lack of personal hygiene. The ruling in Californias
Mendez v. Westminster (1946) stated public schools could not segregate
Mexican Americans. In the final decision the judge ruled children had
been denied due process and equal protection under the Fourteenth
Amendment. After this ruling, legislation was passed repealing all Texas
segregation laws affecting Mexican Americans. The legislation was
signed into law by Governor Earl Warren. The judge in the case stated:
The equal protection of the laws pertaining to the public
school system in California is not provided by furnishing in
separate schools the same technical facilities, text books and
courses of instruction to children of Mexican ancestry that are
available to the other public school children regardless of their
ancestry. A paramount requisite in the American system of
public education is social equality. It must be open to all
children by unified school association regardless of lineage.1
The thread of influence in this case leads to a case in Texas, Delgado
v. Bastrop, then to Hernandez v. Texas, and finally to Brown v. Board. Delgado
v. Bastrop caught the attention of Gustavo Garca, George I. Snchez,
and Thurgood Marshall. Fred Okrand, an associate of A. L. Wirins,
states George I. Snchez worked with us quite assiduously on cases
where Mexican Americans were segregated.2 Garca and Snchez
corresponded with Wirin, and Wirin became involved in their next case,
Delgado. Marshall filed an amicus curiae brief in Westminster v. Mendez3 and
the case was decided in federal, not state, court. The strategy of arguing
separate as not equal and the decision to avoid local courts, as they
were too prejudiced, were carried forward to later cases.
Delgado et al., v. Bastrop ISD
The Westminster case influenced attorney Gus Garca and Dr.
George I. Snchez, who had written on the use of IQ tests to segregate
Mexican-American children. Prior to the Delgado case, two other court
cases had failed to provide equity in US public education for Mexican
Americans. Then, in 1947, the school board of Cuero asked the State
Attorney General if they could build a separate Latin American school.
After reviewing Westminster School District v. Mendez, the Texas Attorney
General ruled the town could not build a separate school if segregation
was based solely on ethnicity. On George I. Snchezs recommendation,
and with the Westminster ruling established, Gus Garca filed suit
against Bastrop ISD, Elgin ISD, Martindale ISD, Colorado Common
School District, their trustees and superintendents, the Texas State
Superintendent of Public Instruction, and the State Board of Education
on behalf of 20 Mexican-American students. Snchez and Garca wrote
4
38 M. M. Tevis
the brief which charged segregation and asked for a permanent

injunction against the defendants enjoining them from segregating
Mexican-American children. Snchez walked the districts and compared
white and Mexican schools, and in the schools of the Colorado
Common School District in Texas he found such inequities as busing for
whites, but not for Mexican Americans, separate and inferior schools or
classrooms for Mexican Americans, and band classes only within white
schools.4 According to Carlos Cadena, George I. Snchez did all the
spadework on the case.5
An agreed-upon judgment was reached whereby the Texas State
Board of Education passed a formal policy, giving credit to Garca and
Snchez, stating children could not be segregated on the basis of Spanish
surnames. This policy would become of critical importance, because
previously there existed no legal precedent, so this ruling would be cited
in those court cases that followed. In writing about the case years later to
a MADEF attorney, Snchez discussed his strategy: Ask for $1.00
damage against each defendant. Good trading point. Scares hell out of
them. If you can get $1.00 you can amend, if they appeal, and ask for
$100,000 or any figure. This worked in the Delgado case. Sue individually
and collectively.6
The thread of influence in this case was knowledge of Mendez,
which led to Garca involving A. L. Wirin and Robert C. Eckhardt of
Austin when Garca filed a similar suit in Texas (Delgado). As in Mendez,
the case was argued in federal court using the argument separate was
not equalin other words, in the US a people could not be treated as a
class apart. As a past-President of the League of Latin American
Citizens, Snchez along with Garca and three others, negotiated the
judgments outcome with the Texas Attorney General and thus were
credited with the Texas State Board of Educations policy against the
segregation of Spanish-surnamed children.
Hernandez v. Texas
As I mentioned previously, on August 4, 1951 Pete Hernandez, a
migrant field worker,7 became involved in an altercation which resulted
in the death of Joe Espinoza, a cotton farmer. Cotton pickers knew
Espinoza frequented a particular bar in Edna, Texas as a gathering place
for the selection of field hands. For reasons which remain unclear, on
that day tempers flared and Hernandez, one Henry Cruz, and Espinoza
argued. Hernandez shot and killed Espinoza with a gun, thus setting in
motion events which would bring together an interesting assortment of
men, each of whom would contribute in his own way to gaining civil
rights for all future generations of Mexican Americans. Hernandezs case
would result in the first Civil Rights case to come before the [US]
Supreme Court.8
5
The planning of this case began when Carlos Cadena, San Antonio
attorney and former law partner of Gus Garca, decided to take
advantage of the GI Bill and return to the University of Texas Law
School to earn a Master of Law degree. Because very few Mexican
Americans held faculty positions at the University of Texas, it was
almost inevitable these two men would meet. According to Cadena, he
and Snchez spent several long hours several nights a week discussing
Snchezs class apart theory. Snchez reasoned that, if one could
establish persons are discriminated against by being treated as a class
apart because of national origin, then any discrimination against Mexican
Americans as a class apart could be considered illegal. Therefore, if his
class apart theory were accepted, discrimination in Texas schools could
be proven. So, when Cadena returned to San Antonio, the search began
for a viable court case and the identification of necessary ingredients.
Cadena and Garca determined a jury-selection case would be the
simplest type upon which to base a court battle for Mexican-Americans
civil rights, since jury selection could be proven by court records. Since
1935 Negro males had had the right to serve on Texas juries, but the
1935 laws usual interpretation was that only whites and Blacks had that
right. Since Mexican Americans were considered white with regard to
jury selection, the result was they could legally be omitted from jury
lists. Prior to Hernandez v. Texas, there were between 509 and 70 Texas
counties where no Mexican American had ever served on a jury.10 When
Garca became defense counsel for Hernandez, he researched county
records and found for the past 25 years no Mexican American had
served on a jury of any kindneither the jury commission which
selected the names from which the grand juries and petit (or regular
trial) juries were selected, nor the grand or petit juries themselvesa
finding with which the state of Texas never found disagreement.11
Garca sought a hearing to establish that Hernandez could not receive a
fair trial in Jackson County, not because no Mexican Americans were on
his particular jury, but because no Mexican Americans had ever been
considered for jury selection in the county.12 During the Question and
Answer Statement of Facts in Connection with the Hearing on Defense
Motion to Quash Jury Panel and Defendants Motion to Quash the
Indictment, Garca established the long-standing, pervasive
discrimination against persons of Mexican-American descent through
testament:
1). The sheriff stated that up until two or three weeks before
the trial a restaurant in town had displayed a No Mexicans
Served sign.13
2). The superintendent of schools testified that, until three or
four years previous, Mexican-American children went to a
6
40 M. M. Tevis
school separate from white children for the first four grades.14
The Mexican-American school was a frame building, whereas
the two white schools were stone buildings.15
3). John J. Herrera, an attorney assisting Garca on the case,
testified that when he went behind the Jackson County
courthouse in Edna, Texas to find the public privy, he found
two for men. One was unmarked, and the other had the
lettering Colored Men and right under Colored Men it had
the words Hombres Aqu [Men Here].16
4). The County Tax Assessor and Collector estimated the
population of Jackson County consisted of around 15%
Mexican Americans and that six or seven percent of the
population were Mexican-American males eligible to be
considered for jury selection.17 [The US Supreme Court brief
for the defendant later estimated 14% of the population as
Mexican American.]
Through this testimony Garca hoped to convince the court that
discrimination existed in the community, including the systematic
exclusion of persons of Mexican descent from jury service. He neither
asked that Mexican Americans be on the jury trying Hernandez, nor did
he seek proportional representation of persons of Mexican-American
descent on juries; he did not characterize the procedure for jury selection
in Texas as unfair. He did seek equal treatment of Mexican Americans
with regard to due process rights guaranteed under the Fourteenth
Amendment, however, the court remained unconvinced. Perhaps this is
not too surprising considering the sign on the courthouse privy and the
fact that Garca and assisting attorneys Herrera and James De Anda
commuted 200 miles each day to and from Houston rather than stay in
Edna.18 Pete Hernandez was tried, found guilty of murder, and
sentenced to a minimum of two years and a maximum of life
imprisonment, however, his sentence was suspended until an appeal
could be decided.19
Since Mexican Americans were regarded by the court system as
whites, then they legally were entitled to representation on juries.
Carlos Cadena and Gus Garca had joined forces in arguing Hernandezs
appeal. They argued support for their position could be found in a
statement from the US Supreme Court itself in Strauder v. West Virginia:
Nor if a law be passed excluding all naturalized Celtic Irishmen, would
there be any doubt of its inconsistency with the spirit of the [Fourteenth]
Amendment. Additionally, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in
Juarez v. State ruled systematic exclusion of Roman Catholics from juries
is proscribed by the Fourteenth Amendment.20
In 1952, the Appeals Court responded by saying: 1) No US
Supreme Court case had ever addressed nationality as a class apart; 2)
7
no discrimination was present; 3) only two classes are guaranteed

representation on juries: Negro and white; and 4) to allow such
representation would treat Mexican Americans as a special class, would
destroy the jury system, and require equal proportional representation
on all individual juries.21
When their appeal was denied, Cadena and Garca appealed to the
US Supreme Court. When the case was accepted, preparation was
already complete, for Cadena had polished all the major points during
his evenings with George Snchez. The legal reasoning that had fallen
upon deaf ears in Texas found a forum in the US Supreme Court. A few
weeks after Brown v. Board was argued, the class apart theory was argued
before the Court, and two weeks before their decision in Brown was
handed down, the class apart theory proved its strength and inherent
justness. In eloquent language, the court reversed the Texas courts
findings in a unanimous decision. Chief Justice Earl Warren, who
authored the opinion, remarked:
Circumstances or chance may well dictate that no persons in a
certain class will serve on a particular jury or during some
particular period. But it taxes our credulity to say that mere
chance resulted in their being no members of this class among
the over six thousand jurors called in the past 25 years. The
result bespeaks discrimination, whether or not it was a
conscious decision on the part of any individual jury
commissioner.
To say that this decision revives the rejected contention that
the Fourteenth Amendment requires proportional
representation of all the component groups of the community
on every jury ignores the facts. The petitioner did not seek
representational representation, nor did he claim a right to have
persons of Mexican descent on the particular juries which he
faced. His only claim is the right to be indicted and tried by
juries from which all members of his class are not
systematically excludedjuries selected from among all
qualified persons regardless of national origin or descent. To
this much he is entitled by the Constitution.22
The thread of influence here is by the time the Hernandez case was
decided the influence of the Mendez and Delgado strategies had been
proven. The attorneys and Snchez had made certain the cases were
heard in federal and not local courts, interested organizations were
involved, and the class apart theory was an integral part of each case.
Each case built on the next, and while some cases were more important
than others, all served to boost the morale of those who wanted better
lives, education, and access for their children.
8
42 M. M. Tevis
Brown v. Board
Brown v. Board universally is recognized as the most significant case
affecting US African-Americans civil rights. Although it concerns
education, the broader concern of treating persons as a class apart was
applied to treatment in all phases of US life: from restaurants, to hotels,
hospitals, and libraries. Brown was tried, as were Mendez, Delgado, and
Westminster in federal courts.
The thread of influence in this case is that 1950s court cases
continued to be fought on local levels to provide equity. During the
latter part of the 20th and early part of the 21st centuries, equitable
treatment for Mexican-American children actively has been sought by
the American GI Forum, The League of United Latin American
Citizens, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Bilingual Education Act of
1968, Lau v. Nichols (1974), the United Farm Workers, the Mexican
American Legal Defense and Education Fund, and an increasing number
of Mexican Americans holding public office and sitting on school
boards. The voting power that Mexican Americans now wield as the US
largest minority group greatly has strengthened their position in matters
of equity and given them a voice in government. So, even though the
Brown decision reinforced the decision in Hernandez, equity did not come
overnight or even the following year. However, a body of law
systematically would be built over the years to come which continued to
provide state and federal precedent in the fight for equal educational
opportunity.
Suggested Readings
Arriola, Christopher. Knocking on the Schoolhouse Door: Mendez v.

Westminster, Equal Protection, Public Education, and Mexican
Americans in the 1940s. La Raza Law Journal 8 (1995): 166210.
Blanton, Carlos K. George I. Snchez, Ideology, and Whiteness in the
Making of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement, 1930
1960. Journal of Southern History 72, no. 3 (2006): 569604.
Carter, Thomas P. Mexican Americans in School: A History of Educational
Neglect (New York: College Entrance Examination Board, 1970).
Carter, Thomas P., with Segura, Roberto D. Mexican Americans in School:
A Decade of Change (New York: College Entrance Examination
Board, 1979).
Garca, Mario T. Mexican Americans (New Haven, CT: Yale University
Press, 1989).
9
Grebler, Leo, Moore, Joan W., and Guzman, Ralph C. The Mexican
American People: The Nation's Second Largest Minority (New York: Free
Press, 1970).
Montejano, David. Anglos and Mexicans in the Making of Texas, 18361986
(Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1987).
Moore, Joan W., with Pachon, Harry. Mexican Americans, 2nd ed.
(Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1976).
Olivas, Michael A., ed. Colored Men and Hombres Aqu: Hernandez v.
Texas and the Emergence of Mexican-American Lawyering (Houston, TX:
Arte Pblico Press, 2006).
Romo, Ricardo. George I. Snchez and the Civil Rights Movement:
19401960. La Raza Law Journal 1 (1986): 342, 348349.
Snchez, George Isidore. Bilingualism and Mental Measures: A Word
of Caution. Journal of Applied Psychology 18, no. 6 (1934): 765772.
doi: 10.1037/h0072798
San Miguel, Jr., Guadalupe. Let All of Them Take Heed: Mexican
Americans and the Campaign for Educational Equality in Texas,
19101981 (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1987).
Smith, L. Glenn, and Smith, Joan K., eds. Lives in Education: A
Narrative of People and Ideas, 2nd ed. (New York: Routledge,
1995).
Strum, Philipa. Mendez v. Westminster: School Desegregation and
Mexican-American Rights (Lawrence, KS: University Press of
Kansas, 2010).
Tevis, Martha M. G. I. Snchez. In Encyclopedia of Activism and Social
Justice, edited by Gary L. Anderson and Kathryn G. Herr.
(Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2007).
Endnotes
1 Federal District Judge P. J. McCormick, from Mendez v. Westminister

School Dist. of Orange County, 64 F. Supp. 544 (DC CAL. 1946).
2 Fred Okrand, Interview by Michael Baker, University of California,
Los Angeles, (1984). Retrieved from http://content.cdlib.org/view?
docId=ft258003n2&brand=calisphere&doc.view=entiretext
3 Cynthia E. Orozco, Garca, Gustavo C, Handbook of Texas
Online, Texas State Historical Association, accessed 31 March 2013,
http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fga51
0
44 M. M. Tevis
4 Segregation in Elgin and Bastrop, Benson Latin American Collection,

University of Texas at Austin.
5 Carlos Cadena, author interview, 6 August 1991.
6 George I. Snchez to Simon Gross, 19 August 1957. Benson Latin
American Collection, University of Texas at Austin.
7 State of Texas v. Pete Hernandez, 2091, 2nd Dist. Ct. of Jackson County,
TX, Fall/Winter term, 1951.
8 Latin Americans Ordered Jury Rights, San Antonio Express, 4 May
1954, 1A.
9 Pete Hernandez v. State of Texas: Brief in Opposition, US Supreme
Court, No. 406.
10 Carl Allsup, The American GI Forum: Origins and Evolution,
University of Texas Center for Mexican American Studies Monograph 6
(Austin, TX: University of Texas, 1982), 73.
11 Earl Warren, The Memoirs of Chief Justice Earl Warren (Toronto, ONT:
Madison, 2001), 299.
12 State of Texas v. Pete Hernandez.
13 Question and Answer Statement of Facts in Connection with the Hearing on
Defense Motion to Quash Jury Panel and Defendants Motion to Quash the
Indictment, 19.
14 Ibid., 31.
15 Ibid., 38.
16 Ibid., 12.
17 Ibid., 1617.
18 Allsup, 74.
19 State of Texas, US No. 2091, Pete Hernandez: Sentence.
20 Pete Hernandez, Appellee, Appellant v. State of Texas, Appellants Motion
for Rehearing, No. 25816, 9.
21 Hernandez v. State, No. 25816, SW 2nd 531.
22 Hernandez v. State of Texas (74 S. Ct. 667).
1

vol. 63, no. 1, 2013, pp. 4558
Applying Critical Race Theory in

Analyzing Two Films by Charles
Guggenheim
Matthew Davis, Melanie Adams, Carlos Diaz-Granados,
Wendy Freebersyser, Miranda Ming, and Leon Sharpe
University of MissouriSt. Louis
Introduction
In the mid-20th century, award-winning filmmaker Charles Guggenheim
released two documentaries: A City Decides (Guggenheim, 1956) and
Nine from Little Rock (Guggenheim, 1964). Each film presents an account
of the desegregation of a large, public high school previously reserved
only for white students: schools located in mid-sized cities in former
slave states. The stories Guggenheim attempts to tell, the manner in
which the stories are told, and the reasons for their telling reflect the
fierce racial crosscurrents prevalent throughout the United States in the
aftermath of the US Supreme Court ruling (Brown v. Topeka Board of
Education, 1954) to abolish segregation within public schools.
A City Decides (1956) focuses on St. Louis public schools and is
centered on the integration of Beaumont High, a school situated near
what was, at the time, the border between Black and white working-class
neighborhoods. Through dramatized reenactments, the 27-minute
documentary depicts deliberations among parents, school leaders, and
local civic groups in their efforts peacefully to bring about racial
integration within St. Louis public schools. The film also references two
events relevant to those efforts: a years-earlier outbreak of white racial
violence over attempts to integrate a city-owned, public swimming pool
located directly across the street from Beaumont High (St. Louis has a
race riot, 1949) and a fight between groups of Black and white students
at Beaumont High in March 1955, not long after it was desegregated (St.
Louis students act to end racial flare-ups, 1955). The film paints a
picture of St. Louis as a northern city fully integrated with the exception
of its public schools. The integration of Beaumont High is presented as
the final piece in the citys plan to eliminate racial tension among its
citizens. Nine from Little Rock (1964) presents the story of nine, Black
youths who brave angry crowds of white citizens in 1957 to become the
first students to desegregate Little Rock Central High School (Anderson,
2004). Told partially in flashback, the 20-minute film uses scripted,
2
46 Davis et al.
voice-over narration and carefully crafted camera techniques to portray

experiences of the young, Black students who volunteered to enroll in
Central High and found themselves at the epicenter of a local
confrontation with global ramifications. Nine From Little Rock describes
some of those nine students experiences while attending school as well
as challenges faced after graduating. From a 21st-century, critical
perspective, both Guggenheim documentaries prove problematic in that
they omit key points of information and depict actual events in a manner
distorted to the point of historical inaccuracy. Taken together, the two
films convey thematic messages on the challenges of public education
that extend into the present, revealing significant implications for
contemporary discourse. Using critical race theory (CRT) as a primary
theoretical frame, in the remainder of this paper we analyze the two
films, the sociopolitical climate in which they were produced, and some
implications for public education in the present day.
Theoretical Frame
Emerging as a corrective to the critical legal studies movement of
the 1970s (Solrzano & Yosso, 2002), Critical Race Theory (CRT) is an
analytical framework whose theorists seek clearly to reveal and make
explicit the inequitable distribution of institutional and systemic power
along racial lines. This exercise of power influences all areas of society,
dividing people along the boundaries of education, housing, and
employment, for example, and serving to maintain the white
supremacist, racial status quo (Taylor, Gillborn, & Ladson-Billings,
2009). Critical race theory is used to uncover the ongoing role race has
played in history and continues to play today. Several CRT tenets we
discuss in detail directly apply to our analysis of the Guggenheim films
and will allow us to illuminate the manner in which both films were
utilized to promote a majoritarian message on US race relations.
Master-Narratives, Counter-Narratives, and the Centrality of
Personal Experience
Through the use of counter-narratives, those who theorize Critical
Race Theory illuminate those patterns of long-term, racial hegemony
reinforced by a master-narrative of white supremacy, while also
documenting how people of color are able to challenge the dominant
groups worldview (Brewer, 2013). Because majoritarian stories
generate from a legacy of racial privilege, they are stories in which racial
privilege seems natural (Solrzano & Yosso, 2002, p. 28). Although
CRT theorists goal is not necessarily to challenge the more traditional
methods of legal, educational, and social science scholarship which have
tended to celebrate academic detachment and objectivity, the counter-
story or counter-narrative is an essential component of Critical Race
Theorys methodology because it honors the centrality of personal
3
Guggenheims Films & Critical Race Theory 47
experience. Counter-storytelling does, however, present an intentional

challenge to dominant groups claims of primary authority in the framing
of history.
In Nine From Little Rock, for instance, this privileging of the white
racial frame (Feagin, 2009) is reflected not only in the content of the
story but also in the method of telling the story. The essential message
of the film is one of cultural assimilation rather than intercultural
exchange; a group of Black students accrue academic and career benefits
simply by virtue of having attended a predominately white high school.
No balancing message indicates how white students benefitted from the
presence of Black students. Yet the method of telling the story is even
more pernicious. The film depicts images of several members of the
Little Rock Nine as they work or engage in activities with college
classmates. The viewer is led to believe the films voices belong to the
students themselvesspeaking their own thoughts in their own words.
In reality, professional actors, reading from a script, were later employed
to dub voices. In fact, members of the Little Rock Nine tell an entirely
different story. We call upon some of their contradictory observations or
counter-stories later in our argument.
The Guggenheim film A City Decides leaves the viewer with the
impression that, once its public schools were desegregated by the mid-
1950s, St. Louis had resolved the last of its race problems and entered a
new era of racial harmony and understanding. The following excerpts
from an unpublished account of a student participating in the
desegregation program of the 1990s suggests the Black student
experience, even decades after events depicted in A City Decides, is more
layered and complex than the film portrays it to be:
When I was transferred from my inner-city elementary school,
I was so excited by the possibilities, but so nervous to be
leaving the kinship, comfort, and support of my own
community. As an African American kindergarten child
entering this mostly white elementary school, I could feel the
stares, the fear, and the curiosity about this new child who lived
in another world.
Later, after having participated in the desegregation program for several
years, she learns how to fit in but also describes her nagging sense of
alienation:
My speech was refined, that is, of course, until I let go. The
dialect of the family would shine through and I was free to be
the true me when it was safe. I was often cautioned when my
6th grade teacher overheard. She reminded me there was no
room for such speech; others might hear me and then I would
be like themyou know, them, who lived across the train
tracks and those blocked in by the interstate. Or those visitors
4
48 Davis et al.
who travelled two-hour bus rides to escape their poor, crime-

ridden livesyou know, them. Confusion sank in as I yelled
and screamed that I was THEM. THEM was really me. But her
stares and persistence was much louder than any of my
outcries.
Counter-stories are a means of sharing micro-histories that allow the
voices of those pushed to the edges of historical events to move to the
center (Brewer, 2013).
The Permanence of Racism
According to Critical Race Theorists, racism is so deeply embedded
in the US institutional systems and structures it becomes an entrenched,
normalized feature of life. Racism operates effectively at multiple levels.
At the systemic level, there continue to be race-based disparities in
education, health care, law enforcement, economic access, policy
formation, media messages, housing patterns, government policy, and
virtually every sector of our society. At the interpersonal level,
stereotyping, exclusion, jokes, slights, and slurs continue to be a barrier
to authentic friendships and relationships across racial lines. At the
intrapersonal level, individuals continue to be plagued by internalized
racism, internalized white supremacy, overt prejudice, and implicit racial
bias. The current trend toward re-segregation of US public schools
(Reardon, Grewal, Kalogrides, & Greenberg, 2011) and the persistent
gap in academic outcomes between Black and white students are
indicative of the permanence of racism in US society. After all, many
school districts only desegregated under federal-court order in response
to lawsuits. Once court orders were lifted, the tendency became to revert
to school enrollment demographics reflecting racially segregated housing
patterns, which, in many cases, had never really changed.
Interest Convergence
The theoretical concept of interest convergence suggests policies
upholding the interests of African Americans and other people of color
will only be accommodated when those interests also converge with
whites general interests (Bell, 1980). The Brown decision to desegregate
US public schools converged with three specific interests of the federal
government and the times mainstream white elite: (1) legitimizing the
struggle against Soviet Communism, (2) quelling the resentment of Black
WWII veterans who fought on behalf of US democracy and demanded
equal rights as citizens and (3) accelerating the advancement of
industrialization and economic development in the south (Bell, 1980;
Guinier, 2004).
Critique of Liberalism
Critical Race Theorists take issue with the limitations of liberalism.
From a CRT perspective, liberal commitment to concepts such as
5
colorblindness, neutrality of the law, and incremental social change all

appear to ignore US racial history and uphold the continued privileging
of white citizens at the expense of citizens of color (DeCuir & Dixson,
2004). Each of these three concepts is flawed in a way that impedes
rather than advances racial justice, educational equity, and genuine
systemic change. For example, the US is such a highly racialized society
that for an individual or institution to profess colorblindness is to
engage in dishonesty or self-delusion.
In the view of the neoconservatives, race is merely a skin color
and is thus meaningless and ignorable. In the view of the civil
rights advocates, race is a skin color plus a legacy of slavery and
Jim Crow that is now realized through stigma, discrimination,
or prejudice. (Guinier & Torres, 2002)
Some well-meaning individuals may uphold colorblindness as a desirable
ideal, but acting out such an ideal in the face of everyday racial realities is
counterproductive because it denies the challenges racial injustices
present, it negates the racial/ethnic/cultural identities of persons of
color or it subsumes those identities within a social context defined by
the dominant racial groups language and logic.
Beyond colorblindness, the liberal claim of neutrality of the law in
its formation, enforcement, or adjudication ignores clear and obvious
racial and class-based disparities in how US laws, both criminal and civil,
are formulated and carried out. Moreover, the liberal notion of
incremental change versus sweeping, transformative change speaks to
the relevance of the CRT critique of liberalism in addressing the very
situations Guggenheims films sought to depictthe challenges
involved in implementing court-ordered, school desegregation at the
local level in the aftermath of Brown. According to civil-rights attorney
Charles Ogletree (2004), who spent many years litigating school-
desegregation suits, the incremental approach built into the 1954 US
Supreme Court ruling was a major problem in bringing about its swift
and effective execution: Given the Brown Courts lack of firm resolve,
as evidenced in its express refusal to order an immediate injunction
against segregation and in its all deliberate speed modifications, public
resistance was inevitable (p. 124).
Nine From Little Rock through the Lens of Critical Race Theory
In the aftermath of World War II, as the US government engaged
in a protracted competition for global economic and political hegemony
with its archrival superpower, the Soviet Union, the US was subjected to
tremendous pressure from other nations that vigorously questioned its
domestic system of racial injustice. During this same period African and
Asian nations were fighting for and winning political independence from
European colonialism. Between 1954, when the Brown decision was
handed down, and 1964, when the film Nine from Little Rock was
6
50 Davis et al.
produced, 33 former, European colonies became independent African

nations. Having witnessed news reports and vivid photographs of
hostility and violence directed at Blacks seeking to integrate US schools
and other public facilities, many African leaders were understandably
skeptical of the US condemnation of Soviet Marxist ideology (MacCann,
1969). As a result, the US State Department, particularly the United
States Information Agency (USIA), faced a challenge in its efforts to
forge trusting relationships with newly emerging African nations
(Dudziak, 1997).
The question remained for the USIA: How should the
government present the countrys race problems without
conceding major points to the communists and their use of
vivid and violent images of racism as an argument against
democracy? (Schwenk, 1999)
These events lend further credence to Derek Bells (1980) concept
of interest convergence, since they evidence a key factor in influencing
fundamental shifts in US policy regarding African Americans legal and
citizenship rights. Given such points of convergence, the Guggenheim
films demonstrate early efforts on the part of the US State Department
to use carefully targeted media materials as a means of reframing the
narrative on US race relations and present American racial dynamics in a
much more benign and progressive light than the historical record
actually reflects (Schwenk, 1999). Nine from Little Rock paints a positive
picture of the mid-20th-century, school integration movement in the US
more along the lines of a public relations campaign than an historically
accurate representation of the horrors experienced by the participants of
that history.
As told by Little Rock students Melba Pattillo Beals (1994) and
Elizabeth Eckford (Margolick, 2011), their counter-stories of constant
harassment, intimidation, and fear operate in direct contrast to
Guggenheims superficial, misleading film portrayal. Counter-stories
probe and question the validity of that conventionally accepted as the
norm, and the stories of actual participants serve to challenge
Guggenheims construct, clearly revealing the reality that removing US
school segregations legal barrier was not the idyllic process proclaimed
by the Guggenheim films and ultimately did not lead to equal resources
for African American students, even though Guggenheims films present
as the norm how US school integration came about.
As students across the US prepared to return to school in
September 1957, nine African American students in Little Rock,
Arkansas were preparing for battle. Forced to fight a national war using
child soldiers, the African-American community held their collective
breath as they watched events unfold.
7
In May 1957, school administrators set out to find the [B]lack

trailblazers; children who were simultaneously old enough to
attend Central, close enough to get there easily, smart enough
to cut it academically, strong enough to survive the ordeal, mild
enough to make no waves, and stoic enough not to fight back.
And, collectively, scarce enough to minimize white
objections. (Margolick, 2011)
The most important characteristic these Black students needed was the
strength to survive in an environment set up for them to fail. Contrary
to the portrayal of school integration presented by Guggenheim in Nine
from Little Rock, each student who pioneered desegregation at Central
High experienced violence, isolation, and intimidation that took a
personal toll on their families, friends, and community.
Elizabeth Eckford had walked into the wolfs lair, and now that
they felt that she was fair game, the drooling wolves took off
after their prey. The hate mongers, who look exactly like other,
normal white men and women, took off down the street after
the girl. (Margolick, 2011)
These words, written by St. Louis Argus reporter, Buddy Lonesome
describe the famous photograph seen around the world of Elizabeth
Eckford walking to school on the first day. Unable to get the message
that all nine students would meet up and walk to school together,
Elizabeth set off for school alone. As she got closer to school, the
crowd swelled and the National Guard prevented her from entering.
Not sure what to do or where to go, she continued to walk to a nearby
bus stop, all the while a mob of white students and adults followed her
yelling push her and Go home, Nigger, (Margolick, 2011; Pattillo
Beals, 1994.)
The nigger is down, one shouted. Shes bleeding. What do you
know. Niggers bleed red blood. Lets kick the nigger. I saw the
foot coming my way and grabbed it before it got to my
face. (Pattillo Beals, 1994, p. 77)
An iconic photograph taken by Will Counts of The Democrat became a
symbol that forever would be etched in the minds of the nation and the
world depicting US race relations. Even W. E. B. DuBois said as much,
remarking in 1959, Everywhere Americans have gone in recent years
they have gotten Little Rock thrown in their faces (Margolick, 2011, p.
101).
By the time the Little Rock Nine were allowed to enter school,
classes had already been in session for over a month. Unlike the first day
as depicted in Nine from Little Rock, students were not driven to school
with National Guard troops protecting them from harm. Instead,
students met at the home of Mrs. Daisy Bates, local NAACP
8
52 Davis et al.
chairwoman, and divided themselves between two cars driven by

NAACP members. By the time they arrived at Central High School,
there was a crowd ready to continue the harassment the students
narrowly escaped during their first attempt to enter the school (Pattillo
Beals, 1994). While teachers did not physically try to harm the Black
students, they nevertheless were complicit in white students behavior
because they did nothing to stop it. Pattillo Beals describes an incident in
which a male student asked a teacher outright, Are you gonna let that
nigger coon sit in our class? (p. 75) and the teacher responded by saying
nothing, ignoring the students question. These types of experiences let
African-American students know they would have to depend upon each
other if they were to survive this hostile environment. With only nine
African-American students in a school of over 1,000, school
administrators did not think to try to keep Black students together for
personal and psychological safety. Already scattered, only rarely were
two of the nine in class together, rather Black students became almost
entirely isolated (Margolick, 2011). When specifically asked by Pattillo
Beals (1994) why they could not stay together, at least in homeroom, a
school administrator rudely replied, You wanted integrationyou got
integration (p. 110). Black students isolation allowed for an increase in
violence against them and enabled their tormentors to remain
unpunished both by administrators and National Guard troops brought
in for protection. Both Pattillo Beals (1994) personal account and
Elizabeth Eckfords account to Margolick (2011), reflect days filled with
self-doubt over the decision to attend Central, fear of retribution aimed
at their families, and an almost depression-like fog the nine students
thought would never lift.
Their counter-stories stand in direct contrast to those integration
scenes Guggenheim crafts. In Guggenheims Central High School, white
students may have been mean to African-American students, but they
quickly warmed up to them and accepted them as part of the school. In
the documentary, the African-American students are shown
interacting with white peers in positive, constructive ways that show no
sign of the daily violence that made up the nines reality. In twenty
minutes, Guggenheim tells a story that managed magically to transform
the racist national narrative of unimaginable hatred unblinkingly
documented by Will Counts photograph into a Norman Rockwell
painting peddled to the world as truth. Pattillo Beals (1994) memoir
does not include mention of Guggenheims film as it ends in 1958 with
fellow Black student Ernest Greens graduation and the end of the
school year. Even though she makes no direct mention of the films
inaccuracies, plentiful evidence nevertheless can be found throughout
her story as she describes one harrowing experience after another.
I got up every morning, polished my saddle shoes, and went off
to war. It was like being a soldier on a battlefield. It was a
9
teenagers worst nightmare. Whats worse than to be

rejected by all your classmates and teachers[?] (p. 225)
Whether having her family home sprayed with gunfire during a drive-by,
her father constantly in fear of losing his job or the constant violence
she endured at school, Pattillo Beals counter-story stands in direct
contradiction to the fiction Guggenheim created to prove to the world
school integration worked (Pattillo Beals, 1994).
The experiences of the Little Rock Nine show the mere removal of
segregations legal barrier of does not automatically make students of
color equal in the eyes of the white community. The attitudes of the
people of Little Rock reflect the same deep-seated racism that first led
the country to create segregation laws. Through segregation, the US
maintained the racial status quo that kept whites in power and gave
Blacks only limited citizenship rights. When Blacks began demanding
rights, some liberals felt the best way to grant equal access to resources
was through the legal system. What 1957s events in Little Rock and
many other American communities in subsequent decades reveal is that,
while the courts can re-interpret laws better to align them with
constitutional intent and can even compel communities to enforce those
laws, no court can force a change in racial attitudes.
A City Decides through the Lens of Critical Race Theory
A critical review of most historical accounts of the US
desegregation process reveals a perspective clearly representative of the
dominant voice, to the detriment of oppressed voices. Although it is
rather hard to accept Guggenheims work as a documentary, as no actual
historical footage is included and all accounts emerge from secondary
sources in the Academy-Award-nominated film A City Decides,
Guggenheim utilizes three, powerful techniques to manufacture a
credible, scripted version of history. Those news-media sources that
accurately covered events are discredited, orchestrated visuals are
presented to replace the viewers pre-existing visuals and create new
images, and, in order further to establish a sense of believability, the
narrator is portrayed as a firsthand, trustworthy witness to history.
Produced under the supervision and support of the public-relations
firm Fleischman-Hillard, A City Decides uses a self-described
documentary format to depict the dawn of de jure desegregation in Saint
Louis. A City Decides offers a liberal re-telling of actual events as a means
of downplaying the tone and extent of racial hostility in St. Louis during
the late 1940s through the mid 1950s. A review of this documentary-
style projects original script reveals much of the initial, historically
accurate construction was edited out of the final script so as to frame St.
Louis as a far-more-progressive city than its actual history could support.
The film begins with voiceover narration from a middle-aged, white,
0
54 Davis et al.
male actor portraying a teacher stepping off a school bus, standing

amidst a procession of Black and white students joyfully making their
way up Beaumont High Schools steps. As the camera rests on the
pleasant interactions of students getting along famously across racial
lines, the actor-narrator scoffs at the thought some individuals may
worry about how our kids will handle school desegregation. Naming
public transportation, the parks, and the library as stellar examples of
successful points of desegregation in St. Louis, he declares his utter
confidence in public school desegregations prospects even as it unfolds
beneath his optimistic eyes. The narrators prideful tone and solid
endorsement of public school desegregation gives way to caution as he
recalls seeing kids just like this in troublereal troublequite a few
years ago.
Guggenheim juxtaposes the films wholesome opening, circa 1954,
to Fairgrounds Park, just across the street from Beaumont High School,
on 21 June 1949, the day Fairgrounds pool was integrated. The narrator
walks his viewer across the street, through time, and back again without
betraying the citys contrived innocence, or compromising its fate as a
civic model of excellence. The transition from the school steps
wholesome scene to a mischievous episode in the Park depicting what
the narrator describes as kid stuff greatly minimizes the scope and
magnitude of the event misrepresented here.
Guggenheim uses minimalist imagery to execute his depiction of
incidents taking place at Fairgrounds pool: three young white males
poised on bicycles as the films unsettling score foreshadow looming
disaster. Two young Black males exit the pool facility, hopping on
bicycles, as the score revs on and white antagonists give the signal to
attack. A relatively short bicycle chase climaxes with one young Black
male retrieving his bicycle from a thicket of shrubs. For good measure,
Guggenheim includes another such scene. A third, young, white cyclist
notices a younger, Black park-goer flying a kite. The ominous music
kicks into high gear and a staring contest ensues between the white
cyclist and Black kite-flyer. Ultimately, the white male pushes the kite
flyer to the ground and the camera pans to capture the unhinged kite
streaming toward oblivion.
Though Guggenheims climax to his re-working of history certainly
is disturbing, it provides a less-than-faint representation of actual events.
In the absence of a counter-narrative, the films viewer may come away
thinking racial attitudes in St. Louis were, at their very worst, light years
ahead of most cities. According to eyewitness accounts reported in a 4
July 1949 Life magazine article entitled St. Louis Has a Race Riot, that
days events involved the gathering of two hundred, sullen whites
outside the pool area. The article goes on to describe throngs of police
called to escort Black swimmers through a wall of angry whites. A
1
photograph included with the article depicts a Black youngster lying

prostrate at the feet of roughly a dozen, white youth, covering his head
with one hand. The photograph is credited to Buel White of the St. Louis
Post-Dispatch and accompanied by the caption Negro is kicked by white
rioters as he lies on the ground. The caption describes how Even 400
police were unable to keep up with the riot; every time they succeeded in
quelling one disturbance, a hoodlum would yell theres a nigger and it
would start all over again (p. 30). Another photograph shows a young,
white male lying on the ground with a stab wound to his chest. The
article goes on to report, White teenagers would periodically strike the
[B]lack children without police reprisal (p. 30). Interestingly, the
original script for A City Decides calls for a more graphic, populated
scene in Fairgrounds Parka much more authentic depiction of actual
events than the film ultimately conveys.
In 1956, shortly after A City Decides first was screened, St. Louis was
recognized with an All-American City Award. A City Decides propelled
St. Louis City into rarified air in terms of its perceived successes in
dealing with the challenges of race relations and public-school
desegregation. The films depiction of St. Louis as a quiet city enjoying a
smooth transition into public-school desegregation shortly after the
landmark case Brown v. the Topeka Board of Education is a sterling example
of a mono-vocal presentation from a majoritarian perspective. A less-
than-favorable light is cast upon the news-medias role as the film works
to overshadow reality with a more idealistic image. Throughout the film,
the news media purposefully is relegated into the realm of irrelevance as
the rewritten mono-vocal is slowly, indelibly established. The films
documentary format creates the impression of a factually accurate
account of events. Photographic accounts of those incidents that
occurred at Fairgrounds Park and throughout the advent of
desegregation in the city of St. Louis public schools exist in abundance
but, although A City Decides portrays well-evidenced, historical events,
no archival footage is utilized. Though depicted as representative of the
history it portrays, the narrators perspective relays judgments and
expresses opinions that go completely unchallenged in the absence of a
counter-story.
Conclusion
Our analysis of the Guggenheim films suggests at least three
thematic messages with contemporary significance: (1) School
desegregation at the local level had some difficult moments but reports
of white violence and hostility were exaggerated by the press, (2)
African-American students may have had some challenging experiences
in seeking to integrate schools, but they emerged unscathed and were
better off as a result of being schooled in a racially integrated
environment, and (3) despite whatever petty frictions may have occurred
2
56 Davis et al.
between Black and white students, schools eventually became fully

integrated and there was reason to be optimistic that racism and race-
based inequities in public education would soon be a thing of the past.
The promulgation of the above three themes through the US news
media, as evidenced by both Guggenheim films, has had profound
ramifications on public perceptions of the causes of and solutions to
problems in education today. To begin with, graphically minimizing
virulent white resistance to school integration in its early years occludes
the potential for more widespread public understanding of the adverse
impact of various flawed strategies, such as containment, capitulation,
and appeasement (e.g. self-contained busing, tracking, and magnet
schools) utilized to address resistance. Also, to ignore or make light of
the physical, psychological, and emotional effects school desegregation
had and continues to have on students of color is to diminish the
significance of a critical factor in achieving equitable educational
outcomes for all students. Additionally, to foreground racial hostilities
between Black and white students represents a failure to address the
historical antagonisms and the prevailing, systematic climate of racial
animosity within which those students had been socialized and lived
amidst. Moreover, emphasizing racial conflict at the student level
deflects attention from the entrenched resistance among parents and
citizens to school integration in Little Rock as well as the sheer ill-
preparedness of school and civic officials effectively to implement
school integration in St. Louis.
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century of Brown v. Board of Education. New York: W. W. Norton
& Company, Inc.
Pattillo Beals, M. (1994). Warriors dont cry: A searing memoir of the battle to
integrate Little Rocks Central High. New York: Washington Square
Press.
Reardon, S. F., Grewal, E., Kalogrides, D., & Greenberg, E. (2012).
Brown fades: The end of court-ordered school desegregation and
the resegregation of American public schools. Journal of Policy
Analysis and Management, 4(9), 876904.
Schwenk, M. M. (1999). Reforming the negative through history: The
US Information Agency and the 1957 Little Rock integration crisis.
Journal of Communication Inquiry, 23(3), 288306.
Solrzano, D. G., & Yosso, T. J. (2002). Critical race methodology:
Counter-storytelling as an analytical framework for education
research. Qualitative Inquiry, 8(1), 2344.
St. Louis has a race riot. (1949, July 4). Life, 30.
4
58 Davis et al.
St. Louis students act to end racial flare-ups. (1955, March 24). Jet
Magazine, 7(20), 24.
Taylor, E., Gillborn, D., & Ladson-Billings, G. (Eds.). (2009). Foundations
of critical race theory in education. New York: Routledge.
1

vol. 63, no. 1, 2013, pp. 5968
Microaggression as Foucaultian
Subjectivism: A Critical Race Analysis of
the Classroom Dynamic
Kevin Murray, University of MissouriSt. Louis
[A] critical pedagogy of white racial supremacy revolves less

around the issue of unearned advantages,and more around
direct processes that secure domination and the privileges
associated with it.
Zeus Leonardo (2005, p. xii)
Leonardos words elucidate precisely what I, in this paper, attempt to do:

reveal and analyze some methods of ensuring white hegemony used by
individuals in US schools. The aforementioned white privilege has been
a focus of whiteness studies for more than twenty-five years (McIntosh,
1995). In McIntoshs seminal essay she posits the idea white racial
privilege is a set of tools accessed by whites to help navigate societal and
cultural power dynamics, naming dozens of such privileges. Her analysis
does not, however, explain how white privilege is constructed and
reinforced on a daily basis. McWhorter (2005) calls for the study of
white privilege through the lens of Michel Foucaults theories on
biopower and the social construction of individuals. In this essay I
attempt to do just that.
In Power/Knowledge, Foucault (1980) theorizes subjugated and
privileged knowledge within the social power dynamic. In his estimation,
subjugated knowledge consists of the perspective and experience of
those on the periphery of society, while privileged knowledge belongs to
their counterparts: those in power whose position is sanctioned by
society or the system. In other words, in the conflict between common,
popular understanding and that deemed official or scientific,
common knowledge is seen as less valuable, less important, and less
worthy. Foucault considers official knowledgeknowledge sanctioned in
some way by governmental or scientific authorityprivileged
knowledge.
Importantly, for Foucault power does not come just from
centralized authority. His exploration of power does not reveal a grand
conspiracy in which a small group of powerful men decide to repress
one group of people or another. Rather, Foucault recognizes true power
comes from the periphery and is enacted through innumerable decisions
2
60 K. Murray
made at societys molecular level. He argues the ruling class interests will
somehow be served, offering a granular analysis of how that power
functions. Even though the way power is employed feels directed from
above, Foucault insists it is not. He writes,
basically I do not believe that what has taken place can be
said to be ideological. It is both much more and much less than
ideology. It is the production of effective instruments for the
formation and accumulation of knowledgemethods of
observation, techniques of registration, procedures for
investigation and research, apparatuses of control. (p. 102)
What is interesting to me about this power dynamic, as Foucault
describes it, is how closely it mirrors the primary educational tools used
in todays US public school classrooms. Surveillance, documentation,
cataloguing, collecting data, and controlling a classroom are what
teachers are expected to do each and every day, representing a number
of ways in which knowledge regularly is subjugated in the school setting.
Foucault (1995) contends the prisons development creates an
institutional culture that actively disciplines individuals through constant
surveillance and correction. And the prisons surveillance culture has
spread to other social institutions. It would be difficult to argue such a
comparison does not apply to US schooling, for even Foucaults
languageassessment, hierarchies, differentiationaligns with 21st-
century, educational jargon. His characterization of education is more
apt today than ever, as educators constantly develop and perfect
methods used to standardize instructional practices and, ultimately,
students. Along with these methods come expectations for student
performance and behavior. A part of the professional class, teacher value
is tied to expertise in shaping student behavior and improving
performance. Apple (2006) refers to this as the managerial state: a
cadre of middle-class officials who run public schools and embody an
efficient group of professionals who shape and implement policy. To
such a group effective practices and well-tested routines have proven
successful in shaping young people. Apple claims, The organization of
the state [centers] on the application of specific rules or coordination.
Routinization and predictability are among the hallmarks of such a state
(p. 191).
Foucault (1995) discusses rituals role in the exercise of public
power, and, even though he speaks of public execution, the dynamic on
display proves comparable. The offender deviates from the expected
pattern of behavior. In order to rectify the offenders situation and that
of the state, as well as the public, certain rituals must take place. I argue
Foucaults recognition of powers role as well as the ritualistic nature of
discipline applies to critiques of US schooling. I also maintain Foucaults
description of institutional power and ritual can inform a discussion of
3
Microaggression as Foucaultian Subjectivism 61
those same features of US schooling, particularly with regard to

discipline.
Ultimately, the myriad routines, procedures, and expectations of US
schooling serve to form a vast, complicated liturgy themselves, with rites
and sub-rituals every bit as choreographed as those of the carceral
system. Expectations for addressing a teacher properly, registering for
school, taking notes, and a virtually infinite combination of other
expectations all make up US schoolings rites and rituals.
The experiences of people who make up any organization are
critically important in shaping its values. Growing up every teacher
attended school, and that teachers teacher had expectations and
proclivities that drew from the experiences of the teacher he or she had
as a teacher, and so on. When looked at in the aggregate, then, the
liturgy of education cannot help but be dominated by the personal
experiences of every member, but more by some than others. A growing
body of research recognizes classrooms as white space (Moore, 2008;
Boyd-Fenger, 2012) within which the educational systems values are
dominated and governed by white, middle-class belief systems and
moralities. Their values then are centered as those that shaped and
continue to shape the public schools rites, procedures, processes, and
expectations (Hyland, 2006; Gillborn, 2008), and, like all processes, are
designed to create outcomes that conform to the systems values. When
students are perceived as non-conforming, the system takes action to
correct so-called deviant behaviors. As instruments of this vast system,
teachers are the ones who most often take steps to correct behavior,
using what may seem to be a variety of methods, but in reality are
disciplining mechanisms closely linked in important ways.
Critical race theorists have long discussed the existence of
microaggressions and their role in the oppression of people of color
(Dixson & Rousseau, 2005). Chester Pierce writes microaggressions are
(c)onfrontations with racism that are daily and pervasive, and that
consequently assault African-Americans core identity, self-esteem, and
sense of self-worth (quoted in Gordon, 2003, p. 416). Microaggressions
are also described as (b)rief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral,
or environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that
communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative racial slights and insults
toward people of color (Sue et al., 2007, p. 271). These authors describe
various social encounters frequently experienced by African Americans
that typify microaggressions. These might include, but are not limited to,
a white person refusing to make way on the street for a person of color,
a white person telling a person of color he or she seems articulate, or a
white person making assumptions about anothers personal interests
based on racial stereotypes (Sue et al., 2007). When taken as a whole,
these daily reminders of inferiority solidify the message to a minority
4
62 K. Murray
groups members they are in fact the minority and their experiences and
values are either inconsequential, subordinate to those of the majority, or
both.
I maintain the educational establishment has adopted
microaggression as a tool for responding to student behaviors deemed
counter to the white, middle-class value system that forms all school
processes and procedures backbone. Importantly, a key to
understanding microaggressive actions lies within recognizing what is
often a lack of intentionality on the part of the aggressor. In fact, often
liberal, outspokenly antiracist people commit such acts (Gordon, 2003;
Marx, 2001). Because these unintentional aggressors do not conceive of
themselves as racist, their brand of microaggression often appears more
subtle and thus far more pervasive than anything one would attribute to
real, intentional racism. Oftentimes those committing unintentional
microaggressions are teachers. Comparatively liberal, teachers work in a
field ascribed a lofty moral status by society, and despite recent overt
attacks on public schools and unions, individual teachers ostensibly are
characterized as and remain pillars of integrity.
When the educational apparatus needs a response to deviant
behaviorbehavior that contradicts the middle-class value system
microaggression becomes a natural response, for unwritten rituals of
classroom instruction must be observed by all students. Microaggression
emerges as a system of responses that very quietly, quickly, and
effectively communicate to the offending student he or she has violated
and exists outside the dominant protocol. One frequent source of
tension between white teachers and students of color is when a student
uses non-standard English.
The term Ebonics entered the cultural consciousness of whites
and racialized language discourse roughly ten years ago when Oakland
Public Schools, in an attempt to improve student performance,
attempted to recognize Black vernacular English. A firestorm erupted as
media figures and politicians seized on the use of Black vernacular
English as an example of the dumbing down of the US and began to
decry the state of public schools. Assaults abounded from all sides, even
questioning whether the vernacular was a valid form of expression
(Gayles, 2007). The attacks were so extreme that the word Ebonics, used
simply as a means to label African-American vernacular English, has
come to be seen purely as a pejorative term.
Despite the Ebonics debate, many African Americans still use
vernacular speech patterns, and often this speech occurs in the
classroom setting. Speaking in vernacular, or being otherwise non-fluent
in standard English represents a violation of an important norm
5
(Phillips & Nava, 2011) of white, middle-class speech codes constructed

to place all individuals in society along a continuum of native-ness or
American-ness, mark white speakers of standard English as the
norm, and hold others at a particular distance away from that ideal
(Shuck, 2006). When non-standard English is spoken in the classroom, it
is branded deviant, oftentimes eliciting an immediate, verbal correction
such as, we say mine, not mines or, simply cutting the student off and
stating the correct version of the word(s) in question. The implication,
of course, is that in speaking this way a student indicates he or she does
not understand the right way to speak. He or she is demonstrating
behavior that leaves him or her outside the fold, and he or she is being
informed how the civilized, collective we is supposed to talk. The
messages of his or her inferiority and deviance are clear, yet by definition
the teachers corrective is microaggressive; it is immediate, stunning and
derogatory, conveying that you, and anyone who speaks this way, are
not us.
Paradoxically, there is no right way to speak, especially in a
situation as informal as a classroom. Students (and teachers) of all
backgrounds have linguistic idiosyncrasies that distinguish them from
other speakers and that they employ in everyday, casual speech. No
student would ever think of immediately correcting an adult who says, I
could care less when the adult really means, I couldnt care less. It
would be terribly rude. In an educational system dominated and dictated
by a white, middle-class norm it is not surprising codes such as this are
firmly entrenched in US schools cultural DNA, and teachers often
respond negatively when students of color fail properly to navigate them
(Vang, 2006).
Another way the knowledge of students of color is subjugated is the
overrepresentation of minority students in special education and
discipline referrals. Statistics reveal a distinct difference in the
proportion of students of color with special education referrals to their
white counterparts (Klingner et al., 2005). Plentiful evidence of these
two phenomena shows how the biopower works to identify and isolate
students of color at the classroom level. In fact, these practices can be
looked at as forms of microaggression.
The artificial boundaries that separate normal students from
their disabled peers are in effect gerrymandered boundaries
that effectively favor White students and serve as yet another
means through which schools promote the interests of the
most privileged students while undermining the interests of
culturally and linguistically diverse students. (Aram, Fergus, &
Noguera, 2011, p. 2236)
6
64 K. Murray
According to this particular study, African-American students are

more than twice as likely as whites to be identified as intellectually
disabled, and nearly three times as likely as whites to be identified as
emotionally disturbed. What is most telling about this data is the role
that subjective experience on the part of teachers and examiners plays in
this process. Many people consider high-stakes accountability measures
(exams) as totally objective, scientific measures free of bias. However,
too often the exam-based decision to put a student into special
education services is far more idiosyncratic than most teachers freely
admit. For,
ethnographic research carried out in schools has shown that
the placement of students in special education is based on the
assumptions and beliefs of several individuals who, in their
formal and informal evaluation of students, construct notions
of student ability. The ways in which these individuals
conceptualize disability maintains an inherently divisive
conception of normalityequating it with ability. (p. 2238)
When white, middle-class teachers make educational placement
decisions the experiences, speech, and behavioral patterns of African-
American and other minority students end up being classified relative to
that of their teachers, with the end result being the student is labeled
disabled and placed into the special-education system. (Aram, Fergus,
& Noguera, 2011)
I can speak to this process capriciousness from personal
experience. As a 10+-year, veteran teacher in schools populated
predominantly by African-American students, I have witnessed many
(more than I care to count) IEP meetings for an 8th-grade student who
had an educational diagnosis that was simply incorrect. As recently as
last spring, a student of mine whoby every measure including
diagnostic tests, my personal observations, and his own interest in
booksread and comprehended far beyond an 8th-grade level was listed
as having a primary, reading-comprehension disability. Frequently, IEPs
are derived from test results when the test has been administered as
many as five or six years before, yet no one bothers to reevaluate or
change the students diagnosis. The students initial misplacement is
compounded by the fact that parents often simply do not have the
capacity to fight such a diagnosis even if so inclined. More likely than
not parents simply trust a teachers decision to be correctoften not the
case; the result of which is knowledge subjugation as identified by
Foucault. The experiences, behavioral tendencies, and linguistic patterns
of children of color, clearly different than that of their predominantly
white teachers, are in effect used against students to classify and in some
circumstances isolate them from their peers at a far greater rate than
their white counterparts. And essentially, what special education for
7
many students ends up becoming is isolation. The services students

receive reinforce the initial isolation of the diagnosis.
Another way teachers subjugate the knowledge of students at the
classroom level is through personal interactions that evolve into
discipline incidents and behavioral referrals. Often, seemingly innocuous
interactions can spiral out of control quickly due to cultural differences
between student and teacher (Townsend, 2000). Foucault (1995) reveals
the importance of ceremony in the employment of justice and refers to
ceremonies, rituals, and liturgies in his history of the workings of law
enforcement. In a school setting, disciplinary procedures often are much
more subtle and less encoded than in law enforcement and result in a
more common, subliminal form of discipline teachers use when students
violate classroom norms.
Picture this: you are a young teacher, perhaps not very experienced,
in a classroom full of students with whom you do not necessarily have a
good relationship. Furthermore, you have received feedback from your
principal that you need to do a better job of managing classroom
behavior. So one day you are in class, working with the students, and
you hear someone make an inappropriate comment. You are fairly sure
you know who said it and decide to engage that student to address what
was said. Having decided not to ignore the comment, there are now a
number of ways this situation can play out. You could pull the student
aside and address him or her privately, ask if he or she made the
comment, and handle the situation discreetly. However, if the student
denies having made the comment and you drop the incident, then you
now are stuck in a position where you may appear weak and ineffective
and the student or students may continue to act inappropriately.
Alternatively, perhaps, since you have been asked to take greater charge
of your classroom, you decide publicly to address the comment to assert
your authority in the classroom. In front of the class, you call the
student out, tell him or her you heard what was said, and confront him
or her. Again, the student denies he or she said what you think he or she
said. Having now entered a power struggle with a student, many teachers
simply will follow through by initiating an office referral and asking the
student to leave the classroom, starting whatever mechanisms of
discipline the school has in place. Now, while possible the student really
did make the comment, at this point that fact becomes irrelevant, for
what has just happened is a power play in which the teacher asserted her
authority. However, the flip-side of this power dynamic is the
subjugation of the student-in-questions experience. Let us say he or she
continues to insist he or she did not make the comment, and despite an
investigation the teacher insists he or she indeed made the comment.
Most likely, he or she will receive a disciplinary consequence for the
8
66 K. Murray
incident, often made worse by the students resistance to admit guilt and
accept consequences. I argue this is an example of a classroom dynamic
that can be found in virtually every school in the US.
Again, this is not some top-down conspiracy designed behind
closed doors to ruin the lives of students of color; it is, however, an
example of the way power is exerted at the classroom level that
ultimately and cumulatively has the same effect. Teacher-student
interactions are themselves highly ritualized, and designed to create
automatic compliance on the part of the student (Marshall, 2005). By
definition, such interactions become imbued with the teachers sense of
superiority. A fine lineone easily crossedis drawn between the
necessity for a student to follow teacher instructions and expectations,
and the desire for a student to obey. In my experience, teachers tend to
be far less interested in explanations than compliance.
Conclusion
While I argue this to be an area ripe for further study, my analysis
shows McWhorters call for Foucaultian analysis of white racial
hegemony proves apt, adequately capturing the mechanism by which
white privilege is established and reinforced. As a white teacher of
students of color, it pains me to know I actively participate in this
system. Going forward, I continuously try to remember and
communicate to colleagues that by interacting with students in a series of
constant, racially tinged corrections and power struggles, we create a
damaging classroom climate that can have profound effects, leading
both to a kind of school refusal (Wimmer, 2008) and to the significant
achievement gap the media (and school officials) never fail to remind
us exists.
References
Apple, M. (2006). Educating the right way: Markets, standards, God, and
inequality. New York: Routledge.
Aram, R., Fergus, E., & Noguera, P. (2011). Addressing racial/ethnic
disproportionality in special education: Case studies of suburban
school districts. Teachers College Record, 113(10), 22332266.
Boyd-Fenger, K. (2011). White space unrealized and unexposed: Examining
assumptions that support school structures. (Unpublished doctoral
dissertation). University of Missouri, St. Louis, St. Louis, MO.
Comeaux, E., & Jayakumar, U. (2007). Education in the United States: Is
it a Black problem? The Urban Review, 39(1), 93104.
9
Dixson, A., & Rousseau, C. (2005). And we are still not saved: Critical
Race Theory in education ten years later. Race, Ethnicity, and
Education, 8(1), 728.
Foucault, M. (1980). Power/knowledge. New York: Pantheon.
Foucault, M. (1995). Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison.
New York: Vintage.
Gayles, J., & Denerville, D. (2007). Counting language: An exercise in
stigmatization. Multicultural Education, 15(1), 1622.
Gillborn, D. (2008). Coincidence or conspiracy? Whiteness, policy and
the persistence of the Black/white achievement gap. Educational
Review, 60(3), 229248.
Gordon, J., & Johnson, M. (2003). Race, speech, and a hostile
educational environment: What color is free speech? Journal of Social
Philosophy, 34(3), 414436.
Hyland, N. (2005). Being a good teacher of Black students? White
teachers and unintentional racism. Curriculum Inquiry, 35(4), 429
459.
Klingner, J., Artiles, A., Kozleski, E., Harry, B., Zion, S., Tate, W.,
Duran, G., & Riley, D. (2005). Addressing the disproportionate
representation of culturally and linguistically diverse students in
special education through culturally responsive education systems.
Education Policy Analysis Archives, 13(38), 139.
Leonardo, Z., (Ed.). (2005). Critical pedagogy and race. Oxford, UK:
Blackwell.
Marshall, M. (2005). Discipline without stress, punishment or rewards.
The Clearing House, 79(1), 5154.
McIntosh, P. (1995). White privilege and male privilege: A personal
account of coming to see correspondences through work in
womens studies. In M. L. Andersen & P. H. Collins (Eds.), Race,
class, and gender: An anthology (2nd ed.) (pp. 7687). Belmont, CA:
Wadsworth.
Marx, S. (2001). How whiteness frames the beliefs of white female pre-service
teachers working with English language learners of color. Paper presented at
the annual meeting of the American Educational Research
Association, Seattle, WA.
McWhorter, L. (2005). Where do white people come from? A
Foucaultian critique of whiteness studies. Philosophy and Social
Criticism, 31(56), 533556.
Moore, W. (2008). Reproducing racism: White space, elite law schools, and racial
inequality. Lanham, MA: Rowman & Littlefield.
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Phillips, D., & Nava, R. (2011). Biopower, disciplinary power, and the
production of the good Latino/a teacher. Discourse: Studies in the
Cultural Politics of Education, 32(1), 7183.
Shuck, G. (2006). Racializing the nonnative English speaker. Journal of
Language, Identity, and Education, 5(4), 259272.
Steward, R. J., Steward A. D., Blair, J., Jo, H., & Hill, M. F. (2008).
School attendance revisited: A study of urban African American
students grade point averages and coping strategies. Urban
Education, 43(5), 519536.
Sue, D. W., Capodilupo C., Torino, G., Bucceri, J., Holder, A., Nadal,
K., & Esquilin, M. (2007). Racial microaggressions in everyday life:
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Townsend, B. (2000). The disproportionate discipline of African-
American learners: Reducing school suspensions and expulsions.
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Vang, C. (2006). Minority parents should know more about school
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can do about it. Education Digest, 74(3), 32.
1

vol. 63, no. 1, 2013, pp. 6991
The Postmodern Secular University and

Voluntary Student Religious Groups:
What Would Mr. Jefferson Do?
William. M. Gummerson, Appalachian State University
This institution will be based upon the illimitable freedom of the human mind.
For here we are not afraid to follow truth where ever it may lead, nor to tolerate
any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.
Thomas Jefferson to William Roscoe, 18201
we suggest the expedient of encouraging the different religious sects to

establish each for itself, a professorship of their own tenants, on the confines of
the University, so near as that their students may attend the lectures of there,
and have the free use of our library, and every other accommodation we can give
them; preserving however their independence of us & each other. This fills the
chasm objected to ours, as a defect in an institution professing to give
instruction in all useful sciences.
Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Cooper, 18222
Introduction
Since 1981, the US Supreme Court has sanctioned use of public
university facilities by a religious group when a limited open forum
exists.3 In Christian Legal Society v. Martinez (2011), however, the Supreme
Court permitted a law school to limit a student clubs access to facilities
because the club refused admission, membership, and positions of
leadership to students with antithetical beliefs.4 The law schools All-
Comers Policy (ACP) precluded such actions if a club was to receive full
access and use of its facilities.5 The Christian Legal Society (CLS)
refused to admit students to formal membership or leadership positions
if the group perceived a student held beliefs contrary to the fundamental
teachings of the bible on pre-marital sex and marriage. Under the CLS
charter and past practices, however, students who held antithetical
beliefs were indeed allowed to attend and participate in club meetings.
Previous to the Christian Legal Society decision, the judicial standard
most frequently employed in forum cases allowed religious groups to
utilize a universitys facilities regardless of the religious content of their
speech.6 If a limited open forum existed, precluding the use of a
universitys facilities on the basis of student speech was considered to be
viewpoint discrimination. A university could disallow a student group
access only if it could demonstrate a compelling state interest narrowly
2
70 W. M. Gummerson
tailored and the decision was deemed viewpoint neutral.7 Use of a

university facility by a student religious group was considered incidental
support of religion and not a violation of the legal standard for
separating church and state, provided the club did not receive the
imprimatur of the university and a broad class of nonreligious as well as
religious speakers were in existence.8
The Christian Legal Society decision, however, represents a radical
departure from previous decisions, moving away from a strict scrutiny
standard which had so consistently protected student rights of free
speech, association, and religion. In the Courts decision, the exalted
status of free speech and association evaporated, in part due to a prior
stipulation to the Court by the two parties that Hastings Law School had
in place an All-Comers Policy. Based on that stipulation, a majority of
Justices refused to examine Hastings anti-discrimination policy or any
aspect of its selective application.9 Consequently, student rights to free
speech, association, and freedom of religion inevitably took a back seat
to the universitys property rights.10 One legal commentator warns,
Whereas many issues of religious freedom, religious
establishment, and free speech depend on delicate balancing
and context-specific judgments, the existence of a property
right suggests that no such balancing is required. Once the
property right is allocated, the property owner is assumed to
have an absolute or near absolute right to exclude others, for
almost any reason at all.11
Writing for the majority, Justice Ginsberg employed a reasonable-
purpose standard grounded in property analysis that elevated the
universitys rights as owner of the limited public forum. Under the
reasonable-purpose standard, the law school could require students
comply with its All-Comers Policy (ACP) or face the possibility of being
removed from the universitys forum, or, at the very least, be limited in
their access.12 Despite the Courts insistence, the actions of Hastings
Law School were viewpoint neutral and therefore constitutional; CLS
status as a recognized club and its rights to free speech, association, and
religious belief were in fact marginalized. The Court ignored a line of
previous cases that consistently elevated and protected free speech and
association in a wide variety of forums and venues.13 Although prior
cases involving a limited open forum have given property owners greater
latitude for regulation than those operating open forums, control
primarily has been limited to time, place, and manner restrictions.14 The
importance of students and citizens abilities to associate for the
purpose of crafting or disseminating a message unencumbered by
government or its agents has been not only recognized, but revered.
3
Jefferson, the Postmodern Secular University, and Student Religious Groups 71
Unbeknownst to many jurists and scholars the infamous Thomas

Jefferson was forced to wrestle with how best to regulate student groups
and religious instruction when founding the University of Virginia.
Surprisingly, the author of the constitutional touchstone a wall of
separation between church and state adopted a decidedly different
approach from that of the Justices in Christian Legal Society; he chose not
to exclude religious groups or instruction from the confines of his
university.15 Instead, Jefferson decided to open university facilities to
student religious groups and religious seminaries for study and worship
in a manner that insured the independence of each.16 He did this in spite
of having an ardent disdain for religious sectsreligion buildershe
believed distorted the teachings of Jesus. His decision was in part a
byproduct of both political necessity and personal hubris. Ultimately, it
was driven by a personal recognition that isolating the study of religion
from a university would undermine one of Jeffersons most cherished
ideals: the discernment of truth from error through the exercise of
reason.
Mr. Jefferson and His Beloved University
As early as 1778, Jefferson proposed a plan to establish Virginias
public educational system consisting of primary schools, grammar
schools, and a secular university.17 An act establishing primary schools
passed in 1796 but failed to provide universal access because
implementation was left to the discretion of each countys alderman,
borough, or corporation.18 Jefferson wanted his Bill for a More General
Diffusion of Knowledge in conjunction with a series of other statutes
to lay the axe to the foot of pseudo-aristocracy.19 In his words, the
Statute for Religious Freedom (1786) had put down the aristocracy of
the clergy, and restored to the citizen the freedom of the mind.20
Reflecting on the bill years later, he lamented that if passed in toto, it
would have raised the mass of the people to the high ground of moral
respectability necessary to their own safety, and to orderly government;
and would have completed the great object of qualifying them to select
the veritable aristoi, for the trusts of government, to the exclusion of the
pseudalists.21 Throughout his life, Jefferson was deeply concerned an
American republic rooted in the Declaration of Independence and the
federal Constitution could not survive unless educational institutions
were created both to promote the development of reason and found a
class of leaders based on meritocracy. At the center of his lifes work
was the establishment of a federal-state relationship and educational
institutions designed to prevent either a political aristocracy or a
federally sponsored religion from consolidating power at the expense of
its citizens. To that end, the University of Virginia was to be the
4
72 W. M. Gummerson
capstone of an educational system that would develop an educated

meritocracy capable of preserving the republic.
During the preliminary planning for his secular university, Jefferson
realized persuading the Virginia Legislature to provide statutory and
monetary support would be difficult. Writing in 1818 to his friend James
Madison, he mocked Virginia legislators, saying,
I have been preparing such a report as I can, to be offered
there to our colleagues. It is not such as one as I should
propose to them to make to an assembly of philosophers, who
would require nothing but the table of professorships, but I
have endeavored to adapt it to our H. of representatives.22
He characterized the House of Representatives as a floating body of
doubtful & wavering men not having judgment enough for decisive
opinion, yet unfortunately quite capable of making the majority as they
please.23 Despite such political sensibilities, he had little idea that
omission from university plans of a Professor of Theology paired
alongside his personal religious views would set off a political firestorm
that would threaten to undo his plans to found a secular public
university.
Political Firestorm
Initially Jefferson and the Commissioners purposefully included no
professor divinity within the universitys subjects to be taught.24
Hoping to place all sects on an equal footing, prevent jealousies, and
promote religious freedom, religious instruction was placed within
the province of a professor of ethics who would teach Hebrew, Greek
and Latinfoundational languages necessary for studying the origins of
the major religions.25 Religious sects were to provide as they think
fittest, the means of further instruction in their own peculiar tenets to
students separately and away from the university.26
However, the absence of the study of theology and rumors of
Jeffersons philosophical underpinnings for the universitys curriculum
ignited Christian religious sects in Virginia and threatened state funding.
Dr. John Rice, an influential Presbyterian clergyman and magazine
editor, wrote in 1820 to Board Member John Harwell Cocke demanding
reconsideration of the hiring of Thomas Cooper as one of the first
university professors. He accused Cooper of teaching values heretical to
biblical teaching. Rice said he had read a book written principally by
Cooper who
spoke in terms of biting and bitter contempt of those who
hold the separate existence of the human soul, and of those
who believe in the divinity an atonement of our Saviour. These
things he placed on a footing with transubstantiation and other
things exploded in absurdities of prophesy.27
5
Rice asked Cocke how anyone in good conscience could recommend

the pious to send their children to a place where they could be taught
that an Atheist could be as good a man as a Christian.28
A year later, board member and legislative liaison Joseph Cabell
identified the greatest threat to the university as the Presbyterian and
Episcopalian sects. Both sects feared the introduction of Socinians as
professors because of Socinians denial of Jesus divinity, sin, and
salvation. Hiring Socinians, they contended, would contribute to the
overthrow of the prevailing religious opinions of the country.29 These
two sects attempted to rally religious synods and bible societies to
support their own educational institutions. If successful, state funds
could be siphoned away from the university which then might never
open. Two years earlier, James Madison, also a member of the Board of
Visitors, warned Jefferson that although Cabells fears may exaggerate
the hostility to the university; tho if there should be dearth in the
Treasury, there may be danger from the predilection in favor of popular
Schools.30
Jefferson on Religion, Reason, and Religious Sects
The concerns of Jeffersons religious critics were not without merit.
Jefferson shared his views on religion only with his closest friends and
always with the understanding they were to be kept private.31 Confiding
with John Adams, he warned,
you will be sensible how much interest I take in keeping
myself clear of religious disputes before the public, and
especially of seeing my Syllabus disemboweled by the Auspices
of the modern Paganism. Yet I enclose it to you with entire
confidence, free to be perused by yourself and Mrs. Adams, but
by no one else; and to be returned to me.32
Despite such lifelong cautions, over time the public had become very
knowledgeable of Jeffersons private religious views: views contrary to
those of Christian religious sects.
By his own words, Jefferson was a materialist: what would today
be considered an empiricist. Despite his materialist views, he was also an
admirer of Jesus of Nazareth, the sublime moralist whose pure
views he believed had been perverted by the high priests of religious
sects for pence and power.33 While summarizing the moral doctrines
of Jesus in his Syllabus of an Estimate of the Doctrines of Jesus
Compared with Those of Others, he reveals his admiration:
His moral doctrines, relating to kindred and friends, were more
pure and perfect than those of the most correct philosophers,
and greatly more than those of the Jews; and they went far
beyond both in inculcating universal philanthropy not only to
6
74 W. M. Gummerson
kindred and friends, to neighbors and countryman, but to all

mankind, gathering all into one family, under the bonds of love,
charity, peace, common wants and common aids.34
Believing being and the processes of life could only be explained as
they relate to matter, Jefferson decided to correct false teachings related
to supernaturalism in the King James Bible, by writing his own version:
The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth. Jeffersons material version
removed the supernatural and the miraculous.35 He rejected artificial
systems invented by the Ultra-Christian sects including the immaculate
conception of Jesus, his deification, the creation of the world by him, his
miraculous powers, his resurrection and visible ascension, his corporal
presence in the Eucharist, the Trinity, original sin, atonement,
regeneration, election, order of hierarchy, etc.36 In his quest to separate
the diamond from the dunghill, Jefferson purposefully gutted the
foundational teachings of religious sects in hopes of returning the
teachings of Jesus back to their true meaning.37 He was optimistic the
progress of reason would continue
in its advances toward rational Christianity. When we shall
have done away with the incomprehensible jargon of the
Trinitarian arithmetic, that three are one, and one is three; when
we shall have knocked down the artificial scaffolding reared to
mask from view, the simple structure of Jesus.38
To this end Jefferson was an ardent supporter of Unitarianism which
similarly rejected Christian doctrine of the trinity, the deity of Jesus, and
his resurrection.
Jefferson was unafraid to demonstrate his personal biases about
who should be the first professor of law and the specific texts that
should be taught to preserve the republic.39 In stark contrast, Jefferson
went out of his way to avoid religious controversy by excluding a
professor of theology, instead encouraging students to receive religious
instruction away from the university under the purview of their parents
and respective religious sects. Privately, he believed academic study at
the university would shed light on the false teachings of religious sects,
obstruct ambitions to establish their beliefs as the religion of all, soften
their asperities, liberalize and neutralize their prejudices, and make the
general religion a religion of peace, reason, and morality.40 The
university experience would accomplish this by enlightening the minds
of the people and encouraging them to appeal to their own common
sense dispelling the fanaticism on which their power is built.41
Jefferson predicted Unitarianism would one day emerge as the religion of
the people.
Unitarianism has not yet reached us; but our citizens are ready
to receive reason from any quarter. The Unity of a supreme
7
being is so much more intelligible than the triune arithmetic of

the counterfeit Christians that it will kindle here like wildfire.42
Jeffersons choice of Thomas Cooper as one of the universitys first
professors stemmed from an appreciation of his scholarship and
Coopers professed similar doubts about evidences supporting the
teachings of the Old and New Testaments, especially the belief that man
is not composed of body and soul. When Jefferson received a copy of
Coopers anonymous pamphlet on materialism years after the religious
controversy had passed, he told him there is but one person in the US
capable of writing it and therefore am not at a loss to whom to address
my thanks for it.43 Coincidentally, Jeffersons fervent desire to supplant
religious sects biblical teachings based on revelation with a kind of
materialist Unitarianism was no less monopolistic than that which he
accused sects of desiring. His double standard was not lost on the sects
themselves, hence their failure to support funding for a secular
university that excluded their religious beliefs. To secure the necessary
funds, Jefferson and the Visitors decided to reassure religious sects and
the Virginia legislature that materialism and Unitarianism would not be
given free reign to the exclusion of other religious views. To that end,
Jefferson and the Visitors proposed a plan to address the absence of a
professor of theology and religious instruction, as well as the exclusion
of student worship at the university.
The Rectors and Board of Visitors Solution to the Firestorm
Acutely aware financial and moral support for a public university
was evaporating, Jefferson and the Visitors reconsidered the deficiency
created by having no professor of theology or religious instruction. By
successfully characterizing the university as an institution, not merely of
no religion, but against all religion, religious sects had placed Jefferson
in a philosophical box.44 Despite Jeffersons fury against their cloud of
fanaticism and his intense desire to instill a rational Christianity
grounded in Unitarian views, he was forced to admit the label of
irreligion had in fact legitimately weighed on the minds of some
honest friends.45
In the October 7th, 1822 minutes of the University of Virginias
Board of Visitors, written and signed by Jefferson, the Board reports to
the President and Directors of the Literary Fund a proposed solution to
the absence of a professor of theology and religious instruction.46 The
Visitors note the absence of a professor of theology from the original
Report of the Commissioners in 1818 as a conscious decision intended
to place all religious sects on equal footing. Concerned over jealousies
that might arise depending on the professors sectarian views, they
hoped instruction in Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and ethical lectures would
suffice and intended to leave religious instruction to religious sects and
8
76 W. M. Gummerson
parents away from campus. Their decision was made not out of
indifference to the importance of religious study for students. The
Visitors admit, the relations which exist between man and his maker,
and the duties resulting from those relations, are the most interesting
and important to every human being, and the most incumbent on his
study and investigation.47
The Visitors solution to issues raised by the absence of both
religious instruction and a professor of theology was to invite religious
sects to establish schools of divinity on or near university confines.
Sectarian schools of religion would be granted full benefit of the public
provisions made for public instruction in the other branches of
science.48 Such an arrangement allowed students convenient access to
religious instruction and placed those destined for religious profession
on as high a standing of science, and of personal weight and
respectability, as be obtained by others from the benefits of the
university.49 Students would be able to attend religious services and
instruction with the professor of their religious sect in buildings still to
be erected or in a professors lecture room. The Visitors report notes
such an arrangement would complete the circle of the useful
sciences embraced by this institution, and would fill the chasm
now existing, on principles which would leave inviolate the
constitutional freedom of religion, the most inalienable and
sacred of all human rights.50
Almost two years to the day after the Board of Visitors report to
the President and Directors of the Literary Fund regulations necessary
for constituting, governing and conducting the Institution were
established.51 If any religious sect accepted the invitation to locate
schools of divinity within the confines of the university or nearby,
students would be free and expected to attend religious worship at the
establishment of their respective sects, in the morning, and at a time to
meet their school in the university at its stated hour.52 Divinity students
were to be considered students of the university subject to its regulations
and to have the same rights and privileges as other students. In addition,
the Rotundas middle floor was designated a location on campus for
religious worship subject to university regulations.
Jeffersons willingness to allow religious instruction, association, and
interaction at his secular university was based on his understanding of
the study of religious ideas as an important part of the academic study of
useful sciences. But, it was equally driven by excessive pride grounded in
the belief religious sects ideas, once exposed to the rational scrutiny of
university debate, would result in an awareness of their artificial
scaffolding reared to mask from view the simple structure of Jesus.53
9
Speaking about the proposal to address accusations of being an

institution of irreligion, Jefferson gloated to Thomas Cooper, This
institution by enlightening the minds of the people and encouraging
them to appeal to common sense is to dispel the fanaticism on which
[the sects] power is built.54 After all was said and done, religious sects
never chose to establish their seminaries on or near the confines of the
university.55 The Board of Visitors creation of impartial regulations to
govern religious instruction and the subsequent death of the Old Sage
on July 4, 1826, whose Unitarian views had been the lightning rod for
the Christian religious sects, dissipated the sects furor.
Lessons Learned
In the historical studies of jurisprudence and the founding of the
early American republic, the religious controversy at the University of
Virginia has been grossly overshadowed by Jeffersons metaphor from
his 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptist Association, in which he
characterized the First Amendment as having erected a wall of
separation between Church and State.56 Few Justices have ever
questioned the inconsistency of Jefferson supporting use of a public
university for religious instruction and exercises despite having
advocated a rigid wall of separation between church and state at the
federal level of government. In McCollum vs. the Board of Education (1948),
Justice Reed warned, The difference between the generality of
[Jeffersons] statements on the separation of church and state and the
specificity of his conclusions on education are considerable. A rule of
law should not be drawn from a figure of speech.57 Similarly, Justice
Thomas in Rosenberger vs. the University of Virginia (1995) considered
Jeffersons University of Virginia solution to be in direct contrast to the
rigid separation standard advocated by a long line of Justices.58 In recent
years an increasing number of primary historical sources containing the
views of Jefferson and others more intimately involved with the
development of the First Amendment, have validated the Religious
Clauses were never meant to be applied to state governments or their
subdivisions, nor was Jeffersons misleading metaphor capable of
protecting the very essence of the Free Exercise Clausefreedom of
religious conscience.59
The US Supreme Courts selective incorporation of the First
Amendment via the Fourteenth Amendment and subsequent application
of the Religious Clauses to state-sponsored educational institutions today
would seen an anathema to Jefferson. The author of the Declaration of
Independence feared development of an ever-expanding tyranny
brought about by the federal governments consolidation of power at the
expense of individual state governments. Jefferson possessed a deep,
0
78 W. M. Gummerson
abiding faith the best way to prevent such tyranny was to establish
strong state governments responsive to the people, relying upon the
physical proximity of voters and their ability to act as political
counterweights to a federal government possessing limited powers. Such
ideas fit neatly into Jeffersons compartmentalized views on the federal-
state relationship, especially with regard to limiting the jurisdiction of
federal appellate courts. Jefferson proposed two legal canons be used to
determine whether or not federal appellate courts possessed proper
jurisdiction over domestic cases tried in state courts. For Jefferson, the
capital and leading object of the Constitution was to leave with the
States all authorities which respected their citizens only, and to transfer
to the United States those which respected citizens of foreign or other
States: to make us several as to ourselves, but one to all others.60
Jefferson would not have been in favor of allowing application of a
federal Bill of Rights to state institutions and citizens which, in his view,
were better protected by individual states and their constitutions.
The University of Virginias religious controversy underscores the
untenability of separating religious instruction and exercises from public
universities, both in Jeffersons time and ours. The cornerstone of
Jeffersons university, by his own admission, was to be the unbridled
search for truth in order to prevent sacred precincts. The 1818 original
plan which omitted both a professor of theology and religious
instruction violated the very essence of Jeffersons new secular
university, an institution that was to value the illimitable freedom of the
human mindnot afraid to follow truth where ever it may lead, nor to
tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.61
Posterity should not be surprised about Jeffersons initial attempts
to exclude religious instruction from academic subjects studied at the
University of Virginia. Part of the brilliance of Jeffersons mind was his
ability to compartmentalize information, a process that allowed him to
master large, diverse amounts of knowledge.62 Jefferson possessed a
fragile personality and thought processes shaped by exposure to the
untimely deaths of several of his most beloved family members.
Throughout his life he exhibited a personal need to draw boundaries and
exhibit control. When a crisis occurred his response frequently was to
retreat to his beloved study at Monticello where he could contemplate a
self-constructed world distant the realities of everyday life he could
never control.63 For Jefferson, freedom of religion was best protected by
confining its practice to a private sphere of life, a sphere artificially
created. His artificial mental construct, the wall of separation between
church and state, did not account for the necessary day-to-day
interactions of citizens that occur based on religious beliefs. The idea
1
that actions based on religious thought can or should be separated from

actions based on secular thought, and removed from public institutions
or the public square, is simply unrealistic and unworkable, particularly in
a postmodern world where public and private often intersect. Such an
idea is also patently undemocratic.
Jefferson also originally possessed less altruistic motives for
separating instruction from his university. Precluding religious study and
exercises on a university campus would have removed the influence of
religious sects and left them to their own designs far away from his
university campus, whereas, if he had his way, students would be
reeducated to the true teachings of JesusUnitarianism. Not
surprisingly, when proposing a professor of law, Jefferson showed no
less of a proclivity to preclude the recruiting of any candidate who did
not adhere to his republican view of the Constitution, one that clearly
demarcated the powers of federal and state governments.64 Fortunately,
religious sects were able to expose Jeffersons religious biases and the
hypocrisy of excluding religious studies and pursuits from a university
founded upon principles of tolerance and the search for truth. In the
end, the sects gave him an Hobsons choice: allow religious instruction
other than Unitarianism or risk not receiving their funds or their sons,
both of which Jefferson needed desperately if ever he was to launch his
grand experiment. His revised plan for religious instruction preserved
the independence of religious sects and the university, but it arrogantly
was based on the assumption that, eventually, religious sects teachings
would vanish in a rising sea of rational Unitarianism.
Part of Jeffersons motivation to exclude religious activities and
exercises at the federal level was to prevent an alliance between church
and state that would foster a national or state church intolerant of
nonbelievers or dissenters. Ironically, had he been allowed to hire only
Unitarians and exclude religious instruction at the University of Virginia,
he would have been guilty of purposefully inculcating a sacred religious
precinct, no less of a monopoly than he accused religious sects of
pursuing.
If the Christian Legal Society decision ever becomes the preferred
standard for legally regulating university clubs and forums, students
First Amendment rights will be marginalized. This decision allows
universities as property owners the authority to exclude student religious
groups for illegal discrimination whenever a club conditions formal
membership and leadership roles upon affirmation of their belief
systems. Such an interpretation trivializes not only a students right to
freedom of conscience, but also his rights of association and free speech.
It also hinders the clash of competing and often contradictory ideas in a
university forum, so essential for discerning truth from error.
2
80 W. M. Gummerson
Today, US secular universities as envisioned by Jefferson are an

integral part of public education. Like Jeffersons university, the
postmodern, secular university struggles with finding the proper place
for religious education. While many secular universities include
departments of religion or theology, discussion about religion within
most academic classrooms conspicuously is absent, the result of hyper-
vigilance and misguided concerns religion must be confined to the
private sphere to protect personal religious views and prevent
controversy. Like the materialist Jefferson, these secular institutions,
which revere the pursuit of reason and empiricism, all too often show
little tolerance for religious beliefs based on revelation, the supernatural,
and the mysterious.65 Consequently, the principles of secularity dominate
the university square, their limitations often left unchallenged by
competing religious principles.
In place of theism, Jefferson and fellow Enlightenment followers
transferred their faith to the goodness of women and men grounded in
innate moral instinct and reason.66 Jefferson assumed the use of reason
to develop civic virtue inevitably would cause citizens to place the
common good above personal ambition, thereby preventing the decay of
society and political dissolution of the republic.67 Two hundred years of
subsequent political and social history continue to call these assumptions
into question. Certainly, the biblical view of mankind and the views of
religions challenging many assumptions of the Enlightenment and
postmodernism deserve to be debated in university classrooms and
student forums.68
The scarcity of religious debate in academic classrooms today makes
it more important than ever that students religious, political, and social
clubs be able to associate based on self-established values, beliefs, and
charters, even when such views are contrary to one another, the
university, or society. A limited open forum in a secular university
should provide a venue for the clash of disparate ideas with such
impartial regulations as necessary to preserve civility, while promoting
student examination of personal values and the values of others. By
issuing a disclaimer and describing the boundaries of the forums
operation, universities can educate students on the forums purpose, as
well as make students and others aware the ideas of student clubs do not
enjoy the endorsement or imprimatur of the university. Such a forum also
would help stem the increasing tide of the interiorization and
privatization of religious thought promoted in part by its legal isolation
and separation from the academic classroom, society, and the public
square.69
In recent years the failure of reason and science to provide adequate
explanations of the nature of reality or solutions to many problems
3
stemming from the human condition have resulted in abandonment of

many Enlightenment ideals by those in academia in favor of a
philosophy of postmodernism. Conspicuously absent from the
philosophical debate promoting this shift has been a comparison and
examination of philosophical truths from the major religions, many of
which are grounded in history, experience, and even science.70 In light of
this absence, whether postmodernisma philosophy untethered to
concrete ideals or a single realitycan provide more satisfactory answers
while generating an infinite array of disparate ideals and realities remains
to be seen.71 When determining the boundaries of operation for
voluntary student religious groups, federal and state courts and
universities would be wise to consider the lessons learned by Mr.
Jefferson during the founding of his beloved university: lessons still
applicable to todays postmodern secular university.
Endnotes
1 Thomas Jefferson to William Roscoe, 27 December 1820, The Papers of

Thomas Jefferson at the University of Virginia on Microfilm, Reel 8
(hereinafter TJPUVA).
2 Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Cooper, 2 November 1822, The Thomas
Jefferson Papers at the Library of Congress on Microfilm, Reel 53 (hereinafter
TJPLC), emphasis in original.
3 Widmar v. Vincent, 454 US 263 (1981) (having established a limited
public forum, a voluntary student religious group may not be denied
access to a universitys facilities on the basis of the content of their
speech).
4 Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, 130 S. Ct. 2971 (2010) (denying a
voluntary student group access to a law schools limited public forum
does not violate First Amendment free speech rights because the
universitys policy is rationally related and content-neutral).
5 Among the benefits that full recognition would provide were: (1)
financial assistance from the university through the mandatory student
activity fee; (2) channels of communicationsuch as the opportunity
to publish school-wide announcements, use of designated bulletin
boards for advertising, and access to the school email system; (3)
participation in the annual Student Organizations Fair; (4) use of
school facilities for meetings; and (5) use of Hastings logo and name.
David Brown, Hey! Universities! Leave Them Kids Alone!: Christian
Legal Society v. Martinez and Conditioning Equal Access to a
4
82 W. M. Gummerson
Universitys Student-Organization Forum, Penn State Law Review 116

(2011): 173174.
6 See Sweezy v. New Hampshire, 354 US 234 (1957) (students must always
remain free to inquire, to study, and to evaluate in order to gain new
maturity and understanding); Healy v. James, 408 US 169 (1972) (First
Amendment rights to free speech and association apply with the same
force on a state university campus as in the larger community);
Rosenberger v. Board of Visitors of the University of Virginia, 515 US 818
(1995) (denying funding resources to a Christian magazine while
allowing the same resources to secular, student-run magazines
imposes a financial burden on speech and amounts to viewpoint
discrimination).
7 Badger Catholic v. Walsh, 620 F. 3d 775 (2010), cert. denied, (Walsh v.
Badger Catholic, 2011 US LEXIS 2058) (US Mar. 7, 2011) (having
created a public forum where students, not the university, decide what
is to be said, a university denying funding from a student activity fee
on the basis of religious speech commits viewpoint discrimination);
Amidon v. Student Association of the State University of New York at Albany,
508 F. 3d 94 (2007) (student association referenda for funding of
recognized student groups are not viewpoint neutral because they
place minority views at the mercy of the majority); Husain v. Springer,
494 F. 3d 108 (2007) (when a state college implements a mandatory
student activity fee its procedure for allocating the funds that fee
generates must be viewpoint neutral); Kincaid v. Gibson, 263 F. 3d 342
(2001) (confiscation and failure to distribute yearbooks, which are a
nonpublic university forum based on policy and practice, are not
reasonable actions and violate viewpoint neutrality); Board of Regents of
Wisconsin vs. Southworth et al., 529 US 217 (2000) (student fee program
does not violate First Amendment rights since universitys viewpoint
neutrality requirement in the allocation of funding support was
sufficient to protect the rights of objecting students); Rosenberger v.
University of Virginia, 818; Gay and Lesbian Students Association v. Gohn,
850 F. 2d 361 (1988) (a gay and lesbian student group has no right to
receive university funding, but when funds are made available they
must be distributed in a viewpoint-neutral manner, absent other
considerations); and Widmar v. Vincent, 270.
8 Widmar v. Vincent, 273276.
9 Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, 2973. We reject CLSs unseemly
attempt to escape from the stipulation and shift its target to Hastings
policy as written. This opinion, therefore, considers only whether
conditioning access to a student-organization forum on compliance
with an all-comers policy violates the Constitution.
5
10 Jessie B. Hill, Property and the Public Forum: An Essay on Christian

Legal Society v. Martinez, Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public
Policy 6 (2010): 4957.
11 Ibid., 5354.
12 Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, 2976. The justifications Hastings
asserts in support of its all-comers policy are reasonable in light of the
RSO forums purposes. First, the policy ensures that the leadership,
educational, and social opportunities afforded by RSOs are available
to all students. RSOs are eligible for financial assistance drawn from
mandatory student-activity fees; the policy ensures that no Hastings
student is forced to fund a group that would reject her as a member.
Second, the policy helps Hastings police the written terms of its
Nondiscrimination Policy without inquiring into an RSOs motivation
for membership restrictions. CLS proposal that Hastings permit
exclusion because of belief but forbid discrimination due to status
would impose on Hastings the daunting task of trying to determine
whether a student organization cloaked prohibited status exclusion in
belief-based garb. Third, Hastings reasonably adheres to the view that
its policy, to the extent it brings together individuals with diverse
backgrounds and beliefs, encourages tolerance, coperation, and
learning among students. Fourth, the policy incorporates state-law
discrimination proscriptions, thereby conveying Hastings decision to
decline to subsidize conduct disapproved by the State. So long as a
public school does not contravene constitutional limits, its choice to
advance state-law goals stands on firm footing. Despite the noble
purposes of promoting non-discrimination and not subsidizing
conduct disapproved by the state, the Courts ruling trivialized the
religious groups belief system by requiring the Christian Legal Society
to make an Hobsons Choiceabandon their belief system by
formally admitting non-believers or submit to much-more-limited
access to the law schools resources and facilities.
13 Hague v. CIO, 307 US 496 (1939) (public meeting and assembly
ordinance violates the Fourteenth Amendment because, on its face,
the city street meeting and public assembly ordinance arbitrarily allows
the suppression of speech); Sweezy v. New Hampshire, 354 US 234
(1957) (students must always remain free to inquire, to study, and to
evaluate in order to gain new maturity and understanding); NAACP v.
Alabama ex. rel Patterson, 357 US 449 (1958) (state scrutiny of
membership lists violates freedom of association protected by the
Fourteenth Amendment because disclosure of the lists, if made public,
would deter the freedom to associate); Healy v. James, 169; Papish v.
Board of Curators of the University of Missouri, 410 US 667 (1973) (the
6
84 W. M. Gummerson
mere dissemination of ideasno matter how offensive to good

tastemust not be shut off on a university campus in the name of
conventions of decency alone); Westside Community Board of Education v.
Mergens, 496 US 226 (1990) (Equal Access Act does not violate the
separation of church and state because it has an overriding secular
purpose to protect the right of secondary students to speak and
associate in voluntary non-curriculum-related, student clubs on school
grounds); Lambs Chapel v. Center Moriches Union Free School District, 508
US 384 (1983) (disallowing an outside religious group to use school
premises afterhours to show a religious film violates free speech rights
because the restriction is unreasonable and not viewpoint-neutral);
Rosenberger, 818; Hurley v. Irish American Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Group
of Boston, 515 US 557 (1995) (private citizens organizing a public
demonstration may not be compelled by the state to include groups
who impart a message the organizers do not want to be included); Boy
Scouts of America et al. v. Dale, 530 US 640 (2000) (freedom of
association plainly presupposes the freedom not to associate); Good
News Club v. Milford Central School, 533 US 98 (2001) (denial of club
access to a limited public forum on the grounds the club is religious in
nature is discriminatory and violates free speech guaranteed by the
First Amendment because it is not viewpoint-neutral). Admittedly, the
scope and breadth of constitutional guarantees for speech, assembly,
and religion have been expanded or contracted by the US Supreme
Court and other federal courts depending on whether the type of
forum is designated as open, public, or limited. But rulings based upon
the strict scrutiny standard have given deference to freedom of speech
and association because of their importance in promoting the
dissemination of ideas in a democratic society.
14 Aaron H. Caplan, Symposium Issue: Invasion of the Public Forum
Doctrine, Willamette Law Review 46 (Summer 2010): 647676. Caplan
argues government should regulate speech in such locations chiefly
by means of reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions. Such
restrictions are valid only to the extent that they conform to a
relatively speech-protective four part test which requires content-
neutrality, significant government interests; narrow tailoring, and
ample alternative channels for communication.
15 See Thomas Jefferson to Rev. Mr. Samuel Miller, 23 January 1808,
TJPLC, Reel 40. For an in-depth examination of the US Supreme
Courts development and misapplication of the Jeffersonian metaphor
to interpret Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses as applied to
public schools and universities, see William M. Gummerson,
Severing the Gordian Knot: The Search for a Workable
7
Interpretation of the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses (PhD

diss., University of South Carolina, 1993). Among the eclectic tests
created by the US Supreme Court are: The Lemon test, strict scrutiny,
historical past practices, compelling interest narrowly drawn,
compelling interest neutrally applicable to all religions, and symbolic
endorsement.
16 Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, 2971.
17 Thomas Jefferson, Bill 79: A Bill for the More General Diffusion of
Knowledge, 1778, Julian P. Boyd, L. H. Butterfield, Charles T. Cullen,
and John Catanzariti, eds., The Papers of Thomas Jefferson (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 19502011), II: 526535 (hereinafter PTJ).
For a general discussion of Thomas Jeffersons views on education see
Robert M. Healy, Jefferson on Religion in Public Education (New Haven,
CT: Yale University Press, 1962), and Jennings L. Wagoner Jr., Jefferson
and Education (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press,
2004).
18 Thomas Jefferson to Joseph Priestly, 27 January 1800, The Papers of
Thomas Jefferson at the Library of Congress Online, Images, 4849,
http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/mtj.mtjbib009272 (accessed 15 July 2012)
(hereinafter TJPLC Online). About 20 years ago, I drew a bill for our
legislature, which proposed to lay off every county into hundreds or
townships of 5. or 6. miles square, in the centre of each of which was
to be a free English school; the whole state was further laid off into 10
districts, in each of which was to be a college for teaching the
languages, geography, surveying, and other useful things of that grade;
and then a single University for the sciences. It was received with
enthusiasm; but as I had proposed that Wm. & Mary, under an
improved form, should be the University, & that was at that time
pretty highly Episcopal, the dissenters after a while began to
apprehend some secret design of a preference to that sect and nothing
could then be done. About 3. years ago they enacted that part of my
bill which related to English schools, except that instead of obliging,
they left it optional in the court of every county to carry it into
execution or not.
19 Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 28 October 1813, in Andrew
Lipscomb, ed., The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (Washington, DC:
Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association of the United States, 1903
05), XIII: 398401 (hereinafter WTJ).
20 Ibid.
21 Ibid.
22 Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 28 June 1818, The James Madison
Papers at the Library of Congress, Reel 18 (hereinafter JMPLC).
8
86 W. M. Gummerson
23 Ibid.
24 Rockfish Gap Commission Report, 4 August 1818, N. F. Cabell, ed.,
Early History of the University of Virginia as Contained in the Letters to
Thomas Jefferson and Joseph C. Cabell, (Richmond, VA: John Randolph,
1856), 441442 (hereinafter Letters). In conformity with the principles
of our Constitution, which places all sects of religion on an equal
footing, with the jealousies of the different sects in guarding that
equality from encroachment and surprise, and with the sentiments of
the Legislature in favor of freedom of religion, manifested on former
occasions, we have proposed no professor of divinity; and rather as
proofs of the being of a God, the creator, preserver, and the supreme
ruler of the universe, the author of all relations of morality, and of the
laws and obligations these infer, will be within the province of the
professor of ethics; to which adding the developments of these moral
obligations, of those in which all sects agree, with a knowledge of the
languages, Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, a basis will be formed common
to all sects. Proceeding thus far without offense to the Constitution,
we have thought it proper at this point to leave every sect to provide,
as they think fittest, the means of further instruction in their own
particular tenets.
25 Ibid.
26 Ibid.
27 Dr. John Rice to John H. Cocke, 6 January 1820, The Papers of the Cocke
Family at the University of Virginia, Acc. No. 640, Box 30 (hereinafter
CFPUVA).
28 Ibid.
29 Joseph C. Cabell to Thomas Jefferson, 5 August 1821, TJPUVA, Reel
9. Socinians were followers of the 16th- and 17th-century theology of
Faustus Sozzini. They denied the divinity of Jesus of Nazareth, the
existence of sin, and the need for salvation through spiritual
regeneration. As a young man Jefferson wrote, Socinians, Xn.
Heretics. That the Father is the one and only god; that the Word is no
more than an expression of ye. Godhead and had not existed from all
eternity, that Jes. Christ was god not otherwise than by his superiority
above all creatures who were put into subjection to him by the father.
That he was not a Mediator but sent to be a pattern of conduct to
men. That the punishments of hell are nt. Eternal (capitalization,
punctuation, and spelling not changed from the original manuscript);
Notes on Locke, n.d., PTJ, I: 554.
30 James Madison to Thomas Jefferson, 6 March 1819, David B.
Mattern, ed., The Papers of James Madison: Retirement Series
9
(Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 2009), I: 433

(hereinafter PJMRS).
31 See Thomas Jefferson to Mrs. Samuel Harrison Smith, 6 August 1816,
Saul K. Padover, The Complete Jefferson (Freeport, NY: Books for
Libraries Press, 1943), 955 (hereinafter Complete Jefferson); William Short
to Thomas Jefferson, 1 December 1818 and 2 May 1820, TJPLC, Reel
51.
32 Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 22 August 1813, Lester J. Cappon,
ed., The Adams-Jefferson Letters (Chapel Hill, NC: The University of
North Carolina Press, 1959), II: 369.
33 Thomas Jefferson to William Short, 31 October 1819, TLPLC, Reel
51; T. Jefferson to Smith, 6 August 1816, Complete Jefferson, 955.
34 Thomas Jefferson, Syllabus of an Estimate of the Doctrines of Jesus
Compared with Those of Others, n.d., The Papers of Thomas Jefferson at
the College of William and Mary, Folder 4 (hereinafter JPCWM), emphasis
in original.
35 Thomas Jefferson, The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth,
TJPUVA, Reel 2.
36 See T. Jefferson to Short, 31 October 1819, TLPLC, Reel 51.
37 Ibid.
38 Thomas Jefferson to Timothy Pickering, 27 February 1821, WTJ, 15:
323324, TJPLC, Reel 52.
39 The primary texts to be used for the study of the nation and law were:
Sydneys Discourses, Lockes Essay on Civil Government, The Declaration
of Independence, The Federalist, Resolutions of the General Assembly
of Virginia in 1799, The Inaugural Speech and Farewell Speech of
George Washington. See Andrew Burstein, Andrew and Nancy
Isenberg, Madison & Jefferson (New York: Random House, 2010), 586;
and Leonard Levy, Jefferson & Civil Liberties: The Darker Side
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963), 155156.
40 Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Cooper, 2 November 1822, TJPLC,
Reel 53.
41 Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Cooper, 12 April 1823, TJPLC, Reel 53.
42 Thomas Jefferson to William Short, 19 October 1822, JPCWM, Folder
2.
43 Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Cooper, 29 March 1824, Thomas Cooper
Papers at the University of South Carolina, Doc. 1388 (hereinafter
TCPUSC). See also, Anonymous, The Scripture Doctrine of Materialism, By
a Layman (Philadelphia, 1823), TCPUSC, Folder 222, Doc. 3042.
0
88 W. M. Gummerson
Cooper wrote about his doubts to external and internal evidence of

the old and new testaments and his aversion to the opinion that
man is not a creature compounded of body and soul: all of the
intellectual phenomena being clearly reducible to the functions and
properties of the nervous apparatus in cerebral and vertebral animals.
44 Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Cooper, 2 November 1822, TJPLC.
45 Ibid.
46 Minutes of the Board of Visitors, 7 October 1822, 4143, TJPUVA,
Reel 2.
47 Ibid.
48 Ibid.
49 Ibid.
50 Ibid.
51 Minutes of the Board of Visitors, 4 October 1824, 6970, TJPUVA,
Reel 2.
52 Ibid.
53 Thomas Jefferson to Timothy Pickering, 27 February 1821, WTJ.
54 Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Cooper, 12 April 1823, TJPLC, Reel 53.
55 Paul Brandon Barringer, James Mercer Garnett, and Roswell Page,
eds., University of Virginia: Its History, Influence, Equipment and
Characteristics (New York: Lewis Publishing Company, 1904), I: 78.
56 Thomas Jefferson to Nehemiah Dodge, Ephraim Robbins, and
Stephen S. Nelson, January 1, 1802, TJPLC Online, Image 558,
http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/mtj.mtjbib010955 (accessed 22 January
2012). Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely
between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his
faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach
actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence
that act of the whole American people which declared that their
legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of
religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall
of separation between Church & State.
57 McCollum vs. Board of Education, 333 US 203, 247 (1943) (release time
for instruction violates the First Amendments separation of church
and state because the school system was involved in the
administration, organization, and support of religious instruction in
public school classrooms).
58 Rosenberger, 819, 859 (1995) (denial of funding for a student religious
publication from the student activity fund constitutes viewpoint
discrimination and allowing such funding would not violate the
1
Establishment Clause since secular student publications were already

receiving student activity funds).
59 See a comparison of the initial draft of Jeffersons letter to the
Danbury Baptist Association to the completed letter based on advice
from US Postmaster General Gideon Granger and US Attorney
General Levi Lincoln: Thomas Jefferson to Nehemiah Dodge,
Ephraim Robbins, and Stephen S. Nelson, 1 January 1802, [Draft],
TJPLC Online, Image 557, http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/
mtj.mtjbib010955 (accessed 17 March 2013); T.J. to Dodge, Robbins,
Nelson, January 1, 1802, TJPLC Online, Image 558,
http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/mtj.mtjbib010955 (accessed 17 March
2013); Gideon Granger to Thomas Jefferson, 31 December 1801,
TJPLC Online, Image 417, http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/
mtj.mtjbib010893 (accessed 17 March 2013); Levi Lincoln to Thomas
Jefferson, 1 January 1802, PTJ, 36: 257. See also, Thomas Jefferson,
Second Inaugural Address, 4 March 1805, Complete Jefferson, 413. In
matters of Religion, I have considered that its free exercise is placed in
the constitution independent of the powers of the general
government. I have therefore undertaken no occasion, to prescribe the
religious exercises suited to it. But have left them as the constitution
found them, under the direction and discipline of the state or church
authorities by the several religious societies; Thomas Jefferson, Bill
for Establishing Religious Freedom, 1779, Complete Jefferson, 947.
but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument, to
maintain their opinions in matters of religion For the founding
fathers emphasis on freedom of religious conscience, see James
Madison, Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious
Assessments, 20 June 1785, VIII: 299, Robert A. Rutland, William M.
E. Rachal, Barbara D. Ripel, and Fredrika J. Teute, eds., The Papers of
James Madison (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 19502012);
Helen E. Veit, Kenneth R. Bowling, and Charlene Bangs Bickford,
eds., Creating the Bill of Rights: The Documentary Record from the First Federal
Congress (Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press, 1991);
Bernard Schwartz, The Bill of Rights: A Documentary History, 2 vols.
(New York: Chelsea House, 1971); John P. Kaminski, Gaspare J.
Saladino, Richard Leffler, Charles H. Schoenleber, and Margaret A.
Hogan, eds., The Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution,
24 vols. (Madison, WI: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1976
2012); Herbert J. Storing, ed., The Complete Anti-Federalist, 7 vols.
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981).
60 Thomas Jefferson to Justice William Johnson, 12 June 1823, TJPLC,
Reel 53.
2
90 W. M. Gummerson
61 T. Jefferson to Roscoe, 27 December 1820, TJPUVA.

62 Kevin J. Hayes, The Road to Monticello: The Life and Mind of Thomas
Jefferson (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 176, 237.
63 Andrew Burstein, Jeffersons Secrets: Death and Desire at Monticello (New
York: Basic Books, 2005), 9.
64 Levy, Jefferson & Civil Liberties.
65 Alan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind (New York: Simon and
Schuster, 1987), 374375. The contents of classic books have
become particularly difficult to defend in modern times, and the
professors who now teach them do not care to defend them, are not
interested in their truth. One can most clearly see the latter in the case
of the Bible. To include it in the humanities is already a blasphemy, a
denial of its own claims. There it is almost inevitably treated in one of
two ways: It is subjected to modern scientific analysis, called the
Higher Criticism, where it is dismantled, to show how sacred books
are put together, and that they are not what they claim to be. It is
useful as a mosaic in which one finds the footprints of many dead
civilizations. Or else the Bible is used in courses of comparative
religion as one expression of the need for the sacred and a
contribution to the very modern, very scientific study of the structure
of myths.... A teacher who treated the Bible naively, taking it as its
word, or Word, would be accused of scientific incompetence and lack
of sophistication. Moreover, he might rock the boat and start the
religious wars all over again, as well as a quarrel between reason and
revelation, which would upset comfortable arrangements and wind up
by being humiliating to the humanities. Here one sees the traces of the
Enlightenments political project, which wanted precisely to render the
Bible, and other old books, undangerous.
66 Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Law, 13 June 1814, TJPLC Online,
Images 511513, http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/ mtj.mtjbib021743
(accessed 25 June 2012). See also Edwin S. Gaustad, Sworn on the Alter
of God: A Religious Biography of Thomas Jefferson (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm.
B. Eerdmans, 1996).
67 Andrew Burstein, The Inner Jefferson: Portrait of a Grieving Optimist
(Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia, 1995), 203. See also,
Charles Colson, Against the Night (Ann Arbor, MI: Servant, 1989), 10
11. Colson writes, the crisis that threatens us, the force that could
topple our monuments and destroy our very foundations, is within
ourselves. The crisis is in the character of our culture, where the
values that restrain inner vices and develop inner virtues are eroding.
Unprincipled men and women, disdainful of their moral heritage and
3
skeptical of Truth itself, are destroying our civilization by weakening

the very pillars upon which it rests.
68 Ronald H. Nash, The Closing of the American Heart: Whats Really Wrong
with Americas Schools? (n.p.: Probe, 1990).
69 Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self: The Making of Modern Identity
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989), 508. See also,
Arthur W. Chickering, Jon C. Dalton, and Liesa Stamm, Encouraging
Authenticity and Spirituality in Higher Education (San Francisco: Jossey-
Bass, 2006), 170. But the reality is that for most students, intellectual
and spiritual concerns rarely overlap in academe. The two domains are
usually intentionally separated and isolated. Spiritual concerns and
questions are very often treated as inappropriate content for
intellectual examination and relegated to the private realm of
individual concerns that have no place in the academy. This separation
of learning from the process of spiritual search for meaning and
purpose depersonalizes education and greatly reduces its transforming
power.
70 See Josh McDowell, The New Evidence that Demands a Verdict, Rev. ed.
(Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1999); Stephen C. Meyer, Signature in
the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design (New York: Harper
Collins, 2009); Bradley Monton, Seeking God in Science: An Atheist
Defends Intelligent Design (Buffalo: NY, Broadview, 2009).
71 Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont, Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern
Intellectual Abuse of Science (New York: Picador, 1998), 1. Vast sectors
of the humanities and the social sciences seem to have adopted a
philosophy that we shall call, for want of a better term,
postmodernism: an intellectual current characterized by the more-or-
less explicit rejection of the rationalist tradition of the Enlightenment,
by theoretical discourses disconnected from any empirical test, and by
a cognitive and cultural relativism that regards science as nothing more
than a narration, a myth or a social construction among many
others. See also Pauline Marie Rosenau, Post-Modernism and the Social
Sciences: Insights, Inroads, and Intrusions (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
4
92 JoPHE 63
1

vol. 63, no. 1, 2013, pp. 93106
Genealogy, Nietzsche, and the Historical

Analysis of Concepts
Marcus Edward Johnson, The University of Georgia
Introduction
Within the philosophy and history of education, the term genealogy is
applied in at least two different ways. The philosophical use of genealogy
is generally associated with state-of-nature stories made familiar by
Hobbes, Rousseau, and Locke, while the historical use of genealogy
usually takes the more-familiar form of an historical narrative. Both
historical and philosophical uses of genealogy can be traced back to
(though certainly beyond) Friedrich Nietzsches On the Genealogy of
Morality (1887/2010). In this essay I explore differences between the
historical and philosophical uses of genealogy, examining an important
difference in the way this methodology is used within the history of
education. I suggest that genealogical analyses informed by Nietzsches
critiques of metaphysics and morality can help both historians and
philosophers of education engage concepts normally resistant to
analysis.
Recent Use of Genealogy in the History of Education
Within the history of education, genealogies generally are associated
with Michel Foucaults (1984) historical work and in education within
two essays by Kathleen Weiler (2006) and Jonas Qvarsebo (2012) who
perform genealogical analyses. Both essay authors explain historically
how a belief or way of thinking comes to be accepted as a precursor for
challenging that belief. For Weiler, such study illuminates the historical
role of women in the US history of progressive education. For
Qvarsebo, such study addresses a period of Swedens progressive
educational reform and that countrys belief in the advancement of
democratic principles. It is no mere coincidence that both authors
genealogies apply to histories of progressive education, since progressive
histories notoriously are rife with teleological renderings of history, thus
providing fertile ground for genealogical work.
Weiler (2006) shows prudence in pointing out Foucaults historical
overgeneralizations before explaining differences between modernist
(progressive and Marxist) and postmodernist (Foucauldian) frameworks.
2
94 M. E. Johnson
She explains that whereas modernist historians generally seek to discover

what actually happened, historians employing a genealogical method
and adopting postmodern epistemological commitments are more likely
to think of historical research as a process of interpreting the past
practices of interpretation (p. 165). Studying the ways in which truth
historically has been produced shifts the object of inquiry from the
world itself to how we have come to understand and conceptualize the
world. For example, rather than studying what women historically have
done, the genealogist studies how femininity has been conceived and
how it came to be conceived during various eras.
Understanding how particular periods people and their peoples
truths come to be imagined also motivates Qvarsebos genealogical study
of Swedish progressive school politics (2012). Like Weiler, Qvarsebo
employs Foucaults (1984) seminal essay Nietzsche, Genealogy,
History to explain how genealogies do not presume essences underlay
those social concepts studied, and how what gets counted as true
(what one believes to be true) is not solely the result of one finding out
what the world is really like through the use of good methods and
sources, but rather that what is taken as truth is determined by historical
(social) processes. Because those conducting genealogical analyses
approach the world from a constructivist rather a realist epistemology,
this methodology is well-suited for developing alternative interpretations
to traditional historical narratives such as the progress of democratic
educational reforms.
In Weilers (2006) feminist historiography of progressive education
she attempts to understand how historians conceptions of gender have
influenced the writing of the history of progressive education. She uses
genealogy to analyze historians constructions of gender before moving
on to examine the privilege traditionally afforded white male Western
perspectives (p. 163). Thus, Weiler follows her postmodern genealogy
with a modernist gender analysis in which she makes use of language
associated with the structural oppression of one group of people by
another. This move causes some epistemological tension to develop
within her analysis. The postmodern (poststructural) conception of truth
as discursively produced leads her to conclude that ascribing the
condition of privilege is itself an imposition, and that any such
historiography is itself a narrative, which she acknowledges to be
produced in response to the social imaginary and what is defined as a
problem (p. 165) of a particular time and place. Weilers own
poststructural position thus seems to require she acknowledge the
ascriptions of privilege and marginalization are merely conceptual
productions of her own communitys social imagination and therefore
only meaningful or true in reference to certain discourses. Moreover,
3
Genealogy, Neitzche, & the Historical Analysis of Concepts 95
ethical beliefs or claims associated with structural oppression,

marginalization, or privilege cannot be seen as having universal warrant,
but rather as evaluations developed in reference to some particular
vantage.
While Weilers epistemological coupling creates tension, this
comingling is not entirely without historical warrant. Her emancipatory
use of genealogy can be traced directly back to Foucault (2003) himself,
who at one point defines genealogy as the tactic which, once it has
described these local discursivities, brings into play the desubjugated
knowledges that have been released from them (pp. 1011), and who
recommends genealogy as a way of playing local, discontinuous,
disqualified, or nonlegitimized knowledges (p. 8) against a canon
accepted and enforced as truth. Although Foucaults deployment of
disqualified knowledge against the official and taken-for-granted is
especially effective in providing an approach from which to critique
commonly accepted interpretations or concepts, he in no way suggests
the marginalized perspective exists outside of discourse and is thus more
objective or true. His idea offers a point at which critical theory and
postmodern theory part ways, for whereas the critical theorist claims
marginalization and oppression are (universally) bad, the postmodernist
argues all value statements function merely as historic, discursive
productions.
Due to genealogical analysis deconstructive processes, it seems
better suited as a methodology used for challenging established doctrines
than for making evaluations. Therefore, a study such as Qvarsebos
(2012), which challenges an historical interpretations accepted truth but
does not fall into oppression discourse, lacks this same internal tension.
Because of this, his study strays less from Nietzsches (1968) model,
which, in addition to stressing the repudiation of essences1 (p. 309),
and the historicizing of concepts, also calls into question the moral
foundation of oppression discourse.2
As evidenced within Weilers and Qvarsebos essays, genealogical
analysis is somewhat compatible with a long line of social and critical
history. However, because of its postmodern underpinnings,
genealogical analysis yields a considerably different product than that
normally produced by critical theorists and social historians. Such
differences are of particular interest to educational historians and
theorists whose studies of intellectual history align neither with
progressive models proposing historical teloi, nor the rational and
developmental movement of society toward states of greater
enlightenment, nor the moral progress of humanity through the
application of reason.3 By methodological design, the genealogical
4
96 M. E. Johnson
historian is therefore inclined to interpret events simplified in ways that

cause events to appear more complex, challenging the taken-for-granted:
this in stark contrast to the progressive historian who by virtue of his or
her theory finds progress, and the Marxist historian who is
methodologically bound to look for and thus find oppression.
Nietzsche and the Philosophy of Education
While Nietzsches influence within the history of education
primarily occurs indirectly through Foucaults theory, his work has had a
more direct influence within the philosophy of education. Scholars
arguments making use of Nietzsches work cover a range of topics
including (anti)democratic education (Jonas, 2009, 2012; Sassone, 1996);
epistemology, truth, and perspectivism (Jonas, 2008); pedagogy and
teaching (Bingham, 2001; Johnston, 1998); genealogy (McEwan, 2011);
and morality (Fitzsimons, 2007). Perhaps his notion that makes the best
starting point for my discussion, authors often cite Nietzsches notion of
perspective as initiating traditional philosophys deconstruction and
giving rise to postmodern theories of truth and subjectivity (Ramaekers,
2001). For the genealogist, the importance of emphasizing perspective is
clear; one is the product of history, and what gets counted as truth is the
product of collective histories. Collective histories are the result of prior
truth constructions ad infinitum. One might thus conclude Nietzschean
perspectivism proposes truth is mediated by historyand one must dig
through his or her history in order to get to the truth of the matter;
however, Nietzsches approach is somewhat more complicated since he
claims no real world exists beyond perspective, so digging into history
cannot allow one to uncover sedimented truths. All that can be
uncovered are sedimented truths which may then be reinterpreted in
reference to ones particular (and also shared) perspective.4
Nietzsches (1968) perspectivism results from his critique of
metaphysics in which he claims there are no things-in-themselves and no
essences. There is no more real world in which Plato and his
interlocutors might have found the thing-in-itself of beauty, courage,
justice, etc. There is no truth behind or beyond concepts. Humans
construct the thing-in-itself and, in turn, the world of meaning has been
and continues to be constructed.
A thing-in-itself just as perverse as a sense-in-itself, a
meaning-in-itself. There are no facts-in-themselves, for a
sense must always be projected into them before they can be
facts. The question what is that? is an imposition of
meaning from some other viewpoint. Essence, the essential
nature, is something perspective and already presupposes a
5
multiplicity. At the bottom of it, there always lies what is that

for me? (p. 301)
Moreover, concepts themselves do not possess a stable unity, for there
is nothing underlying concepts that holds them together; concepts are
loose, as Wittgenstein (1994) explains half a century after Nietzsche. A
prejudice toward essences, absolutes, and universals has had the effect
of leading past and present thinkers to deny concepts (truths) have
developed over time and in reference to contextual influences. Nietzsche
(1889) claims because of its history, philosophy has developed a lack of
historical sense, leading humans to believe what really exists is that which
does not change; the essential endures through time and is real while all
else is merely accidental. In order to rectify a misguided privileging of
being over becoming, Nietzsche sought to infuse philosophy with the
corrective of history. The significance of his historicizing of philosophy
is that it leads to the development of genealogical analysis which helps
one comprehend (i.e., master) timeless concepts such as good and evil
by moving them into ones perceptual horizon, and enabling a
genealogist to engage them.
Two Models of Genealogy
Hunter McEwan (2011) characterizes genealogies as hypothetical
constructions that offer plausible accounts of how things originate. He
credits Rousseau with the argument genealogies are not to be taken for
historical truths, but merely as hypothetical and conditional reasonings,
fitter to illustrate the nature of things, than to show their true origins
(p. 126). The concept of genealogy as a state-of-nature story is also
developed by Miranda Fricker5 (2011), who attempts to distinguish the
historians question of how X has come about? from the
philosophers question of how it is possible that X has come about?
(p. 58). She suggests answers to the historians questions are (possibly)
true explanations of X, while answers to the philosophers questions
(possibly) provide an understanding of X. Thus, conceived as being
related to meaning and understanding, genealogies neither ask empirical
questions nor are judged by empirical criteria. The standard they must
meet is that of plausibility.
Genealogies can be helpful when placed alongside empirical studies
because they help to illuminate what conditions must (or might) have
been in order for it to be possible for X to have occurred. Thus a
genealogy allows one to tell a narrative, explanatory story about some
concept even when the situation is so complex and dispersed that there
could never be a single, true narrative. Accordingly, a good
philosophical genealogy is a narrative that makes sense of a complex,
historied event even though that narrative is not (and cannot be)
6
98 M. E. Johnson
empirically true, and even though the narrative does not provide the only
possible interpretation or meaning. Nietzsches genealogy of morality
can therefore be understood in this way: it tells a story that cannot
possibly be true given the complexity of the history of moral
sentiments, but by exposing the concept of good to genealogical analysis
and then constructing a story of competing moral systems, Nietzsche
helps one reconsider his or her current moral prejudices.
The narrative concept of genealogy utilized by Weiler, Qvarsebo,
and Foucault has a different emphasis than the state-of-nature model.
Whereas Fricker makes a distinction between empirically true history
and genealogy, Foucaults post-epistemological notion of truth does not
advance such a distinction. If truths are constructed through discourses,
genealogical narratives, like empirical histories, are then justified and
counted as true only in reference to particular, socially constructed,
belief systems. Neither empirical history nor genealogy captures truth,
but imposes it in reference to the belief system to which a scholar allies
and subordinates him or herself. Thus, rather than genealogy serving as
handmaiden or squire to empirical history, Foucault (1984) offers
genealogy as a stand-alone alternative presented not as the lofty and
profound gaze of the philosopher might compare to the mole-like
perspective of the scholar (p. 77), but as meticulous, textual analysis
significant because it refers to the complex relation between empirical
work and truth.
Correspondence theory is abandoned by Foucault in part because
genealogys object of inquiry is different than in certain models of
empirical history. To the extent empirical history captures the exact
essence of things, their purest possibilities, and their carefully protected
identities genealogists are resistant, because this search presumes the
existence of immobile forms that precede the external world of accident
and succession (p. 78). For Foucault, the genealogy is empirical work as
well, yet genealogists do not ascribe to a causal theory of truth. Although
facts are social constructions, they nevertheless are used as data. As a
result traditional, empirical history proves no truer than genealogy, and
thus the need to entertain Frickers distinction between empirical history
and genealogy is eliminated.
State-of-nature and Foucauldian versions of genealogy are different,
yet ultimately they converge since both call for construction of a
narrative whose purpose is to make meaning. A quick thought-
experiment that helps to clarify this difference involves a genealogical
analysis using both styles in order to see how the two produce
genealogies genealogically. Starting with the historical model, Foucaults
method insists one begin at the concept genealogy, tracing it back,
7
paying attention to changes in the concept, and seeking the interests

served by each differential reproduction of the concept. The product of
Foucauldian analysis is a history of how the uses and understandings of
genealogy have changed over time along with an analysis of social
factors that led to that change. A traditional historian might claim that,
except for its overt dismissal of accepted disciplinary practices, this sort
of study is no different than traditional history, and he or she would be
partially correct. On the surface, Foucauldian genealogy looks very
similar to intellectual (conceptual) history. The difference resides mostly
under the surface, so to speak, reflected within the genealogists post-
epistemological beliefs.
On the other hand, if one were to employ Frickers (2011) state-of-
nature genealogy to genealogy, one would trace the concept back from the
present, analyzing and then discussing changes in use and conception,
returning all the way to the origin to ask how genealogy becomes
possible. An example might be seeking to understand those conditions
under which genealogical inquiry could be conceived as being either in
opposition to empirical history or related to empirical history. A
different state-of-nature genealogist might uncover conditions required
for distinguishing between narratives deemed historical and narratives
deemed philosophical. Both state-of-nature examples can be interpreted
as removing genealogical analysis from the purview of history and
placing it instead within that of philosophy. If so, the extent to which an
historian pursues knowledge of what happened rather than considering the
conditions which must have held in order for one to be able to think in a
particular way renders state-of-nature genealogy less relevant for
historians. Therefore, it seems Foucauldian narrative genealogy, which
collapses the philosophy/history distinction, could be used more by
historians of education.
So, although Foucauldian genealogies are more prevalent within the
history of education, one might ask whether or not Foucaults model of
genealogy rings true to Nietzsches conceptionwhose ideas Foucault
claims to develop. Such a question is out of place, however, given that
neither Foucault nor Nietzsche believes truth exists beyond
interpretation. Even though Foucault draws from Nietzsches work, he
creates his own purposes for genealogy: purposes not the same as
Nietzsches. In fact, some of Foucaults claims regarding the purpose of
genealogy are at odds with the uses to which Nietzsche puts genealogy.
Take, for example, Foucaults (2003) seemingly emancipatory comments
I mentioned previously. While Foucault appears to be interested in de-
marginalizing the subjugated, Nietzsche (1895/1990) is not interested in
the power of genealogy to liberate the oppressed. His focus instead is
8
100 M. E. Johnson
upon promoting the (great) individuals self-overcoming (Nietzsche,

1968, 1969). Consider, too, the thinkers remarks regarding the origins of
concepts. Foucault (1984), on the one hand, goes to great lengths to
suggest genealogy does not search for origins, whereas Nietzsche
(1887/2010) does not appear troubled by references to the origins of
ideas.6
In accordance with the spirit of genealogical work, I make neither
attempt to state what genealogy is nor to censure thinkers for
misrepresenting an original or true conception of genealogy. However,
by analyzing genealogists theoretical presuppositions and the ways in
which various conceptions of genealogy have been utilized, the strengths
and weaknesses of different models are made more clear to those
interested in genealogical analyses.
The Genealogy of Morality
In the Genealogy of Morality Nietzsche (1887/2010) develops his
critiques of moral prejudices already published in Human, All Too Human
(1878/1998) and Beyond Good and Evil (1886/2012). His prior analyses of
morality are not genealogical; they are written in Nietzsches peculiar,
aphoristic style of philosophizing. What moves Nietzsche to transcribe
the general thesis of Beyond Good and Evil into a genealogical analysis
seems to be a study of morality written by his friend, Paul Ree.7
Although Ree describes his work on ethics as genealogical, Nietzsche
takes issue with Rees use of the term.
Indeed, in Rees work Nietzsche (1887/2010) identifies a problem
he sees as endemic to both the history and the philosophy of his day:
both lack historical spirit. According to Nietzsche, the error of moral
philosophers/historians resides in their mistaken presumption that
current, other-centered morality has been present in some form from the
beginning. The moralists therefore err in constructing a history that
presupposes that which they analyze; they then reify something that does
not exist before tracing its history. Prior moral genealogists hold the
current conception of morality evolved over time, being honed, freed
from contradictions, and perfected until reaching its current, developed
state. Nietzsche (1968), however, rejects the guiding hand a universal
rationality requires to drive such a process, instead offering a multiplicity
of forces with no teloi beyond growth. Rather than presuming an
essence for goodness is real and can be located, Nietzsche proposes our
conception of goodness isand has always beenboth contested and
in flux.
In Genealogy, Nietzsche examines taken-for-granted moral beliefs. In
three essays, focusing on (1) good, bad, and evil, (2) guilt and bad
conscience, and (3) ascetic ideals, Nietzsche argues the common
conception of goodness has an unexpected origin; it is born of
9
ignobility. Contemporary European morality, he argues, is based upon

development of a slave morality founded in opposition to an already-
existing noble morality which held sway among ancient Greeces and
much of pre-Christian Europes ruling classes. The noble conception of
morality has roots, claims Nietzsche, in the positive awareness
aristocratic people had of themselves. Ancient nobility saw themselves
as exemplars of humanity; good qualities included bravery, courage,
beauty, wealth, honesty, power, and the ability to help ones friends and
injure ones enemies. By contrast, the undistinguished and unrenowned
mass of peoplethe uncourageous, the dishonest, the incapable, and
the physically unexceptionalall lacked those qualities held by ancient
nobility and therefore branded not good.
Methodologically, Nietzsche (1887/2010) supports his
interpretation through etymological analysis of those terms used for
good across languages. He argues that, in earlier times, noble and
aristocratic were cognates of good. On the other hand, common,
plebian and low were all cognates of bad. This relation is
expressed in the German, for example, through the word schlecht,
meaning bad, and its cognate, schlicht, meaning plain or simple (p. 13). A
second example uses the Greek word (esthlos), which originally
meant genuine or real, but which came to denote aristocratic, so was
used in association with good. Nietzsche notes that, with the decline
of Greeces aristocracy, the word ripens and comes to connote a
spiritual noblesse in opposition to the naturalistic connotation associated
with the aristocratic use of the term (p. 14). The differential, historical
reproduction of concepts that provides evidence for Nietzsches
genealogy suggests the contemporary conception of good neither
unfolds nor develops along linear lines, but within two competing
systems, each with different origins and different worldviews. By
Nietzsches time one such system, slave morality, comes to gain the
advantage.
According to Nietzsche, the ancients saw unhappy, pitiable, and
contemptable commoners not as evil, but as unfortunate, and their
naturalistic morality reflects the ancients pagan worldview. For the
ancients goodness did not refer to some spiritual realm that lay beyond,
but to the way things were experienced in the realand onlyworld.
However, with the development of a new value systemone with roots
in resentment (ressentiment)goodness then morphed from a worldly to a
spiritual quality. Only after such a new and different way of seeing the
world is ushered in does a concept such as evil develop.
Tracing the word good back from its present to past uses reveals
to Nietzsche how the noble system relied upon a rather simple
0
102 M. E. Johnson
calculation. The aristocratic warrior classes exhibited and strove to

exhibit qualities that earned them power and maintained their power;
those qualities which allowed people to live well were understood to be
good. Nobles were unconcerned with those who were not good and
did not trouble their moral system to account for the not good.
Nietzsche suggests slave morality, however, is far more complex. It
begins with and requires maintenance of a feeling of resentment against
those with power. The weak and powerless through whom this ethical
system develops would have loved to take revenge on those who
dismissed them, but they could not or dared not act on their desire. All
they could do was think bad thoughts about those in power and express
their confusing feelings of envy and dislike for their superiors. This
expression of thinking-bad-thoughts is eventually codified in moral terms,
and the good (the excellent nobility) become evil (the oppressive
aristocracy). Thus, Nietzsche contends, this moral system is based not
upon a sense of positive self-worth, but upon a negative, resentful
evaluation of those who live well and who have agency. The result is that
qualities associated with the powerless come to be seen as good qualities:
humility, meekness, patience, forgiveness, tolerance, etc. Despite the fact
good qualities had been forced upon those who lacked agency to do
or be otherwise, the masses, through priests, reinterpret the world so as
to create virtue from weakness. Blessed then are the meek, the poor, the
patient, and the humble. Nietzsches genealogy suggests our present
desire for equality and the positive regard we have for the oppressed and
the marginalized have their roots in this extended act of transvaluation.
Nietzsche used genealogy to trace a concept back through history to
reveal a point where the concept changes. What today is considered
good was, at other time and place, valued wholly differently.
Moreover, what was thought to be one was found to be two: despite
presumed unity, difference was discovered. Even though neither notion
of goodness is offered as truer than the other, Nietzsches work suggests
goodness can be seen differently and can be engaged in a markedly
different way than previously thought.
Conclusion
Genealogical analyses take different forms and have been put to
different ends within the philosophy and history of education. In the
philosophy of education, and within philosophy more broadly, a
genealogy can be presented as a state-of-nature story allowing a scholar
to pose questions and suggest answers to what conditions held or might
have held in the past in order for changes to concepts to have occurred.
In the study of the history of education genealogy is being used to
challenge accepted historical narratives, particularly those that
1
presuppose the progressive development of morality, reason, and well-

being. Among historians of education are those who link genealogy to
critical approaches in order to uncover or combat marginalization or
oppression. While genealogy might supplement this critical approach, a
tension within the underlying theoretical paradigms makes alliance
uneasy. Although much work in the history of education squarely
focuses on seeking out any and all forms of oppression and
marginalization, Nietzsches Genealogy of Morality calls one to reconsider
the moral foundations of his theoretical framework.
Genealogy offers scholars working in Educational Foundations
departments and elsewhere an interdisciplinary methodology that
incorporates postmodern critiques of the subject, truth, and morality,
and acknowledges the productive, rather than merely reflective, nature of
language. Adopting postmodern sensibilities into a methodology
decreases the likelihood a scholar will revert to such onerous practices as
positing essences, things-in-themselves, universal truths, or universal
reason. The genealogical historian/philosopher then becomes less prone
to believe he or she has uncovered or discovered hidden truth, and will
be more likely to acknowledge he or she has imposed an interpretation
upon a collection of data. Finally, the genealogist possesses tools to
challenge those concepts which, due to their centrality within a
conceptual system, are protected and therefore practically
unchallengeable from within. Many avenues of research are open to the
genealogist; those rendered largely unquestionable from within Marxist
paradigms include equality, oppression, marginalization, and privilege.
Within liberal paradigms universal rationality, progress, and markets
resist analysis. Other concepts ripe for historical, genealogical
deconstruction include democracy, method, validity, coding, and
accountability. Tracing these concepts histories, the genealogist, in
asking not what is x?, but rather providing an interpretation for how x
became so, helps keep philosophy and history of education from becoming
too burdened by one or two overly sedimented theories whose core
concepts seemingly have become unchallengeable.
Endnotes
1 Oddly, however, Qvarsebo (2012) states the analytical strategy is

geared towards trying to capture some essential patterns of discourse (p.
6, emphasis added) which seems to weaken his earlier claim that
genealogy never assumes an underlying essence (p. 4) and suggests
2
104 M. E. Johnson
Qvarsebo might believe essences do exist,but that the

genealogical historian does not presuppose their existence.
2 Qvarsebos (2012) position is not closer in the positive sense of
making Nietzschean ethical claims. Rather, by not participating in the
oppression discourse, Qvarsebo does not work in contradiction to
Nietzsches remarks on morality.
3 The work of Thomas Popkewitz comes to mind, including Popkewitz
(2011).
4 For an extended discussion see Jonas (2008).
5 Fricker is not a philosopher of education, but an epistemologist.
However, her explanation of genealogy as a state-of-nature story
(2011) provides more to work with than does McEwans (2011), since
she directly addresses epistemological concerns regarding genealogies
as state-of-nature stories in comparison to narrative history. However,
Frickers and McEwans conceptions of genealogy appear very similar.
6 Keith Ansell-Pearson (2010) seems correct in claiming Nietzsche
opposes himself to the search for origins only when this involves what
we might call a genealogical narcissism. Where it involves the
discovery of difference at the origin, of the kind that surprises and
disturbs us, Nietzsche is in favor of such a search (p. xx).
7 The Origin of Moral Sensations (1877).
References
Ansell-Pearson, K. (2010). Introduction: On Nietzsches critique of

morality. On the Genealogy of Morality (pp. xiiixxix). Cambridge, UK:
Cambridge University Press.
Bingham, C. (2001). What Friedrich Nietzsche cannot stand about
education: Toward a pedagogy of self-reformulation. Educational
Theory, 51(3), 337352. doi: 10.1111/j.1741-5446.2001.00337.x
Fitzsimons, P. (2007). The end of Kant-in-himself: Nietzschean
difference. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 39(5), 559570. doi:
10.1111/j.1469-5812.2007.00245.x
Foucault, M. (1984). Nietzsche, genealogy, history. In P. Rabinow (Ed.),
The Foucault reader (pp. 76100). New York: Pantheon.
Foucault, M. (2003). Society must be defended. Lectures at the College of
France, 19751976 (D. Macey, Trans.). New York: Picador.
3
Fricker, M. (2011). Rational authority and social power: Towards a truly

social epistemology. In A. Goldman, & D. Whitcomb (Eds.), Social
epistemology: Essential readings (pp. 5468). Oxford, UK: Oxford
University Press.
Johnston, J. S. (1998). Nietzsche as educator: A reexamination.
Educational Theory, 48(1), 6783. doi: 10.1111/j.1741-
5446.1998.00067.x
Jonas, M. (2008). Finding truth in lies: Nietzsches perspectivism and
its relation to education. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 42(2), 269
285. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9752.2008.00623.x
Jonas, M. (2009). A (r)evaluation of Nietzsches anti-democratic
pedagogy: The overman, perspectivism, and self-overcoming. Studies
in Philosophy and Education, 28(2), 153169. doi: 10.1007/s11217-008-
9107-1
Jonas, M. (2012). Gratitude, ressentiment, and citizenship education.
Studies in Philosophy and Education, 31(1), 2946. doi: 10.1007/s11217-
011-9261-8
Lingis, A. (1977). The will to power. In D. Allision (Ed.), The new
Nietzsche (pp. 3763). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
McEwan, H. (2011). Narrative reflection in the philosophy of teaching:
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125140. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9752.2010.00783.x
Nietzsche, F. (1878/1998). Human, all too human (R. J. Hollingdale,
Trans.). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Nietzsche, F. W. (1886/2012). Beyond good and evil: Prelude to a philosophy of
the future. Lexington, KY: Costa.
Nietzsche, F. (1887/2010). On the genealogy of morality (C. Diethe, Trans.).
Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Nietzsche, F. (1967). The will to power (W. Kaufmann, & R. J. Hollingdale,
Trans.). New York: Random House.
Nietzsche, F. (1968). The will to power (W. Kaufmann, & R. J. Hollingdale,
Trans.). New York: Vintage.
Popkewitz, T. S. (2011). Curriculum history, schooling and the history of
the present. History of Education, 40(1), 119.
Qvarsebo, J. U. D. (2012). Swedish progressive school politics and the
disciplinary regime of the school, 19461962: A genealogical
perspective. Pdagogica Historica, 49(2), 217235. doi:
10.1080/00309230.2012.725841
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Sassone, L. A. (1996). Philosophy across the curriculum: A democratic

Nietzschean pedagogy. Educational Theory, 46(4), 511524. doi:
10.1111/j.1741-5446.1996.00511.x
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vol. 63, no. 1, 2013, pp. 107120
The Relation Among Philosophy,

Psychology, and Social Theory in
St. Louis Public Schools Educational
Foundations and Subsequent Curricula
Kenneth M. Burke, Washington University in St. Louis
Introduction
Frank Louis Soldan, Superintendent of St. Louis Public Schools between
1895 and 1908, acknowledges: It is a just demand that the school
should move along with the progressive movement of society at large.1
However, while this Progressive Era educator recognizes the need for
education to be guided by changes in the social, political, and economic
environments, he equally understands the features of society change
more quickly than the waves of a river.2 And adjusting to change does
not prove uncomplicated. That said, historical research on St. Louis
public education reveals city schools did not follow lines typifying
educations Progressive Era. From economic change and
industrialization to immigration and issues related to race and gender,
numerous themes prove relevant given their influence on public
schooling throughout the Progressive Era. In St. Louis, the progressive
education movements impact is revealed by Board decisions on
immigrant instruction as well as through curricular elements focused
upon the value of exploring ones natural environment through
excursions into nature. Since definitive changes in many US schools
involve the replacement of a classical, liberal-arts course of study with a
manual-training and industrial-arts curriculum, in this paper I investigate
the motivating rationales for this revolution in thinking as it relates to
the philosophical underpinnings of ideas espoused by influential St.
Louis-area leaders. Following parallels with psychology, change in the St.
Louis public schools transfigures a community-oriented learning
philosophy that promotes intellectual and moral development into
curricula that orchestrates control of the individual through a behaviorist
disregard for the mind.
Textbook knowledge of the Progressive Era recounts a time when
educators implemented Froebelian principles following reformers such
as Francis Wayland Parker and her emphasis on experiential learning
2
108 K. M. Burke
while disdaining harsh disciplinary approaches.3 Of course, the opposite

proves true depending on what books or journals one reads or
classrooms one visited; and it is no coincidence the most famous
American theorists of the new education were not teachers or if so left
the classroom quickly.4 In the same way historians continue to rethink
the Progressive Era in general,5 my research herein illustrates St. Louis
schools of the period did not exactly embrace and follow the watershed
of liberal-oriented ideas one commonly associates with progressivism.
This being the case, it is important to examine the ways in which
psychology theorists and educational practitioners witness the onset of
American functionalism and related social theories mutually
interdependent with economic change and industrialization. In so doing,
educational leaders pursue ends proving rather at odds with a textbook
reading of Progressive-Era thinking. Historical trends in St. Louis
education system illustrate this.
In this paper I begin by focusing upon the Philosophical Society of
St. Louis and the citys educational philosophy foundations, then move
to make connections with psychology as it emerged in the late-19th and
early-20th centuries. I illustrate how developments in early-American
psychology and social theory underscore a rationale for the
implementation of a manual-training or industrial-arts curriculum. I then
describe how curricular change dominates the direction of St. Louis
public education into the height of the Progressive Era. I argue the
justifications of such transformations closely mirror shifts within
psychology and social psychology during the same period. While I do
not purposefully proceed with bias against the industrial arts, the social
and political implications of these curricular changes cannot be ignored
as functionalism sets the stage for the ascendency of behavioral
psychology. Where available, resources fail unequivocally to support St.
Louis educators explicit justification of decisions through a particular
intellectual fashion; furthermore, archival research into the overall
influence and impact of psychology must be undertaken to arrive at
decisive conclusions. Nevertheless, St. Louis educators decisions
correlation with prevailing trends in psychology are well evidenced as
they abandon a classical, liberal-arts curriculum and contradict a
conventional understanding of progressivism in education and US
history.
Philosophy in St. Louis and Early Psychology
The debate over a traditional liberal arts curriculum and the manual
arts as a more practical course of study begins in the latter part of the
19th century. William Torrey Harris, an influential educator in St. Louis
and the nation, supported the classical curriculum. Described as an
3
Philosophy, Psychology, & Social Theory in St. Louis Schools 109
outstanding intellectual leader in American education in the years

between the death of Horace Mann in 1859 and the emergence of John
Dewey as a spokesperson for the new education at the turn of the
century,6 Harris worked as a teacher, principal, assistant superintendent,
and superintendent of the St. Louis Public Schools. Harris also led the
Philosophical Society of St. Louis, a group of philosophers dedicated to
intellectual principles espoused by German idealist thinkers. Particularly
devoted to Hegelian thought, Harris and the St. Louis philosophers
focused on the educative significance of classical Western philosophy in
guiding public education. Many participants in the philosophical
movement served in city schools; the Society thus largely sought to
apply their work to teaching and learning.7 In many ways, despite the
fact psychologists would adopt a dissimilar set of values and
assumptions, their work can be seen as a precursor to the discipline of
educational psychology and its development throughout the Progressive
Era.
Psychologists began establishing their area of study by focusing on
solving questions philosophers customarily sought to answer. Wilhelm
Wundt, the de facto inventor of psychology as an academic discipline,8
aimed specifically to make the study of the mind an experimental science
based on structuralism in the tradition of German idealism. Such
philosophers as Kant and Hegel influenced many early psychologists
under Wundts tutelage. Although John Dewey did not train under
Wundt, Deweys early writings in the Journal of Speculative Philosophy, the
journal of the Philosophical Society of St. Louis within which he
published at the beginning of his career, remain key examples of
Wundts philosophical influence. Dewey notes the value of Kantian
epistemology while characterizing it as a predicament (drawing from
Hegels analysis of the subject), concluding, it is a crisis only as a
turning point; and a turning point is the old passing into the new, and
can be only understood as the old and the new are understood.9 The
crisis to which he refers ultimately concerns the need for a formal
science of the mind as psychologists aimed to usher philosophy into a
new era. Throughout the early-20th century, psychology nonetheless
came to advance an entirely different approach to understanding human
behavior in the same way that St. Louis educators forged a different
direction from such thinkers as Harris and the St. Louis philosophers.
Part of the Progressive Era, at the beginning of the 20th century, US
psychologistswith great enthusiasmbase psychology on the
optimistic progress of scientific achievement, claiming uniqueness if not
a sense of superiority.10 However, as many US psychologists carried
back only the experimental skeleton (and institutional academic
program) of Wundts psychology,11 they eventually reject psychologys
4
110 K. M. Burke
epistemological foundations in philosophy when aspiring to advance an

empirical science. In particular, William James, Deweys pragmatist peer,
separates the discipline from its philosophical roots by emphasizing the
biological and physiological aspects of psychology. Although James
attended meetings of the Philosophical Society, his relationships with
such leaders as Harris were less than genial.12 In turn, while German
psychology maintains a philosophical basis, US psychology follows a
different path which eventually finds a unifying frame of reference in a
functionalism at odds with Wundts structuralism.13 US psychologys
conversions mirror those within St. Louis schools as well as the
underlying rationale for an industrial arts curriculum. Harris mostly
rejects this curricular change believing it will evolve into a class-based,
vocational system,14 but his support for a curriculum based on
intellectual development through the liberal arts clashes with another
leading voice: Board of Education President Calvin Woodward.
Social Theory and Functionalism in Education
The broad influence of psychology is revealed in Woodwards 1906
address to the American Association for the Advancement of Science
entitled The Science of Education. Woodward notes contributions
from physiological psychology,15 which, through James and British
psychologist Edward B. Titcheners works, underscore psychologists
increasingly biological and somewhat pseudo-physiological interests as
they endeavored to fashion the discipline into a formal science.
Woodward therefore speaks to these trends when articulating a rationale
for advancing a manual-arts curriculum: a healthy brain and timely
growth and development of the brain is to be promoted by an education
involving a great variety of activities, skillfully adjusted as to quality and
quantity to the mental and physical status of the child.16 Acknowledging
the relationship between a healthy body and a healthy brain actually
becomes common in the times educational thinking and philosophy: the
golden age of physical education. Intramural sports arise and
educators begin to emphasize the value of extracurricular activities.
Following the ideas of such idealist philosophers as Hegel (though the
same cannot be said for Woodwards functional views), progressive
thinkers motivation for so doing stems from a desire to develop
coperation and teamwork.
Hegelian philosophy itself promotes a social view that human
individuality develops through social relations, another philosophical
influence on the development of psychology.17 Such psychologists as
Dewey approach social relations in the same way and such often-
neglected thinkers as George Herbert Mead take an interest in
coperative processes and interpersonal relations by way of a
5
biological science within a social context.18 However, the concepts

espoused by each of these theorists do not always translate accurately
into the Progressive Eras educational context. Based on Deweys
recognition of the school as a community, educators begin to promote
extracurricular activities because they create social loyalty and a sense of
interdependence, but history also suggests educators interpret Deweys
theory to imply individualism must be eradicated and the social life of
the student regulated as the social theories of the Progressive Era
underwent some strange transformations.19 Such dichotomous
interpretations of social theory bring one to consider disparate
trepidations over unanswered questions concerning Darwinism within
functionalist thought, since both Darwinism and functionalism
undermine the form of structuralism being used to define early
psychology (a problem I further note and discuss as behaviorism takes
the main stage). Misconceptions about earlier thinkers social psychology
later leads to differing constructions and interpretations of psychologys
meaning in educational thinking. In St. Louis City Schools, Woodwards
defense of the manual arts typifies how psychology pursued divergent
ends that controverted other leaders philosophical underpinnings.
As psychologists likewise mixed Titcheners mental concepts with
a multitude of other concerns that characterized American [functionalist]
thinking,20 Woodward does the same in justifying the manual arts.
Nonetheless, ultimately he proves less concerned with the structure of
the brain than its functional action. Between 1890 and 1910,
psychologists G. Stanley Hall and James M. Baldwin capture
psychologys theoretical scene in much the same way. Titchener
maintains a philosophical grounding by importing Wundts notion of the
mind into his work and by moving toward a synthesis of structuralism
and functionalism. However, functionalists James, Hall, and Baldwin
nevertheless dominated, emphasizing only the functional operations of
the brain.21 During the same time period, Mead advances a social
psychology dependent upon experience and its ontogenetic origins,
iterating knowledge develops socially.22 Woodward represents, or rather
misrepresents, social psychology in order to justify the utilitarianism that
runs contrary to such social theorists as Deweys and Meads Hegelian
foundations. Woodwards defense of the manual arts does advance the
rationale: class conflict, industrial alienation, and urban violence could
be avoided if people learned to work with their hands.23 Woodward
also refrains from discounting the economic value of the industrial
arts,24 while alleging the benefit of physical activity for academics.
Notwithstanding his functionalist beliefs, Woodwards educational
premises thus mime his peers beliefs that a healthy body leads to a
healthy brain, yet his professed benefits of manual training would
become lost in the quick evolution of his ideas.
6
112 K. M. Burke
The Psychology of Social Progress in St. Louis

Despite Woodwards efforts, throughout the nineteenth century the
industrial arts curriculum does not receive significant support from the
Board of Education,25 but by the turn of the century his vision does
indeed prevail. St. Louis competes with other burgeoning American
cities, particularly Chicago; its population and industry grows throughout
the late-nineteenth century and prior to the economic depression of
18931897.26 Many school districts throughout the nation struggle to
adapt to the early Progressive Eras changing environment. The new
curriculum produces considerable difference of opinion among St.
Louis Board of Education members, but produces unanimous
agreement over its educational desirability and value,27 so St. Louis
Public Schools choose to expand Progressive Era-influenced curricular
changes. A member of the St. Louis Philosophical Society, Soldan
becomes the first superintendent openly to accommodate curricular
change, yet his support might best be described as permissive, but
reluctant. During his early tenure, the 45th Annual Report to the Board
describes the curriculums institutionalization and those provisions used
to maintain existing programs and develop additional programming
within the segregated school system for both white and Black students.
Without losing the argument for its value to students academic
development, the influence of Woodwards philosophy in the Board
decision proves evident:
Whatever may be the utilitarian value of the new feature of
district school workand it is admitted that it has such
valuemanual training in the form in which it has been
introduced, derives its chief importance, not from utilitarian,
but from educational reasons; in other words, it is self-evident
that the principle of manual training cannot be to educate
professional carpenters or cooks, but to contribute to the
training of the hand, to the general education of the child, and
to develop faculties and powers which can less readily be
reached by work of more literary character.28
Believing history demonstrates the intelligence of man has
developed and grown apace with the practical demands which his
physical environment made on him as a worker,29 Board members
maintain hand-training strengthens ones tenacity for the cultivation
and growth of a healthy, academic mind. By the end of Soldans
superintendency, the rationale for curricular change based on harmony
of mind and body can no longer be sustained. Rather, reflecting
changing trends in psychology, curriculum developers further stress a
functional relationship with the social environment. The 54th Annual
7
Report in 1908, the year Blewett becomes superintendent after Soldans

untimely death, undermines the mind-body rationale. Its authors instead
craft a curriculum that unremittingly expands the industrial arts.
Preparations for the workforce and adaptation to an industrializing
society form the primary basis of the Boards rationale. Having
established technical programs following the turn of the century, Board
members finalize plans to equip Central High School for transformation.
Anticipating putting all [St. Louis] high schools in accord with the
principle that [Board members] had recognized as the correct one,30
report writers justify manual training based on the publics need to train
students for citizenship through trade skills:
To attain social efficiency, the individual must develop
proficiency in some for that will be useful to himself and
others. To attain to high social efficiency, he must be able to
adapt his powers to the demands of changing conditions.
Above all, his ideals of social relations and obligations must be
right if he is to make proper use of his natural powers and
acquired skill.31
Given developments in psychology and progressive educations
emphasis on the social, Board members do not blatantly contradict
their earlier justification for manual training. After all, they maintain the
manual training or commercial boy sees in the boy digging in classic
literature something that he admires and respects and the domestic
science girl by her school associations learns [better] to appreciate the
civilizing graces of art and literature.32 Even so, notwithstanding class
and gender divisions that result from the curriculums alteration, both
functionalist encroachments and the superintendents thinking lack the
essential purpose Woodward professes and 1899 report writers
highlight. While previously quoting a maxim from Greek philosophy
Man has reason, because he has a hand33the 45th Annual Reports
poetic answer to Cartesian dualism no longer supports a philosophy
espousing supposed benefits for academic development. Instead,
conformity and a Darwinian adaptation to learnings industrial context
come to dominate. It is no coincidence James R. Agnell publishes the
influential paper, The Province of Functional Psychology, one year
before the 1908 report to the Board of Education.
Agnells work intensifies the contrast between the structure and
function of mental operations, whereby the mind mediates between the
environment and individual needsa Jamesian and Darwinian view of
mental life directly opposing structuralism.34 While continuing to steer
disciplinary interests away from themes related to the mind and body,
turning instead to the relationship between the individual organism and
8
114 K. M. Burke
the environment, Agnells work profoundly influences psychology by

focusing the discipline on natural selection.35 His emphasis on individual
adaptation further differentiates psychology from philosophy, for he
redefines US psychology as science of functional adaptation to align with
Darwinian evolution and separate from psychology of the mind as a
theoretical problem.36 Only Titchener rejects this strict functionalist turn
in psychology. Needless to say, justifying manual training as relevant for
academics becomes no longer necessary. Rather, the evolving
functionalist frame of reference further separates an educational
philosophy founded on intellectual and moral development from any
real or perceived benefits the manual arts might have for academics.
Moreover, rather than coperative social relations, an impetus for social
conformity motivates the report-writers reasoning. In the same way
psychologists dismiss psychologys epistemological foundations, St.
Louis Public School leaders undermine late-19th-century intellectual and
philosophical underpinnings. Thus, by the second decade of the 20th
century, behaviorists exploit functionalist ideas to a radical extreme as do
such St. Louis educational leaders as Blewett.
Similar to how the 54th Annual Report writers promote specialized
skills and adaptation for the individual to be of most value to himself
and to the state,37 Blewetts commentary less than a decade later
illustrates the quick evolution from functionalism to behaviorist, social
control and skills-based learning with an explicit disregard for the mind.
By the 60th Annual Report in 1914, Blewett maintains the primary purpose
of education is the determination or control of behavior[;] knowledge
and other organizational forms of mental life are only of secondary
importance, and even of no importance at all unless they actually or
conceivably influence behavior in some desirable way.38 Only a year
before this report, popularizing Ivan Pavlovs concepts of behavioral
conditioning in the West,39 John B. Watson publishes seminal work on
behaviorism in which he completely rejects the study of mental life.
Seeking to cleanse psychology of such notions as the mind,
consciousness, and the self to make psychology fully a science of
behavior,40 in the US he thus postpones the study of cognition until the
middle of the century. Only through German, gestalt psychologists, who
come to the US after fleeing Germany before WWII, does the potential
for a renewed cognitive science emerge in the US. By and large,
persuaded either covertly or overtly by trends, earlier reports do not
exclude the behavioral thinking that would become an obstacle both to
cognitive theory and the St. Louis Philosophical Societys vision.
In his 1908 report, Superintendent Blewett maintains training under
vocational conditions produces machine-like, efficient behavior. He
9
suggests that, as an individuals work reaches a fine-tuned specialization,

the persons faculties respond unconsciously to the accustomed
stimulus in much the same way as the parts of a machine respond
promptly and regularly and thoughtlessly to the impulse of motive
power.41 As these ideas find their way into Blewetts beliefs about
learning and the purpose of education, the distinctive relationship
between those ideas and Pavlovs theories of stimulus and response
through unconscious and impulsive behavior become obvious. As
Watson popularizes concepts of Pavlovian stimulus and response in
psychology, both structuralism and questions concerned with the mind
and the biological brain completely fail to sustain any relevance or
scientific significance within the psychology or education communities.
Although functionalism does not suffer entirely the same fate,
behaviorism supersedes any functional interest in the mind as the new
psychology claims the stage. The study of human behavior and the belief
that learning involves nothing more than changing behaviors crushes the
curricular thought of earlier, St. Louis philosophers who promoted
intellectual development through a liberal arts curriculum.
Behaviorism as the impetuous, radical offshoot of functionalism
permanently modifies the functionalist school of thought and, therefore,
the methods and theoretical assumptions of US psychology then and
today.42 As I evidence, psychology comes to intersect with shifting
advances in social psychology and divergent social theories. During the
initial stages of psychology as a science, psychologists and the new
discipline of sociology likewise disagree over the nature of their subjects.
US psychologists all too often fail to distinguish between the social and
the individual; in deference to Mead (and Hegel), psychologists come to
concern themselves with individually engaged rather than socially
engaged psychological states.43 Consequently, US social psychology
emerges as more individualistic than communal as its practitioners adopt
behaviorism. The coalescence of functionalism and behaviorism with
social psychology and a Darwinist ideology is represented within the
work of Edward A. Ross, whose theory differs from Mead in that he
focuses on the control of individual actions instead of coperation
between actions. Advancing the notion of social engineering,44 social
psychologists come to advocate theories of social control in the same
way behaviorists transformed functionalism. Emphasizing individual
conformity to a changing social environment, Blewett likewise continues
to mirror this evolution of ideas as his administration develops a
perspective akin to Ross interests in manipulating behavior to
consummate ascendency over the individual in the interest of social
change.
Superintendent Blewett writes of the need for individual action for
the larger social unit, noting the work of the school must change with
0
116 K. M. Burke
the changing needs of the state.45 As evinced through references to his

remarks in my introduction, such parallels to social theorists thinking
are present in Soldans writings and actions as Superintendent.
Nonetheless, Blewett consistently follows extreme trends throughout the
height of the Progressive Era while setting the tone for St. Louis
education system well into the period of the World Wars. Rather than
serve US democratic ideals, the individual instead serves society through
a mechanistic acceptance of the social order based upon the economic
worth of ones labor to the state. The predominance of industrial arts
over the classical curriculum solidifies by 1917; in the 1918 Annual Report
Blewett again focuses upon demands for citizenship, habits of industry,
and thrift, underscoring public control of children in regard to their
labor and training as crucial in securing such ends.46 Rather than
Deweys emphasis on coperative interactions and the importance of
community and Hegels philosophy on psychology and social theory,
Blewetts vision for St. Louis schools embodies Ross macro-oriented
psychology and notions of behaviorist control. In the context of
industrialization and World War I, that brands overlaying of social
theorizing upon educational thinking and early behaviorism
demonstrates the means to curricular change throughout the Era.
In just a few decades, psychologists no longer attempt to
comprehend psychologys separation from philosophy,47 but conclude
knowing the structure of the mind remains outside scientific knowledge;
as Dewey notes, the old failed to be understood in making way for the
new. Psychologys practice becomes limited to observable behavior: a
limitation that clinches the argument that the mind is unavailable to
science,48 thus resulting in the behaviorist creeds widespread
acceptance. Those who remember Harris influence in St. Louis
education and philosophy assert US education moved in a backwards
direction with shallow substitutes for the genuine philosophic insight
and interpretation which Dr. Harris, for example, represented and
taught.49 Remorse over the pseudo-philosophizing of behaviorism
bemoans the elevation of the knee-jerk to the plane of an important
mental phenomenon, suggesting these transformations cause an overall
devaluation of education and the destruction of any chance which the
child might have of learning how to think.50 Behaviorism comes to
subjugate all other philosophies of learning throughout the Progressive
Era.
As psychology undergoes a complete paradigm shift between 1915
and 1930from questions concerning the brains workings and the
minds structure to behaviorism and social psychologists social
engineering ideasSt. Louis educators undercut the classical
curriculums remaining core;51 the industrial-education movement thus
1
explodes.52 In a book published after his death, Soldan laments these

developments, writing the new century loses 19th-century educations
intellectual features when urban growth creates problems for public
education.53 Soldan calls philosophers and educators to recognize the
social and political implications of a system in which each individual
must labor as one of the grand army of workers, and obey the
commands of his calling, moving in the strictly circumscribed course,
and with the regularity and precision of a wheel in a never-resting, huge
machine.54 With typical, reluctant support for industrial training buried
in a single chapter of his book, Soldan still maintains the industrial arts
value for a students personal and academic development. Despite
Soldans and others efforts to balance curricula, St. Louis school leaders
abandon the early philosophy and classical, liberal arts curriculum for a
behaviorist curriculum based upon a functional relationship with the
industrializing, political economy.
Conclusion
While available sources fail unequivocally to evidence St. Louis
Public School leaders directly justifying curricular change based on any
individual psychologists writings or psychological school of thought,
evidence nevertheless points to their following the ebb and flow of
Progressive Era trends and fashions. First, closely related to St. Louis
leaders philosophical interests, US psychology eventually separates from
its epistemological grounding in philosophy originating in the work of
such thinkers as Wundt. An ideological focus on the individuals
functional development and adaptations primacy gives rise to
behaviorism. By the end of the first decades of the 20th century,
psychologists focus on the study of behavior spurs St. Louis
educational leaders to emphasize psychologys conformity and
behavioral control and view the mind as inaccessible to science. The
Progressive Eras dramatic social and industrial changes serve as
rationale for curricular change from the classical to industrial and
manual-arts curricula that dominated schooling in the same way
industrial arts curricula dictated national trends. In St. Louis, intellectual
and moral development through the liberal arts and a tradition that
iterates community and social coperation between the individual and
society loses its guiding philosophy of education. I posit further research
will reveal St. Louis schools illustrate Progressive Era educations telling
quite a different story than that with which educators are familiar; the
Progressive-Era history of psychologys shedding light on US social
movements contributes to this story and this counter-storys continual
influence on contemporary educational thinking, curriculum, and school
structures.
2
118 K. M. Burke
Endnotes
1 Frank Louis Soldan, The Century and the School and Other Educational
Essays (New York: MacMillan, 1912), 5.
2 Ibid.
3 Robert G. Owens, Organizational Behavior in Education (Boston:
Pearson, 2004), 4142.
4 William J. Reese, The Origins of Progressive Education, History of
Education Quarterly 41, no. 1 (2001): 20, 22.
5 From the influence of Richard Hofstadters The Age of Reform (New
York: Vintage, 1955) to John Buenkers Urban Liberalism and Progressive
Reform (New York: Charles Scribners Sons, 1973) and more recent
works such as Alan Dawleys Struggle for Justice (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 1991) and Michael McGerrs A Fierce
Discontent (New York: Free Press, 2003), scholars have rethought
much of the history of the Progressive Era.
6 Karen Graves, Girls Schooling During the Progressive Era: From Female
Scholar to Domesticated Citizen (New York: Garland, 1998), 109.
7 Charles M. Perry, William Torrey Harris and the St. Louis Movement
in Philosophy, in William Torrey Harris, 19351935, Edward L.
Schaub, ed. (Chicago: Open Court, 1936), 34.
8 Robert H. Wozniak, Mind and Body: Rene Descartes to William
James, retrieved April 13, 2013 from http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/
Mind/Consciousness.html. Originally published by the National
Library of Medicine and the American Psychological Association
(Bethesda, MD and Washington, DC, 1992).
9 John Dewey, Kant and the Philosophic Method, Journal of Speculative
Philosophy 18, no. 2 (1884): 162174.
10 Ernest Keen, A History of Ideas in American Psychology (Westport, CT:
Praeger, 2001), 73.
11 John D. Greenwood, The Disappearance of the Social in American Social
Psychology (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 95.
12 Douglas R. Anderson, The St. Louis Hegelians and New England
Pragmatists, in The Saint Louis Philosophical Movement, Britt-Marie
Schiller, ed. (St. Louis, MO: Webster University Press, 2009), 3337.
13 Keen, A History of Ideas, 63; Mitchell G. Ash, Gestalt Psychology in
German Culture, 18901867 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University
Press, 1995).
3
14 Graves, Girls Schooling, 123; Reese, The Origins, 19.

15 In A History of Ideas, Keen notes Titchener, following Wundt and
borrowing terms from biology, establishes the differentiation between
structuralism and functionalism in psychology by identifying the
difference between structure (what is, i.e. how the mind works) and
function (what it is for, i.e. the essential purpose of its usage).
16 Calvin M. Woodward, The Science of Education, New York Meeting
of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Proceedings, vol.
LVI (Washington, DC: Press of Gibson Brothers, 1906), 351.
17 Greenwood, The Disappearance, 100.
18 Ibid., 9394.
19 Joel Spring, Education and Progressivism, History of Education
Quarterly 10, no. 1 (1970): 6061.
20 Keen, A History of Ideas, 63.
21 Ibid., 27, 64.
22 Gustav Jahoda, A History of Social Psychology: From the Eighteenth-Century
Enlightenment to the Second World War (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge
University Press, 2007), 147148.
23 Reese, The Origins, 16.
24 Woodward, The Science of Education, 351.
25 Graves, Girls Schooling, 115.
26 James Neal Primm, Lion of the Valley: St. Louis, Missouri, 17641980 (St.
Louis, MO: St. Louis Historical Society, 1998), 328.
27 Forty-Fifth Annual Report of the Board of Education of the City of St. Louis for
the Year Ending June 30, 1899 (St. Louis, MO: Nixon-Jones Printing
Co., 1899), 130.
28 Ibid., 131132.
29 Ibid.
30 Fifty-Fourth Annual Report of the Board of Education of the City of St. Louis
for the Year Ending June 30, 1908 (St. Louis, MO: Buxton & Skinner
Stationery Company, 1909), 120.
31 Ibid., 122.
32 Ibid., 124.
33 Forty-Fifth Annual Report, 132.
35 Ibid., 71.
36 Ash, Gestalt Psychology, 38; Keen, A History of Ideas, 27.
4
120 K. M. Burke
37 Fifty-Fourth Annual Report, 123.

39 James Deese, American Freedom and the Social Sciences (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1985), 32.
40 John B. Watson, Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It, Psychological
Review 20, no. 2 (1913): 158177; Jahoda, A History of Social Psychology,
147; Keen, A History of Ideas, 45.
41 Fifty-Fourth Annual Report, 122.
43 Jahoda, A History of Social Psychology, 167; Greenwood, The
Disappearance, 92, 99.
44 Greenwood, The Disappearance, 96.
46 Ibid.
48 Ibid., 60.
49 Butler, W. T. Harris, 53.
50 Ibid., 5354.
51 Keen, A History of Ideas, 77; Greenwood, The Disappearance, 93; Graves,
Girls Schooling, 120.
53 Soldan, The Century and the School, 1920.
54 Ibid., 2223.
1

vol. 63, no. 1, 2013, pp. 121136
Recent Evolution of Public Education in

the US and Finland: Can the Finnish
Model Work in the US?
John W. Hunt, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville
Background
Much has been written in recent years regarding the alleged failure of the
US public school system. At the same time, the Finnish public education
system has been touted as one of the most successful in the world.
Indeed, Finnish students consistently score at the top, or near the top,
on international tests of student achievement.1 Much major criticism of
the US system dates to 1983 when A Nation at Risk 2 was published.
Since then, educators in the US have faced an escalating demand for
accountability,3 most recently evidenced by measures such as the No
Child Left Behind Act of 20014 and the Race to the Top program.5 Virtually
all US calls for educational reform and increased accountability are
linked to improved student performance on standardized tests.
Contrast US educations state of affairs with Finnish education
system reforms, begun in 1970,6 with the implementation of what Finns
call peruskoula: a universal system of public education in which all
students are treated equitably regardless of residency, ethnicity, or innate
ability. Finnish teachers are expected to be creative and truly to be
leaders. Entrance into teacher education programs is highly competitive
and admission is coveted by students. Standardized tests are rarely given
and Finland does not have a movement or belief in a common core
curriculum as in the US. In spite of their lack of US-like accountability
measures, Finnish students routinely rank at the very top or near the top
of international comparisons. Could the Finnish model or major
elements of this approach work in the US, or are conditions in the two
countries so different that such an idea is out of the realm of possibility?
Before attempting to answer this question, it will be instructive briefly
first to review those paths taken by the US and Finnish educational
systems.
US Historical Context
Since the 1980s, US schools have had three distinct reform
movements imposed.7 The excellence movement was the first of these,
2
122 J. W. Hunt
its purpose being, to increase standards for students, as well as

classroom teachers, by tinkering with the conditions of teaching.8
Among the excellence movements visible manifestations were longer
school days or years, increased graduation requirements, and enhanced
teacher certification requirements. Much of the impetus for this
movement came from state departments of education and state
legislatures. In the two-year span between 1983 and 1985, 24 states,
many in the US southern tier, passed reform packages based upon the
excellence thrust.9
The restructuring movement began to emerge in the late 1980s, and
was more a grassroots effort in which many suggestions for reform
emerged from the district level. The ideals of this movement were
promoted and backed by educators and professional organizations,
restructuring became the golden age of site-based management and the
flattening of organizations,10 and restructuring ushered in an
educational era in which educators, particularly principals, were
encouraged to be creative. There was a willingness to give teachers and
building-level administrators more autonomy and teachers were
expected to implement new ideas in their classrooms which required
building-level administrators become more than managers. However, the
restructuring movement came with demands for increased
accountability. At a time when constituents and legislators expected
improved results in the form of public reporting of student achievement,
often area school districts student-achievement levels were published by
news media outlets. Naturally, this increased the anxiety levels of
administrators at both building and district levels.
The standards movement had its beginnings in the publication of A
Nation at Risk in 1983, and gained strength again with the passage of the
No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB).11 The movement shifted public
attention from the activities of teachers to the achievement of students.
No longer were schools primarily to be judged by course offerings,
hours of instruction, or teacher qualifications, but instead success had to
come from how well students performed academically on high-stakes
accountability measures. This movement led to the development of
learning standards in both subject area content and more general
standards and led administrators to become much more involved in
school improvement planning. The current version of the standards
movement stresses building level administrators working with teachers
and other staff members to address individual students academic
performance. Currently test data should be disaggregated so individual
student process can be ascertained, monitored, and improved.
These three educational reform movements have changed the
nature of both building- and district-level leadership. In both cases,
3
Can the Finnish Model Work in the US? 123
leaders have shifted from being primarily managers to acting as

educational leaders. Calls for increased accountability have directed the
spotlight of public attention toward the activities of public-school
administrators. In order to survive politically, administrators have
narrowed their focus to concentrate primarily upon student achievement
in areas tested for Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) purposes under
NCLB.12 This also has led to a narrowing of the curriculum in many US
schools over the past decade.13
There have been positive elements to the US three major reform
movements. Perhaps one of the most important has been to call
educators attention to disaggregated data produced by various
standardized exams. Essentially, such data have shown a consistent
achievement gap between white students and minority students;
particularly African-American and Hispanic students. Prior to
requirements to disaggregate data, school administrators typically would
review test data, and so long as the school or district performed at or
above state or national averages, everything was deemed copasetic. The
fact that middle- or upper-income white students were doing well, and
lower income Black and Hispanic students were doing poorly did not
surface as an issue with most administrators. Many schools and school
districts now work hard to implement strategies to address the
educational needs of poorly performing, underserved, minority students.
In fact, many US schools are doing quite well by international
standards. The top US students score as well on tests such as the PISA
as their international counterparts, including those from Finland.
However, this success has been masked by popular media reports of the
manufactured crisis in US schools. During the past three decades
reform movements, US educators lost their status as educational
spokespersons and experts. This loss of stature primarily is due to the
influence of private individuals, groups, and corporate interests who
invest millions of dollars attempting to influence US educational policy.
In other words, the migration of public opinion away from educators
expertise has not occurred by accident. Many of those peddling
influence espouse a neoliberal ideology. Neoliberalism is a political
philosophy and economic system of domination which ostensibly
supports the open market, economic liberalization, privatization, and
free trade but which enacts deregulation and recasts all US citizens as
product and service consumers. Neoliberals enact the private sectors
expansion along with a concurrent decrease in the size of the public
sector, an idea that applies as much to schooling as to other economic
areas of society. Neoliberals work for the privatization of schools by
supporting vouchers, charter schools, standardized testing, and
curricular products, along with the takeover of low-performing schools
by private corporations.
4
124 J. W. Hunt
Among those neoliberals and conservatives who work to promote

alternative approaches to public schooling are Eli and Edythe Broad,
Arne Duncan, Chester Finn, Louis Gerstner and Frederick Hess. Of
course, Arne Duncan is the current US Secretary of Education. Among
conservative foundations and groups presently working to influence US
educational policy are the American Legislative Exchange Council
(ALEC), the American Enterprise Institute, the Business Roundtable,
the CATO Institute, The Douglas and Maria DeVos Foundation, The
Heritage Foundation and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute. The Walton
Family Foundation (Wal-Mart) is one of the nations largest supporters
of school choice. The Edison Project manages charter schools in
approximately 20 states.
Perhaps the most successful groups in terms of influencing US
school administration policy are The Wallace Foundation and the
Southern Regional Education Board (SREB). Around 2000, The Wallace
Foundation began funding grants via the State Action for Education
Leadership Project (SAELP). While some ideas promoted by various
SAELP projects may have been positive, others have been negative; for
instance lobbying efforts by SAELP in Illinois helped overturn several
positive, state-level advisory committee recommendations on the
redesign of principal-preparation programs, and this was accomplished
through direct lobbying of Illinois State Board of Education members by
SAELP employees. Similarly, this same advisory committee rejected the
acceptance of SREB-developed materials as part of the Illinois principal
redesign efforts, yet after the advisory committee was disbanded, the
Illinois State Board of Education mandated many SREB materials for
principal preparation programs. SREB receives substantial funding from
The Wallace Foundation.
I want to stress I do not argue whether some ideas promoted by
such groups are positive, rather I point out millions of dollars from
private individuals and groups are being used to influence educational
policy and to promote a neoliberal agenda in US public education. These
power moves have often been done without the general publics and
most US educators knowledge. These same influential, well-funded, and
highly visible groups have spread the myth of the failure, crisis, and
impending collapse of the US school system largely thorough their
willing partners: the US popular media.
Recent major initiatives in the US include Response to Intervention
(RtI) and implementation of the Common Core standards. Many US
schools and districts have made excellent student progress using RtI
initiatives. Most educators characterize the RtI three-tier approach as
educationally sound and continuing of good work previously
5
implemented with youngsters with disabilities and other struggling

students. Common Core, a more recent phenomenon, is a move toward
standardizing educational goals and, subsequently, curriculum. In a
sense, Common Core may seem to run counter to the concept of state
control of education in the US, as well as the delegated local control of
education. Indeed, some states seem to be reconsidering their Common
Core commitments, among these Alabama and Utah. Opponents of the
Common Core recently have intensified their efforts in Colorado, Idaho,
and Indiana. Opponents are concerned that implementation of
Common Core may lead to increased testing and a nationalized
curriculum, yet while the US does not have a national curriculum, public
schools and their curricula prove more similar than different on a state-
by-state basis.
Finnish Historical Context
In the 1960s, most Finnish had only a very basic education.14
However, in the early 1970s, Finland launched an initiative called
peruskoula15 beginning a 40-year process that vastly expanded educational
opportunities. Investment and the valuing of education including the
growth of a powerful high quality teaching force also began in this
period.16 Today, according to Sahlberg, School life expectancy, which
predicts the duration of formal education of a citizen at age of 5, is one
of the highest in the world at over 20 years of age in 2010.17 He
continues, This is mainly because education is publicly financed and
hence available to all.18 The full-scale implementation of peruskoula
began in 1972 in the northern, more rural parts of Finland, and by 1978
moved into southern, more urban parts of the country.19 This was done
in response to the sense that students in rural areas were behind their
urban counterparts. The primary theme driving peruskoula is all students,
regardless of their place of residence, socioeconomic background, or
interests will be enrolled in the same, nine-year, basic school. This
approach did not come without debate, but was made easier because the
ideas of equality and social justice had been accepted and incorporated
into Finlands welfare society.20
The idea of the Finnish welfare society briefly was challenged in the
early 1990s with the collapse of trade with the Soviet Union.21
According to Renne, It was only the downswing of the 1990s, the rapid
increase in unemployment, joining the European Union and the
increasingly right-wing bias of government policy that forced the welfare
state to trim its sails.22 However, unlike in the US, this move to the
political right did not lead to privatization of schools. Renne continues,
What is perhaps most visible is that the position of the publicly
owned and steered school is at all school levels almost
6
126 J. W. Hunt
untouchable. There are very few private school enterprises, and

even in the beginning of the new millennium educational
services are free of charge for all Finnish children and
youngsters to use.23
In Finland, all schooling is free, including pre-school. Mothers may stay
home and continue to receive pay for the first year after giving birth.
Their specific job is protected for three years, but they do not receive
pay for the second and third years of childcare leave. Once parents
enroll their child in daycare the costs are very reasonable and based on a
sliding scale.24
Finnish students begin public school at age seven, and there is not
an organized attempt to teach reading to students before that age.
Students do not receive written grades before the fifth grade25 and no
external high-stakes tests are employed before the end of grade 12.26
Indeed, the word accountability cannot be found in Finnish educational
policy discourse.27 While there is a ten-page, national curriculum,
Ministry of Education officials have little interest regarding what schools
are doing at the local level. There is no inspection of teachers.28 In spite
of this, Finnish students routinely score at the top, or very near the top,
in international comparisons.
The Keys to Finnish Success
It is instructive to delve more deeply into the reasons for Finnish
schools current success. One aspect of this is schools small size. Most
elementary- and middle-level schools do not enroll more than 300
students while the largest high school in Finland enrolls only 1,400
students,29 certainly enhancing the possibility that teachers and principals
will know their students and decreasing the possibility that any student
will fall through the cracks. Although Finland is racially a
homogeneous society, student placement in schools and classrooms is
organized as heterogeneously as possible. In recent years, Finland has
accepted increasing numbers of Somali and Eastern European
immigrants. When non-Finnish speaking immigrants enter the system,
they may be assigned to separate integration classes, but usually enter the
mainstream after a year.
In essence, children in Finnish schools and classrooms are not
tracked, at least not to the extent of US schools. Due to the small size
of schools, when a student is perceived to be struggling, he or she is
assigned to a school welfare or care team. Each school has at least one
trained intervention specialist who assists classroom teachers in
remediating struggling students encountered difficulties. Since the
1990s, grade retention in Finland has become very rare.
7
The common school approach continues through students first

two years of high school, at which time students enter either a
vocational or college bound program. There is no stigma attached to
vocational programs, with 43% of students choosing that option.30
Another 52% of students enter the college option and the remaining 5%
of students drop out. One key to the low high-school-dropout rate is
that general and vocational upper-secondary schools use modular
curricular units rather than semester- or year-long courses. Rather than
repeating an entire year, secondary students are required only to repeat
modules not successfully completed.31 Although most US school
systems would be pleased with a 5% dropout rate, Finnish authorities
calculate each dropout costs the Finnish economy approximately one
million Euros over a lifetime.32
Elementary-school curricula are individualized and teachers typically
do not divide students by grade level. Often teachers say, What do you
want to read?33 Written grades are not assigned prior to fifth grade,
rather verbal feedback is offered. Finns believe in high achievement for
all students, but their definition is not an NCLB-type of accountability.
Rather, they believe it necessary to offer a broad, culturally rich
education to all students: there is no dumbing down of the curriculum
for vocational students, for example.
High teacher quality and respect for educators is another reason for
Finnish schools success. According to Sahlberg, there is an 80%
confidence level in Finlands schools.34 According to one source,
Finnish teachers are drawn from the top quartile of upper-secondary
graduates. Teachers are highly professional knowledge workers and are
treated as such.35 Among that top tier of college graduates applying for
teacher education, only 15% are accepted to complete a three-year,
graduate-level teacher preparation program which includes a living
stipend. During their preparation program, teacher candidates not only
receive extensive instruction on how to teach with a strong focus on
research incorporating best practices, but also spend at least a year in a
university-model, laboratory school. This enables teacher education
students to advance from basic teaching practice, to advanced practice,
and then to final practice.36 Such practicum experiences constitute
between 15% and 25% of the overall teacher preparation program. One
skill developed during teacher candidates time spent in model schools is
the ability to work in problem-solving groups. Finnish schools operate
collaboratively and problem-solving groups are a key element in any
school. Before moving on in my argument I want to note the
importance of Finnish teacher education programs research
component. In a 2009 qualitative study involving 18 professors in a
8
128 J. W. Hunt
variety of teacher education programs, researchers found, A very typical

feature of Finnish teacher educators was that they generally strove to
model different theories and pedagogical aspects in their own
teaching.37 The studys author explains:
The present results showed that Finnish teacher educators
strive to give tools for use in practical work, such as how to
handle sensitive moral and ethical issues, also including
complex pedagogical issues, through discussion, drama and role
play. On the other hand, teacher educators promote student
teachers critical and reflective thinking so that they can make
and justify their own pedagogical decisions.38
Because curricula are not driven by the Ministry of Education,
Finnish teachers exert a great deal of authority in this area. Not heavily
prescriptive, teachers have a great deal of authority to interpret
directions, select their own materials and textbooks and design lessons.
In essence, the local council acts as a type of school board. In any
community teachers, working with the local council, determine the
mission and goals of any particular school. However, since teachers are
so well trained, and perceived to be educational experts, this process
typically is quite collaborative. Most teachers in Finland have masters
degrees in both content area and in education, and are given sufficient
planning time for both individual and joint planning.39 Expanding upon
the joint planning time element, Teachers in Finnish schools meet at
least one afternoon each week jointly [to] plan and develop curriculum,
and schools in the same municipality are encouraged to work together to
share materials.40 However, from an international perspective, Finnish
teachers devote less time to formal classroom teaching than do teachers
in many other countries.41 Comparing the annual teaching hours of
typical Finnish and US middle-school teachers, Finnish teachers spend
just over half the hours in the classroom as do their US counterparts.42
Teachers are also given ample time for professional development during
the school year.43 Perhaps this contributes to the official estimate
suggesting only 10% to 15% of Finnish teachers leave the profession.44
The approach to student assessment in Finland differs greatly from
the approach taken in the US, for Finland uses no external tests either to
rank students or schools, and most teacher feedback to students is in
narrative form.45 Finland does employ a centrally developed assessment
given to samples of students at the end of the second and ninth grades,
somewhat analogous to the National Assessment of Educational
Progress (NAEP) administered in the US.46 The results are used to help
inform curriculum and distribution of resources rather than to
administer sanctions. The other common examination administered in
9
Finland is a matriculation examination administered prior to students

entrance into universities. While not a high-school-graduation
requirement, most college-bound students choose to take this
examination.47 Remarkably, this examination is given in the students
mother tongue (Finnish, Swedish, or Smi).
While Finland does not strongly regulate schools through
assessments, some researchers fear Finlands success on the international
scale may move the countrys schools in a more homogenized direction.
According to Vitikka, Krokors, and Hurmerinta,
No curriculum can be developed in a void. In recent years, it
seems that curricula have not only been shaped by national
culture, but more and more by global discussion and
comparisons. The interest in global evaluation of schooling,
such as PISA, has been based on a notion that there is best
practice that can be copied and transferred to different cultural
contexts.48
Rinne cites similar concerns, stating, If national governments lose their
grip on controlling education, they will be substituted on the one hand
by supranational more global norms and, on the other, by more
parochial local norms.49 This is a situation leading Finnish educators
continue to monitor.50
Most assessment in Finland occurs at the classroom level, since In
the Finnish model of evaluation, the main idea is to develop and
support, not to control, schools.51 As previously stated, Finnish schools
are structured in a fashion which helps ensure student needs, including
those of struggling students, are addressed. Students having difficulties
are provided interventions in a timely fashion. Timely individual
intervention likely is due to the small size of buildings and intervention
teams located within each building. Traditionally, the evaluation of
student achievement has been the domain of each teacher and school. In
the words of Vlijrvi, Under the new educational legislation,
educational institutions are obligated to evaluate their own operations
and effects.52
Can the Finnish Model Work in the US?
It is highly unlikely the Finnish approach to education could be
imported, wholesale, into the US, nor would such an approach be
advisable. However, it is possible that certain elements of the Finnish
system could successfully be implemented in US public schools. When
considering model importation, critics often note Finlands
homogeneous population and its small size as a country. Sahlberg
counters this criticism to some degree, stating the student population in
0
130 J. W. Hunt
Finland is becoming more diverse and, with approximately 5.5 million

inhabitants, is comparable in size to some US states. Since education is
still theoretically a function of US states, he maintains it is possible for at
least some US states to adopt elements of the Finnish model.53 With the
advent of NCLB, states have lost a great deal of their curricular
autonomy. Legislators rather than educators have the upper hand in
many states regarding educational matters. However, it is not impossible
for states to regain some of their curricular autonomy, after which time
some Finnish approaches could be implemented.
It seems the largest barriers to the US implementation of the
Finnish model are societal and economic. Many in the US population
vehemently would oppose the adoption of a socialist welfare state similar
to Finlands, particularly since such an ideology flies in the face of the
current US educational power brokers: neoliberals. Closely related to this
(and opposed by the same US contingent), the redistribution of wealth
to poorer schools and districts in order to level the playing field for
children would be virtually impossible in the current US system. In a
society that relies heavily upon the property tax base to support public
schools, equitably redistributing wealth to less-well-resourced districts
presently will be an obstacle virtually impossible to overcome. However,
the residents of many affluent US school districts are willing to tax
themselves heavily in order to provide excellent schools for their
children. In Illinois, for example, in fiscal year 2008 the most poorly
funded K12 unit school district spent $6,009 per student while the
most highly funded district spent $31,226 per student: over five times
the expenditure of the poorest.54 In many states there have been
numerous legal challenges over the years of inherent inequities in state
school finance formulas. While the results have been mixed, virtually
none of these cases has resulted in equitable redistribution of wealth
across school districts.
Setting aside for a moment the funding equity issue, are there other
elements of the Finnish approach that might be integrated into the US
system? One possible consideration would be that of school size.
Finnish and US class sizes are somewhat similar, typically hovering in the
25-students-per-class range.55 However, as previously stated, school sizes
in Finland are generally much smaller than in the US. While school sizes
could be reduced, it clearly will have financial implications, both in terms
of space for instruction and increased staffing levels. In the US the issue
of teacher quality also could be addressed. Historically, teacher education
candidates have not been drawn from the upper quartile of college
students in the US, but from the lowest ten percent. Most states still
require only a bachelors degree for teacher certification, depending
upon the content area and grade level. However, some states such as
1
Illinois are stiffening requirements for entrance into teacher education

programs; before the cut score required for entrance into teacher
education programs was increased in September of 2010, the vast
majority of teacher education students passed the test on the first
attempt. During September 2008 through August 2010, 85.5% of
candidates passed the Basic Skills Examination on their first attempt,
however, after the cut score was increased, the percent of candidates
passing the examination on their initial attempt between September 2010
and August 2011 dropped to 28.3%.56 One unintended consequence of
the increased cut score in Illinois has been the percentage of minority
candidates meeting the new requirements, particularly African-
Americans and Hispanics, has plummeted.57 While the number of pre-
clinical experiences for US teachers have increased over the past three
decades, it would be hard to argue against an expanded internship, or
student-teaching experience. Many US, teacher-education institutions
formerly hosted university-laboratory schools, similar to the current
Finnish model schools. However, most US, university-laboratory
schools have been eliminated over the past 40 years.
Another Finnish element to be considered by US schools is
autonomy given to and creativity expected of teachers. In past decades
US teachers and public schools were known for their creativity.
However, in the US today many current teachers know nothing other
than what Hargreaves and his colleagues call the Global Education
Reform Movement (GERM).58 The most obvious example of GERM is
NCLB, as evidenced by the push to teach to pre-determined learning
objectives with test-based accountability. Add this to possible sanctions
imposed on teachers and administrators in schools failing to make
Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) under NCLB, and it is understandable
how many US educators feel constrained in terms of expanding
curricula. While US teachers may have the desire to implement new ideas
and techniques, they feel constant pressure for their students to score
well in AYP-tested areas. All these edicts tend to limit the focus of
instruction and narrow curricula. In the words of Sahlberg, such
mandated narrowing minimizes experimentation, reduces the use of
alternative pedagogical approaches, and limits risk-taking in schools and
classrooms.59
Conclusions
More than fifty years ago, Harvard economist John Kenneth
Galbraith coined the phrase conventional wisdom to describe
esteemed ideas.60 Resseger says, Test-based accountability is todays
conventional wisdom.61 An element of risk-taking is needed in order to
restore creativity and innovative practices in US schools, for restoring
2
132 J. W. Hunt
the status of teachers as educational experts and beginning to rebuild US

public perceptions of education should become paramount.
This can only happen if all elements of US public education begin
working together, including not only teachers, administrators, and
parents, but also professional organizations. Such change requires
groups such as the National Education Association (NEA), the
American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the American Association of
School Administrators (AASA), the National Association of Secondary
Principals (NASSP), the National Association of Elementary Principals
(NAESP), and those organizations representing parents to work
together, not only at the national level, but also with their affiliates at the
local, regional, and state levels to begin positively to influence the public
perception of public education. Only by regaining the moral and
professional high-ground as a unified community can professional
educators and their constituents establish the groundwork to enable
implementation of select Finnish-style reforms in the US system. These
groups must understand internal fighting and bickering as well as
allowing the neoliberal agenda to dictate public education will only harm
the cause. They must also realize they can no longer remain nave about
those wealthy private individuals and foundations working against the
cause of public education in the US. While it may be out of the norm for
some of these groups, they must become politically active at all levels of
government to promote the values and positive achievements of the US
educational system.
Clearly, improvements are needed in some portions of the US
public education system. Some schools have become dropout factories
and some educators say educational leaders are complicit in this state of
affairs. One author describing the Chicago Public Schools states,
I argue that the thrust of centralized control and accountability
in these schools is to regulate students and teachers and to
redefine education around the skills, information, procedures,
and results of standardized tests. This kind of schooling
prepares people for low-skilled jobs.62
It is difficult to identify how NCLB has brought about the types of
advances in student achievement envisioned by its authors, for it has
largely had a narrowing effect on curricula and staff development efforts.
It is also unfair to claim that all US schools are failing and US
education is in crisis. As previously shown, many US students and many
US schools perform as well as the best in the world. Public school
educators need to push back and inform the public, the media, and their
legislators that US schools are productive, successful, and educationally
sound. Educators need to inform and remind all constituents that public
3
schools have been and need to remain a backbone element of our

society. They best can begin this process by working in concert with the
parents of the students they serve.
In conclusion, we need a reasoned and thorough discussion of
public education in the US, a discussion in which educators and parents
have an equal place at the table with private individuals, foundation
representatives, and politicians. It is only within that atmosphere a true
consideration of Finnish-type reforms can have any reasonable chance
of successful implementation. However, we must remember this is not
an either/or decision. There are positive elements to both the US and
Finnish educational systems. In a sense, the Finns are currently
replicating what were once very successful US educational approaches.
Perhaps we simply need to return to our roots.
Endnotes
1 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Education at a Glance (Paris, France, 2010); Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development (OECD). Programme for International
Student Assessment (PISA) (Paris, France, 19972012); National Center
for Educational Statistics (NCES), Trends in International Mathematics and
Science Studies (TIMSS) (Washington, DC, 2011); The International
Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA),
Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) (Amsterdam, The
Netherlands, 2011).
2 National Commission on Excellence in Education (NCEE). A Nation
at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform (Washington, DC, 1983).
3 John W. Hunt, A Nation at Risk and No Child Left Behind: Dj Vu for
Administrators?, Phi Delta Kappan, 89, no. 8 (2008): 580585.
4 No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, Pub. L. No. 107-110 (2002).
5 Race to the Top (RTTT) Program, signed into law as a portion of the
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009, Pub. L.
No. 111-5 (2009).
6 Pasi Sahlberg, Finnish Lessons: What Can the World Learn from Educational
Change in Finland? (New York: Teachers College Press, 2010).
7 Susan Fuhrman, Riding Waves, Trading Horses: The Twenty-Year
Effort to Reform Education, in A Nation Reformed? America Education
Twenty Years After A Nation at Risk, ed. David T. Gordon (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard Education Publishing Group, 2003).
4
134 J. W. Hunt
8 Hunt, A Nation at Risk, 581.

9 Robert Reinhold, School Reform: Years of Tumult, Mixed Results,
New York Times, 10 August 1987.
10 Hunt, A Nation at Risk, 582.
11 National Commission on Excellence in Education (NCEE), A Nation
at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform (Washington, DC, 1983);
No Child Left Behind Act of 2001.
12 John W. Hunt, The Impact of the Failure to Make Adequate Yearly
Progress on School Improvement and Staff Development Efforts,
Connexions (2006), accessed 23 September 2012 at
http://cnx.org/content/ml4097/latest; Center on Education Policy,
From the Capital to the Classroom: Year 4 of the No Child Left Behind Act
(Washington, DC: Center on Education Policy, 2006).
13 From the Capital to the Classroom.
14 Sahlberg, Finnish Lessons, 43.
15 Ibid.
16 Michael Fullan, Large-Scale Reform Comes of Age, Journal of
Educational Change 10 (2009): 107.
18 Ibid., 45.
19 Ibid., 21.
20 Sahlberg, personal communication, 7 August 2012.
21 Risto Renne, The Globalisation of Education: Finnish Education on
the Doorstep of the New EU Millennium, Educational Review 52, no. 2
(2000): 135.
22 Ibid.
23 Ibid., 135136.
24 Sahlberg, personal communication.
25 Ibid.
27 Ibid.
29 Ibid.
30 Ibid.
31 Pasi Sahlberg, A Model Lesson: Finland Shows Us What Equal
Opportunity Looks Like, American Educator 36, no. 1 (Spring 2012):
27.
5

33 Ibid.
34 Ibid.
35 Jal Mehta, Finland: Superb TeachersHow to Get Them, How to
Use Them, in Surpassing Shanghai: An Agenda for American Education
Built on the Worlds Leading Systems, ed. Marc Tucker (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard Education Press, 2012), 73.
36 Pasi Sahlberg, Lessons from Finland, American Educator 35, no. 2
(2011): 36.
37 Maria-Terttu Tryggvason, Why Is Finnish Teacher Education
Successful? Some goals Finnish Teacher Educators Have for Their
Teaching, European Journal of Teacher Education 32, no. 4 (2009): 373.
38 Ibid., 379.
39 Linda Darling-Hammond, The Flat World and Education: How Americas
Commitment to Equity Will Determine Our Future (New York: Teachers
College Press, 2010), 171.
40 Ibid., 172.
41 Sahlberg, Lessons from Finland, 37.
Education at a Glance (Paris, France, 2010).
Completing the Foundation for Lifelong Learning: An OECD Survey of Upper
Secondary Schools (Paris, France, 2004); Sahlberg, A Model Lesson,
2026 and 40.
44 Sahlberg, Lessons from Finland, 36.
45 Pasi Sahlberg, Education Policies for Raising Student Learning: The
Finnish Approach, Journal of Education Policy 22, no. 2 (2007): 147
171.
46 Darling-Hammond, The Flat World and Education, 169.
47 Ibid.
48 Erja Vitikka, Leena Krokfors, and Elisa Hurmerinta, The Finnish
National Core Curriculum: Structure and Development, in Miracle of
Education: The Principles and Practices of Teaching and Learning in Finnish
Schools, Hannele Niemi, Auli Toom, and Arto Kallioniemi, eds.
(Rotterdam, The Netherlands, Sense, 2012), 83.
49 Risto Renne, The Growing Supranational Impacts of the OECD and
the EU on National Educational Policies, and the Case of Finland,
Policy Futures in Education 6, no. 6 (2008): 676.
6
136 J. W. Hunt

51 Jouni Vlijrvi, The System and How Does It Work: Some Curricular
and Pedagogical Characteristics of the Finnish Comprehensive
School, Education Journal 31, no. 2 (2004): 37.
52 Ibid.
54 James B. Fritts, The Essentials of Illinois School Finance: A Guide to
Techniques, Issues and Resources, 5th ed. (Springfield, IL: Illinois
Association of School Boards, 2010), 80.
56 Illinois Certification Testing System, General Assembly Report: ICTS
Basic Skills and Content Area Test Pass Rate Summary: Initial and Cumulative
(September 2008June, 2011): 111, accessed 23 September 2012 at
http://www.isbe.net/certification/html/testing.htm
57 Ibid.
58 Pasi Sahlberg, The Fourth Way of Finland, Journal of Educational
Change 12, no. 2 (2011): 173185.
59 Ibid., 178.
60 J. Kenneth Galbraith, The Affluent Society (Boston: Houghton Mifflin,
1958), 6.
61 Jan Resseger, Why the Conventional Wisdom on School Reform Is Wrong and
Why the Church Should Care (Washington, DC: UCC Justice & Witness
Ministries, 2012), available at http://www.ucc.org/justice.public-
education/2012-justice-witness.html
62 Pauline Lipman, Like a Hammer Just Knocking Them Down:
Regulating African American Schools, in Handbook of Education Policy
and Politics, eds. Bruce S. Cooper, James G. Cibulka, and Lance D.
Fusarelli (New York: Routledge, 2008), 71.
1

vol. 63, no. 1, 2013, pp. 137154
Using Deweys Curriculum Theory to

Analyze, Evaluate, and Reconstruct
Educational Entities
Douglas J. Simpson
Texas Christian University/Texas Tech University
Peggy Johnson, Yvonne B. Bowman, Halston Bryan, Dilber
Celebi, Emily G. Hammer, Ericka Hendrix, Elizabeth I. Isidro,
Mohja Jerbi, Mary-Katherine E. Plowman, Latosha S. Scott,
Melanie M. Smith-Parker, & Connor K. Warner
Texas Tech University
Introduction
When we1 began this study, we wereas Dewey might sayboth
teachers and learners in a graduate course designed to examine research
on and practice regarding educational reform in P12 schools and in
educator-preparation programs. Our inquiry included the objective of
cultivating an understanding and use of a holistic curriculum paradigm
labeled A Fourfold Curriculum Framework. This framework initially
and primarily was designed to stimulate study of a range of learning
factors or lessons that formally and informally constitute a curriculum
for students in P12 schools. An ancillary interest was to encourage the
examination of non-school-based educational entities, including
educator-preparation programs, developmental programs, and adult-
education agencies. Eventually, the focus of the frameworkin keeping
with Deweys thinkingbroadened to include whatever entity or unit an
individual or group desired to analyze, evaluate, or change (Simpson,
2006, 2012a; Simpson, Almager, Beerwinkle, Celebi, Ferkel, Holubik, &
Reed, 2011).
The Fourfold Curriculum Framework (FCF) is a set of lenses and a
flexible classification system of four intersecting dimensions of
curriculumor curriculaidentifiable within Deweys writings (e.g.,
1895/1964, 1916/1966, 1938/1963) and, partially, within other
theoreticians works (e.g., Goodlad, 1987; Schubert, 1986). The FCF also
is designed to clarify the curriculums scope and broaden and deepen
curriculum planning, e.g., provide vistas on nearly any curricular
2
138 Simpson et al.
concern. An implication of this type of study includes educators

collaborating with others to improve or recreate learning conditions and
environments.
In order to facilitate the FCFs utilization, we employed an analytic
model: A Model for Curriculum Analysis, Evaluation, and
Reconstruction (AMCAER).2 The AMCAER is a reflection-to-action
scaffolding used by those who employ the FCF to participate in
curriculum analysis and development. To contextualize our particular
research, we first provide brief explanations of Deweys general
curriculum theory, the FCF, and the AMCAER before explicating our
specific AMCAER endeavors.
Deweys General Curriculum Theory
As we begin, it is helpful to note Deweys general curriculum theory
is an integral part of his overall educational theory and entwined with his
naturalistic learning theory. His curricular interests, therefore, include
whatever students are learning wherever they are. In a school context,
Dewey pinpoints a curriculum when he mentions school subject matter,
e.g., a formal study of language, mathematics, history, the sciences, and
the arts (Dewey, 1938). An ideal school curriculum, however, is more
than that, necessitating a planned and guided learning process as
students interact with content (Dewey, 1902/1959). Even so, a school
curriculum involves much more than simply the planned, for unplanned
collateral learning may be every bit as important as planned learning
(Dewey, 1938/1963, p. 48).
In a societal context, Dewey frequently alludes to curricula learned
in unexpected locationscafs, parks, clubs, banks, malls, social media
sites, theatres, streets, stadiums, neighborhoodsto be as educative or
miseducative as schools (Dewey, 1913/2010). Interestingly, Dewey
argues students learning experiences in formal educational institutions
should be similar in particular ways to those in informal learning
contexts, i.e., students actively should be involved in communities of
inquiry more like everyday ways of interacting and learning than those
stereotypical, formal academic endeavors of his time (Dewey,
1911/2010, 1938/1963). Curricula and interactive methods also should
be characterized by students naturally acquiring facts and ideas gradually
organized into bodies of information and spheres of meaning (Dewey,
1913/2010, 1938/1963). Students should learn to distinguish between
opinion, speculation, dogma, and warranted assertions (Dewey,
1910/2010) to discover and solve developmentally appropriate personal
and social problems (Dewey, 1903/2010) and to construct and apply
knowledge to an assortment of developed interests and challenges
(Dewey, 1910/2010).
3
Using Deweys Curriculum Theory 139
A Fourfold Curriculum Framework3

Since we are interested in using lenses that contain instructive
markers and practical parameters for understanding and doing
curriculum development and research, we identified and utilized the
Fourfold Curriculum Framework. The FCF is a theoretical construction
that provides a holistic approach to curriculum study. It involves four
dimensions which influence teaching and learning: (a) epistemological
and aesthetic curriculum, (b) pedagogical curriculum, (c) anthropological
curriculum, and (d) ecological curriculum (Simpson, 2006). These four
dimensions of curriculum are overlapping, not discrete, although it is
possible to differentiate them (See Appendix A: The Fourfold
Curriculum Framework in External Socio-Economic-Political
Environments). Appendix A illustrates how the four curricula are nested
within the framework while communicating the idea that boundaries are
permeable, porous, malleable, and dynamic. Likewise, it conveys the
notion these four curricula are embedded in, bleed into, and interact
with local and global, external, socio-economic-political environments
that contain and convey their own lessons.
Succinctly, the epistemological and aesthetic curriculum (or conventional
curriculum4) refers to programs of study officially taught within schools
in many communities, provinces, and states. This curriculum regularly
includes study of such subjects as art, literature, religion, history, music,
biology, drama, technology, philosophy, chemistry, mathematics,
vocational education, physics, music, and government. Certain
elementsbut not allare usually focal points of assessment and
change efforts. An overemphasis on this curriculum or some subparts,
however, can lead to an under-emphasis on other curricula, thereby
weakening and unbalancing the systemic, organic health of classrooms
and schools (Au, 2007; Dewey, 1937/2010).
Although the epistemological and aesthetic curriculum is commonly
the foremost emphasis of school change agendas, the pedagogical
curriculume.g., instructional practiceis usually recognized as
important, too. To be sure, debates abound regarding the most effective
and economical means of teaching specific populations particular
knowledge, understandings, skills, and dispositions (Eisner, 2005;
Stiggins, 2005). Indeed, highlighting this curriculum may lead to slighting
other areas, including many ethical interests (Infantino & Wilke, 2009)
such as those hidden in the question: How do we foster justifiable kinds
of dispositions, attitudes, values, citizens, communities, and nations?
Regardless of how we answer this query, Dewey (1916/1966) notes the
curriculum conveyed by those general methods and specific processes
teachers employ may deposit both positive and negative ideas and
4
140 Simpson et al.
attitudes. How a teacher theoretically and instructionally approaches the

study of history, for example, constitutes part of what students learn
about content and its interpretation but also whether they learn
effectively, enjoyably, and reflectively. The pedagogical curriculum also
may convey desirable and undesirable lessons about open-mindedness,
fair-mindedness, and problem-solving abilities. Analyzing the
pedagogical curriculum involves, therefore, an examination of teacher-
student, student-student, and student-content interactions and an
analysis of the selection and utilization of materials and technology.
Ready companions of the pedagogical curriculum are the hidden
curriculum (Kentli, 2009) and unplanned lessons (Dewey, 1938/1963),
which need to be identified and problematized (Freire, 2003).
The anthropological curriculumthe lessons we educators, students,
and partners communicate subconsciously and consciously to one
another because of who we are and how we thinkis a humanly
inclusive concept; we can focus the notion tightly or loosely (Bernstein,
1990; Magrini, 2009). Dewey (1916/1966) thinks educators should
remember the knowledge and values educators and students bring to
school influence the scope, attractiveness, and richness of the
curriculum. Welcomed or not, we, as educators as well as our students,
are curricula. Certainly we need to remember that without reflective,
caring, well-prepared teachers in schools, compulsory attendance laws
may actually foster a disguised form of child abuse (Simpson, 2012a).
Everything considered, evaluating the professional human curriculum is
both a crucial and sensitive responsibility. It is crucial we appraise the
pre-service and in-service preparation teachers receive, the ways their
expertise is utilized in schools, the value placed on germane staff
development, and the assistance districts provide teachers. It is a
sensitive responsibility since we, as professionals, are who we are to a
substantial degree because of legal, policy, institutional, and community
prescriptions and traditions. Hence governmental, institutional, and
social structures frequently need evaluation and reconstruction if
educators are to be a uniformly talented and high-performing profession.
The ecological curriculum includes, among other factors, staff- and
district-created conditions and environments as well as the organic
wholeness Dewey identifies in his writings (Dewey, 1895/1964;
1916/1966): (a) the material realitiesphysical and technologicalthat
constitute many of the conditions that create and facilitate learning and
teaching environments, (b) the cultural realitiesclimate, values and
communitythat shape teaching and learning environments, and (c) the
systemic realitiesthe gestalts and configurations of entitiesthat
comprise the organic nature, development, and function of the
5
curriculums pedagogical, human, social, and cultural dimensions

(Dewey, 1895/1964). This organic, systemic way of viewing curriculum
identifies potent, but sometimes imprecise, influences that shape schools
and classrooms and, thereby, student learning, thinking, valuing, and
acting. Variables that play a role in classroom and school ecosystems
educosystems5are numerous, involving policies and laws, traditions and
norms, and cultures and affiliations.
When the epistemological, aesthetic, pedagogical, anthropological,
and ecological curricular dimensions are interpreted in light of Deweys
general curriculum theory, it becomes clear he desires educative
experiences for students which enhance their epistemological and
aesthetic judgments and appreciations, awaken6 their minds to ideas and
values taught indirectly and directly in democratically engaged
classrooms, utilize their culturally inherited and personally acquired
understandings, and encourage their construction of aesthetic
experiences and holistic interpretations of their lives and worlds.
A Model for Curriculum Analysis, Evaluation, & Reconstruction7
Earlier we noted AMCAER is a reflection-to-action model that
works as scaffolding for curriculum workers. In part, this scaffolding
enables analysis and evaluation by employing the fourfold curricular lens
to examine entities. This scaffolding also assists us as we move to a
reflective reimagining and reconstruction of any curricular dimension
(Eisner, 2005). Implanted in this kind of curriculum study is a group of
decisions. Among those decisions are those that fall into five spheres: (a)
educational entity, (b) model serviceability, (c) research methodology, (d)
interpretative schemata, and (e) timeframe focus.
The first decision is the choice to explore the employment of the
AMCAER model for planned analysis of an educational entity. The
provisional conclusion to use AMCAER is clarified and
affirmed/disaffirmed by raising a cluster of questions to ensure our final
decision is defensible. While we considered many questions, we delineate
only three: Is the entity sufficiently complex to warrant an holistic and
systemic analysis?; Will the analysis and reconstruction be defective if a
comprehensive study is not completed?; and these two questions assume
a third, prior question, Which subparts of the entity will be analyzed and
changed?
A second but partly overlapping decision is to ensure the model is
serviceable with a specific entity. Among the questions considered are:
Does the model help us learn what we most need to know?; and Will a
less-complex model be a better choice?
A third series of questions that merits deliberation involves the
6
142 Simpson et al.
kinds of research undertaken. Illustrative questions are: Can the study

rely on existing historical and traditional assessment data?; Will the study
employ mixed methods so the data collected has sufficient specificity,
richness, and power when answering questions?; Will ethical issues be
examined?; and Do our research questions fit freely into the framework?
A fourth sphere of decision-making is concerned with identifying
which interpretative schemata offer the most insight on data and the
entity. How do Confucian, Ghandian, Marxian, and Vygotskian
interpretative paradigms as well as others assist us in understanding and
reconstructing educational means and ends?; and Do their images of
leaders, teachers, and students foster a rethinking of theory and practice?
The final sphere of decision-making, which may be less of an option
for many, can be labeled a timeframe focus. In this realm, our
assignments include using the AMCAER to do (a) an historical or
retroactive study, (b) a contemporary or present-day study or (c) an
imaginary or hypothetical study. Our studies vary as do our experiences.
Many of us either did historical or hypothetical studies. Several of us
completed contemporary studies that were a part of our current
employment or volunteer responsibilities. To complete our studies, we
relied on archives, public records, websites, media outlets, and other site-
specific data. We were also encouraged to draw from our recollections of
experiences for historical studies and use our imagination regarding how
we might carry out a study in a hypothetical situation.
The Nature of the AMCAER Projects
We used the AMCAER to examine several kinds of entities, e.g.,
classrooms, schools, professional standards, and educational programs,
to determine how well they were designed to achieve or were actually
achieving their stated objectives. Our decision to pursue specific studies
was informed by our past experiences, present work, current studies, and
future goals, also aided by previously constructed and newly created
questions (Simpson, 2012b). Appendix B: Potential Questions for
AMCAER Projects encourages both discussion about and creation of
additional questions. As shown in Appendix B, we were counseled to
identify entities and relevant project purposes, facts, standards,
information, and curricula for the report we would develop. Since
AMCAER is designed to facilitate open-ended inquiry, we thought
outside of the Appendix B cubicle to explore a variety of queries,
including: What are the questions administrators, staff, guardians, and
students wish to have answered?; Have we listened to the ideas of people
from all pertinent groups, such as the poor, LGBTQ, middle-class,
immigrants and wealthy?; and How do we ensure our conclusions are as
open- and fair-minded as possible?
7
The entities we examine are related to two types of institutions: (a)

P12 schools and (b) universities. We were uniformly interested in
determining whether entities were characterized by one or more of the
following: curricular adequacy, pedagogical effectiveness, and ethical
integrity. The P12-related entities were: (a) science standards; (b)
teaching-English-as-another-language standards; (c) teacher-constructed,
direct-instruction, literacy activities; (d) first-grade aesthetic,
anthropological, pedagogical, and ecological curricula; (e) K4
mathematics intervention strategies; (f) the means and ends of a
communication arts program; and (g) a curriculum management system.
The university-related entities were (a) developmental education plans;
(b) faculty credentials in an English-as-another-language program; (c)
student affective outcomes in a masters program; and (d) aspects of an
institutionally operated literacy program. Studies within both types of
institutions usually involved more than one of the four curricular
dimensions because of the fluidity of curriculum and the all-
encompassing nature of the ecological curriculum.
Among the many inquiries assumed or articulated in the study of
these diverse entities is the following sample: Does the selected literacy
program provide the full support children need to learn to read well?;
Which aesthetic, anthropological, pedagogical and ecological factors
contribute the most to the success of students in a first-grade
classroom?; and How well prepared are the professors of an English-as-
another-language program in a private university?
The Specific AMCAER Projects
As a group, our professional backgrounds are diverse, including
many from P12 school settings and one each from developmental
education, health sciences, and pre-school, literacy programs. Two of us,
international students, chose to focus on educational settings in our
countries of origin. Each of us found and demonstrated how the
AMCAER model and process was a useful means of analyzing
educational sites or entities. An overview of our findings follows. While
we organize our findings in terms of the Fourfold Curriculum
Framework, we discuss epistemological and aesthetic findings with other
curricular dimensions in the final framework section.
Using a Pedagogical Lens to Surface Student Perspectives and
Attitudes
Curriculum analysis typically focuses exclusively on the
conventional curriculum. We expand that focus by examining situations
using other elements of the FCF. A health sciences masters program
was the setting for a project exploring dispositions engendered through
8
144 Simpson et al.
its pedagogical curriculum. Hendrix (2012) analyzes the programs

coursework and the increasing role of ethics in the field. She notes,
educating future participants in the healthcare fieldis an exciting and
ethics-laden job (p. 1). In her analysis, she combines the
epistemological moral curriculum with Stiggins (2005) taxonomy.
Stiggins regards the development of inclinations to act on what has been
learned as the highest level of student learning. Hendrix states that by
viewing the curriculum through a pedagogical lens, she identifies
instruction (e.g., sharing and discussing issues) that leads to addressing
desired dispositions.
Jerbi (2012) analyzes the pedagogy of an English-language
curriculum. She notes two trends in the teaching of English have strong
positive effects on the pedagogy of the studys teachers. One trend, the
use of Information and Communication Technologies, is used
extensively by a teacher Jerbi observes engaging students in their
language-learning through multimedia activities. Another trend is the
communicative approach in which teachers shift from merely providing
knowledge to facilitating the use of knowledge. In the shift in
expectations from accuracy to fluency, teachers attempt to create
supportive environments in which students collaborate in real-world
situations. In her study of a faculty in a private universitys second-
language-acquisition program, Celebi (2012) finds a need for professors
to understand more fully what their pupils are experiencing as they
struggle in a second-language environment.
Bowman (2012) finds inquiring into the pedagogical curriculum
informs implementation of the conventional curriculum. She describes
the C-SCOPE curriculum and employs the pedagogical curriculum as a
lens to look at teaching in a C-SCOPE school. She examines pedagogy
that enhances the conventional curriculum through promoting flexible,
group learning, enrichment activities, individual inquiry, and technology
integration.
Using an Anthropological Lens to Explore the Human Element
Building on Darling-Hammond (1999) and other researchers who
present evidence the teacher is the most important factor in a classroom,
some of us explore environments or entities via the anthropological
curriculum. The need to build the capacity of math and science teachers
is addressed by Smith (2012), Bryan (2012), and Plowman (2012). Smith
and Plowman note elementary school teachers lack of math and science
content-knowledge can prove a key obstacle to student learning. Smith
finds many teachers are not getting adequate professional development
to enable them to build a deep knowledge base. Plowman argues that
teachers who understand their grade levels math do not always possess
9
the pedagogical content-knowledge to teach it well. Smith also finds

teachers who are able to present a class lesson adequately sometimes
have difficulty creating intervention lessons for students who do not
master taught tasks. Bryan adds intervention requires being able to
diagnose and decide on remediation needs, a process that requires a deep
understanding of pertinent math knowledge and childrens mathematical
thinking (Ireland, Watters, Brownlee & Lupton, 2011). Plowman
observes highly prescribed, pedagogical environments inhibit even highly
talented math teachers.
Using an Ecological Lens to Transcend Conventional Analyses
Our studies indicate the AMCAER provides a lens that helps us go
beyond the analysis we would have or had done otherwise; it provides
extra lenses that allow us to view our research settings in fresh ways.
Warner (2012) describes a curriculum review of a high-school English
department. The review focus had been strictly on the epistemological
and aesthetic or conventional curriculum, comparing state standards
with actual content and assignments in English courses. Using the
AMCAER to look back on the revision process, Warner finds that the
curriculum committee did not consider the ecological curriculum
because it was not deemed part of their charge. He concludes the
curriculum work undertaken earlier would have been much richer in
insight and impact if a broader view of curriculum had been used.
Hammer (2012) explains her analysis of a developmental-education
program. She describes the ecological curriculum and uses it as a lens to
explore how a states political environment has an effect on institutions.
She observes legislation shaping the content and clientele of
developmental education and notes the importance of navigating the
political landscape in order better to serve students. The ecological lens
enables her to examine ways developmental education can further
democratic values by extending opportunities to a broader, more-diverse
population.
Examining the ecological curriculum also provoked inquiry among
us as we created our research projects, e.g., we shared questions about
the areas we studied. The AMCAER proved useful in supporting our
inquisitive stance. Issues of equity and access surfaced as we examined
the outcomes of our programs using an ecological lens. Isidro (2012)
draws attention to the nested quality of curricula, with the conventional
curriculum situated within pedagogical and human aspects, and the
ecological curriculum serving as an enveloping framework. In examining
the curriculum of a pre-school organization, Isidro seeks answers to
many questions related to the ecological curriculum: Does the
curriculum provide a positive learning environment for children?; and
0
146 Simpson et al.
Does the curriculum promote equitable opportunities? In examining a

high-school, English curriculum, Warner inquires: What types of
literature are available?; and How diverse are the producers of that
literature? Hammer questions the access and opportunity afforded
students in developmental classes: Does the developmental-education
curriculum promote the democratic values of equal opportunity?; and
Are all developmental-education students exposed to the same quality of
teaching and curriculum?
Using the Framework to Broaden and Integrate Interventions
As we learned to use the AMCAER, the connections across
different aspects of curricula became increasing clear. Jerbi describes the
excellent pedagogical practices she observed in English-language
classrooms, noting that pedagogy was partly a result of developing
teachers human capacities. Even so, she recommends the professional
development of teachers include technology as a means of enhancing
superior pedagogy already employed. Celebi similarly recommends
building professor capacity through knowledge of the language-learning
process so instructors have a better understanding of their students
challenges. Citing the importance of the ecological curriculum, she
recommends the physical environment of classrooms be made more
attractive and conducive to learning. Hendrix examines the conventional
curriculum including standards for health-profession education and finds
a need to address students affective learning. She finds attention to
pedagogy that builds affective capacities is needed to enable students to
develop dispositions expected by the current, medical world.
Many of us conclude we need additional experience using
AMCAER to make more suitable recommendations. Our assigned
experiences constitute an important step in this direction. Plowman,
after offering high praise for the teacher she observed, concludes the
teacher needs more pedagogical freedom so classroom activities can
become more diverse, engaging, and exciting. Isidro says there was little
attention paid to the ecological curriculum in the pre-school settings she
analyzes and recommends further inquiry in that area. Hammer, moving
outside of an institutional setting, recommends specific inquiry into
developmental educations political climate be undertaken in order to
facilitate making changes designed to improve student services. Smith
lists a variety of data sources that need to be examined in order to
inform recommendations for science teaching. Scott (2012) recommends
educators use multiple teaching strategies, create more casual
environments, and act on their knowledge of diversity to serve all
students well.
1
We find AMCAER amplifies our ability to analyze particular

educational entities in substantial ways. Warner (2012) captures our
thoughts when he argues the typical object of curricular review is the
conventional or official curriculum and the typical analysis and
revision is fairly cursory (p. 3), resulting in minimal improvement.
AMCAER, however, allows intellectual access to new ways of examining
educational worlds. By broadening our analyses to include other
elements and by focusing on those curricular aspects that seem most
pertinent, we are able to suggest ways an analysis can lead to a deeper
level of intervention and improvement. By extending the analysis and,
indeed, extending the purview of those conducting the analysis, the
complexity of curricula is recognized: a complexity we recognize then
becomes a complexity we can address.
Conclusion
At this juncture, we want to synthesize several ideas and add a few
fresh ones. First, we wish to note our projects proved informative in
those ways noted heretofore; they provided new windows of seeing
classrooms, schools, standards, and programs more inclusively and
systemically. We are better prepared to examine and suggest changes for
educational entities than before undertaking our studies. Second, our
introduction to Deweyan theorizing, the FCF, and AMCAER was more
time-intensive than expected. In part, this stems from our having to
rebuild some of our curricular views and requiring an introduction to
Deweys thinking. Learning to identify the conceptual and theoretical
distinctions of the four overlapping curricula also was challenging,
because we have been socialized to ignore many features of human and
environmental curricula. Grappling with the fluidity of curricula and
recognizing curricular dimensions simultaneously can involve multiple
connections and judgments proved sometimes as puzzling as it was
enlightening. Likewise, appreciating the dynamic proportionality of the
four curricula and the movement of curricular dimensions from the
foreground to the background and vice-versa tested previously formed
assumptions.
Third, given our studies, we conclude that many, perhaps most,
professional educators could profit significantly from being acquainted
with a broad philosophy of curriculum such as Deweys, which helps
capture the complexities and comprehensiveness of curricular analysis,
development, and evaluation. When we as educators begin studying and
guiding the full range of educative forces that permeate and influence
the people, activities, and contexts of our entities, we stand a better
chance of educating all students well. In fact, we probably will not reach
our full potential as educators in fostering an understanding of the
2
148 Simpson et al.
conventional curriculum if we ignore one of Deweys pivotal emphases:

the organic and systemic nature of curriculum. In part, what we suggest
is educators and students can profit considerably if we understand,
evaluate, re-envision, and recreate the life and work of our specific
educational entities as a whole. This Deweyan idea, of course, should
neither be seen as an educational panacea nor as dogma. Nor can it
stand in isolation from other hypotheses worthy of attention,
experimentation, and refinement. Instead, we merely suggest an idea that
ought to be situated in scholarly and professional communities of
inquiry that promotes imaginative, reconstructed, and holistic ways of
teaching and learning.
Endnotes
1 When the pronoun we is employed, it may include either instructors or

students or both instructors and students. The context clarifies how
inclusive the conception is. We started this study in Spring 2012 when
we were both teachers and learners in EDCI 6306 Advanced Seminar.
Instructors Simpson and Johnson and eleven of the fourteen students
in the course contributed to this paper.
2 The model that evolved into the current AMCAER has been variously
labeled as it has been reconstructed, e.g., Toward a Neo-Deweyan
Theory of Curriculum Analysis and Development (Simpson et al.,
2011) and Analytical Model for Curricular Analysis and Reporting
(Simpson, 2012a).
3 Although the inspiration for this framework is Deweys theory and, to
a degree, the theory of others, the entire set of terms is not used by
him or others as far as we know. While the initial construction of the
FCF was based on Deweys writings, we do not imply that those who
use the FCF or AMCAER should be Deweyan theorists. We think the
framework is employable by educators who have very diverse
philosophical commitments so long as they have a holistic interest in
curriculum.
4 Dewey, as noted earlier, is non-conventional in many of the ways he
views curriculum. As a result, the term is employed here to
accommodate the ways it is used to describe curriculum by many
others.
5 Educosystems is a neologism intended to draw attention to the idea that
classrooms, schools, districts, and other entities are organic curricular
systems, separately and collectively, and that they function well to the
degree that their parts are understood, constructed, operationalized,
3
and evaluated in healthy, reflective, and ethical ways. Like an

ecosystem, curriculum is an organic or living system whose health is
dependent upon the well-being of all its constituent parts.
6 Paulo Freires conception of critical consciousness comes to mind as a
powerful way to deepen Deweys thought.
7 This portion of our inquiry draws considerably from Simpsons
(2012a) unpublished paper Analytical Model for Curricular Analysis
and Reporting.
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Jerbi, M. (2012). Teaching English as a foreign language in public schools.

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152 Simpson et al.
Appendix A
The Fourfold Curriculum Framework in

External, Socio-Economic-Political
Environments
1
Appendix B
Potential Questions for AMCAER Projects

Retroactive, Contemporary, and/or Hypothetical Studies
(Seeing through prior, present, and prospective lenses)
Questions
(The use of these questions is neither required nor necessarily in sequential order.
Imagination is encouraged.)
What entity or unit am I analyzing and evaluating?
Entity (e.g., a sites culture, a library, a laboratory, an academic program,
a specific curriculum, a student services office, a set of standards,
a college major, a staff or faculty, a student population)
What have I decided or been asked to do?
(e.g., to determine the alterable factors which contribute to low
Purpose student/client success rates, high employee attrition rates, and low
staff morale and to make recommendations that can lead
significantly to enhancing desired outcomes of an entity)
What do I want to know about the program, services,
Facts laboratory, curriculum, cultures, staff, students, clients?
(e.g., strengths, weaknesses, attainments, recognitions, awards)
What professional standards are relevant to my analysis and
evaluation?
(e.g., American Association for Health Education, American
Standards Library Association, Association for Educational Communications
and Technology, National Accrediting Agency for Clinical
Laboratory Sciences, National Association for Developmental
Education, National Council for the Social Studies, Teachers of
English to Speakers of Other Languages)
What information is relevant to and what data are needed for
analyzing and evaluating the particular entity or unit?
Inquiry (e.g., test data, consultants report, ethical code, staff preparation,
professional-development records, accreditation-team report,
annual reports, personal research, observations)
Which elements of my analysis and evaluation fall into one
or more of the fourfold curriculum framework?
Curriculum
(i.e., epistemological and aesthetic, pedagogical, anthropological,
or/and ecological)
2
154 Simpson et al.
What should I include in my report that will be informative

Report and useful for the entity leaders?
(e.g., relevant history, data, findings, and recommendations)
Which of the normative or value judgments embedded in the
aforementioned questions are in greatest need of excavation,
Judgments clarification, and interrogation?
(e.g., assumptions regarding success and failure, selection of data
for analysis, inclusion and exclusion of ideas in report)
1

vol. 63, no. 1, 2013, pp. 155168
Confronting the
Unexpected in the Friendship of Flora
White (18601948) and Robert Strong
Woodward (18851957)
Linda C. Morice, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville
Introduction
Biographer Nigel Hamilton offers this advice to authors who write the
lives of historical subjects:
It is vital to keep curiosity and skepticism running in
tandem. What will you do...if your biographical research
turns up material that runs counter to your initial thesis, or
predisposition? How will you stop yourself from seeking only
evidence that supports a conviction, rather than evidence that
might not?1
I confronted this situation while researching the life of Massachusetts
progressive educator Flora White, who spent her career developing the
health and physical fitness of young women during the late-nineteenth
and early-twentieth centuries. Whites speeches, published articles,
newspaper accounts, school catalogs, and biographical references
suggest she pursued her career path with certainty, in opposition to
widely accepted gender assumptions of the time. On the invitation of
the Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education, she taught
physical culture (physical education) at her alma mater, the primarily
female Westfield Normal School. She also studied under kinesiology
pioneer Baron Nils Posse at the Posse Gymnasium in Boston, and
became his Associate Principal in 1895. The following year White
presented a paper on active learning at the annual meeting of the
National Education Association (NEA); it was a time when, according
to Rousmaniere, NEA speakers were all male and almost all
administrators.2 In 1897 she founded Miss Whites Home School in
Concord, Massachusetts, which she organized for girls.3 In addition to
its strong academic program, the school focused on the development
of physique.4 White modeled what she taught. Contemporaries recalled
she did a daily handstand until she was nearly seventy.5 One local
2
156 L. C. Morice
newspaper reported that until White was eighty years of age, she was
considered the most athletic woman in the country.6
Utilizing this information, I published articles describing Whites
confident pursuit of female fitness in a linear fashion.7 Later, new
primary sources suggested a need for a more nuanced interpretation.
Those sources include a group of letters (19401942) White received
from New England landscape and still-life painter Robert Strong
Woodward, whose close friendship with White is unexpected in itself.
While White was known for encouraging athleticism among women,
Woodward was a man who suffered the complete paralysis of his lower
limbs at age 21. His letters repeatedly voice concerns about health
Whites as well as his ownthereby causing me to wonder if Whites
pursuit of physical fitness involved more complexity than her public
persona suggested.
Letters to Flora White from Robert Strong Woodward underscore
the importance of continually keeping an open mind when writing about
a biographical subject. My effort to contextualize Woodwards letters led
me to Verbrugge,8 who finds a climate of pervasive worry about health
existed in nineteenth-century Massachusetts when White formed her
personal and professional beliefs. White and Woodwards writings reveal
they were conscious of the fragile nature of health, an awareness
heightened by personal and family circumstances and by the limiting
factors of advancing age. Although their friendship was strengthened by
a distant family relation and their mutual identification as New
Englanders, White and Woodward also shared the experience of being
outliers with respect to prevailing gender norms. Their friendship
illustrates the complexity of factors influencing White as she sought to
develop what Verbrugge called able-bodied womanhood.9 Through
their unexpected friendship I have discovered Flora White was a far
more interesting and complex person than that character who would
have emerged from a narrow consideration of her professional
accomplishments. The implications for my findings go well beyond
Whites singular life story. As Finkelstein writes, biography can serve as a
powerful lens for educational historians. Indeed, Biography is to history
what a telescope is to the stars.10
Review of Literature
Flora Whites emphasis on exercise and physique countered a
widespread, nineteenth-century belief in female frailty in the United
States, the historical antecedents of which are analyzed by Smith-
Rosenberg and Rosenberg.11 They cite physicians warnings that too
much activity unnerved females, creating a host of maladies from
hysteria to dyspepsia, and the widespread belief the uterus was
connected to the nervous system, so overexertion might lead to weak
3
Confronting the Unexpected 157
and degenerate offspring. By 1850 a cult of ill health had developed in

the US that encouraged women to demonstrate their femininity by being
invalids. Twin12 writes this standard was applied to all women, although
many agricultural, slave, and working class women performed back-
breaking labor on farms and in mills, factories, and private homes.
Moreover, until the late 1800s even the mildest female exercise regimens
had little public support in the US.
Todd13 characterizes nineteenth-century Americas discourse on
female frailty as an outgrowth of a century-earlier debate between the
philosophies of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Mary Wollstonecraft. This
discourse continues into the early twentieth century at which time
psychologist G. Stanley Hall advocated limitations for women in his
two-volume work Adolescence,14 the brilliance and nonsense15 of which
remains the subject of scholarly discourse.
Vertinskys study of women, doctors and exercise in the late-
nineteenth century finds the notion of male as the standard so pervasive in
medical ideologies that it affected womens view of themselves.16 Even
normal biological functions such as menstruation and menopause were
regarded as signs of illness that required rest and medical observation.
Verbrugge researches middle-class women in nineteenth-century Boston
and finds they worried about their health because it seemed precarious,
especially when compared to the male norm. Amid a climate of
uncertainty prompted by sweeping social change from immigration,
industrialization, and urbanization, women sought to improve their
physical well-being through health education, gymnastics, and
eventually in some quarterssports. However, like many Boston
residents, they were worried about infectious diseases, chronic
conditions, and the vulnerability of their own bodies in a city they
perceived as menacing and dangerous.17
Narrowly defined notions of femininity could not exist without
equally narrow conceptions of masculinity. According to Twin, at the
turn of the twentieth century a proliferation of articles in the US popular
press voiced concern about boys loss of male role models as men left
family farms to work in factories.18 These worries increased when large
numbers of women began to populate the nations classrooms due to
the feminization of teaching, a process analyzed by Perlmann and
Margo.19 Organizations such as the Boy Scouts were intended to
compensate for lost male role models, as was participation in sports.20
Twin cites Theodore Roosevelt, who in 1893eight years before
becoming President of the United Statesarticulated beliefs in his
address, The Value of Athletic Training, in which he repeatedly uses
the word manly to describe the national character of the United States
and the lifestyle athletics creates.21
4
158 L. C. Morice
Sources and Methodology

Primary sources utilized in my research are ten letters Flora White
received from Robert Strong Woodward, as well as letters she wrote and
received from family, friends, and professional associates. Whites
correspondence, which spans the period from 1885 until her death in
1948, is held in a private collection. Despite the large number of letters,
her responses to Woodward are not extant. Fortunately, Whites private
views are also presented in poetry, which she wrote and dedicated to
individuals who were close to her, including Woodward. Another
valuable primary source is Life Facts of Flora White and Family
Recorded Mar. 18, 1939, penned by White and only recently cataloged
at the Heath (Massachusetts) Historical Society. Additional sources
include Whites unpublished manuscripts, published speeches and
articles, school bulletins, local histories and newspaper articles, as well as
those secondary sources previously cited. Sources on Woodwards life
include the Robert Strong Woodward Letters and Papers (18901985) in
the Smithsonian Archives of American Art, Maitlands essay, Robert
Strong Woodward in Heath,22 and materials compiled by Dr. Mark
Purinton, a physician who, as a young man, served as Woodwards
driver.
My methodology was, first, to analyze Woodwards letters to White
to identify passages dealing with health and gender; and second, to
contextualize them by drawing comparisons to other primary and
secondary sources, including Whites poetry. A final step was to
conclude whether my earlier depiction of Flora White should be
adjusted. I first focus my discussion on Whites and Woodwards life
stories, then on the letters content and finally on my conclusions.
Focus on the Lives of Flora White and Robert Strong Woodward
Seminal events in the lives of Flora White and Robert Strong
Woodward contributed to a shared perception that health was fragile.
White was born in 1860 on a family farm in the town of Heath in
Franklin County, Massachusetts. She was the youngest of six children,
one of whom died at age two. When Flora was 20 months old, her father
died after a lengthy illness resulting from an inflammation of the
stomach and bowels.23 Floras mother sold the farm and the family
moved to nearby Shelburne Falls, where Mrs. White was practically an
invalid.24 Although Flora White would have had little memory of her
father, she possessed, at the time of her death, a copy of his funeral
address. The presiding minister acknowledged Mr. Whites unusual
sufferings and said his disease could not be reversed by sympathizing
neighbors, skillful and experienced physicians, or the devotion of a
wife who loved him. The minister also observed, Severe trials this side
5
of death will in all probability be ours and to the great trial death itself
we must all submit.25
Flora Whites fathers death dealt a serious financial blow to the
family, causing them eventually to return to Heath. The family
fragmented further in 1864 when Floras only surviving brother, eight-
year-old Joseph, was bound out to another farm family.26 The practice
of binding children was widespread in the US during the nineteenth
century and usually involved those children who were illegitimate or
orphaned, or whose families could not care for them. Under this
arrangement, the master gives the child food, clothing, schooling, and
preparation for a trade; the childs family, in return, receives payment for
his or her labor. Although he kept in contact with his mother and sisters,
young Joseph White remained in the binding arrangement until he was
21 years of age.
Flora Whites immediate family members lives also were affected
by health issues. Emma White HillmanFloras eldest sister and the
only one who marriedhad ten children, two of whom (including
Floras namesake) died of tuberculosis at early ages. The Hillmans left
Massachusetts early in their marriage, moved to Nebraska, and
continued west, eventually settling in Washington state in the hope of
finding a healthy climate.27 Another sister, Harriet (Hattie), evoked the
cult of female frailty by suffering a breakdown while teaching at the
Huguenot Seminary in the Cape Colony, now part of South Africa.28 In
1885, Flora went to the Cape Colony to assist her dyspeptic sister,29
teaching there for two years; Hattie eventually lost her job and went to
recover in a sanatorium for believers in divine healing in Switzerland.
After Hattie died at 52, a Franklin County newspaper gave the following
explanation of her death, likely provided by Flora: She was a woman of
brilliant attainments and because she was so capable, overestimated her
strength and her health failed.30 In 1939, Flora was more direct in
explaining the circumstances of Hatties demise, noting she died in
hospital at Northampton of a cancer that for religion reasons she
refused to have removed.31 Flora lived most of her adult years with her
sister Mary (May), who taught at Miss Whites Home School in
Concord. Even the schools founding was influenced by failing health.
While working at the Posse Gymnasium, Flora White suffered acute
appendicitis, resulting in hospitalization, surgery, and an extended rest
period. Thatplus the death of 33-year-old Posseled White to seek
another opportunity at Concord. Miss Whites Home School closed in
1914 at Mary Whites request because of concerns about her health (she
died in 1938 after a long illness). In retirement, Flora and Mary White
took up residence in Heath, the town of their birth. They had spent
summers there and had persuaded Dr. Grace Wolcott, a Boston
6
160 L. C. Morice
physician specializing in womens health, to establish an occupational

camp for nervous patients.32 Dr. Wolcott died unexpectedly in 1915.
Some of her patients bought property in Heath, including Ethel Paine
Moors, who became a benefactor of Robert Strong Woodward.
Woodwards life story suggests why he, too, had reasons to be
concerned about health. He was born in 1885 in Northampton,
Massachusetts; however, his realtor father moved the family around the
country, causing young Robert to attend eighteen different grammar
schools. After completing engineering studies at Bradley Polytechnic
Institute (now Bradley University) in Illinois, Woodward moved to
California to join his family and enter Stanford University. At age 21
Woodward suffered a revolver accident resulting in paralysis of his lower
limbs, extended hospitalizations, confinement to a wheelchair, and a
lifetime necessity for a small retinue of nurses and attendants.33 The
accident also precipitated a shift in professional focus for Woodward,
who developed his hobby of painting into his lifes work. Woodward
expressed no affinity for a particular place, save his grandfathers farm in
the hill town of Buckland, in Franklin County, Massachusetts.
Woodward moved to the Buckland family farm in 1912 and began to
make a modest living as an illustrator. Beginning in 1915, he set out to
become a landscape artist. Because of his well-developed upper body
strength, he was able to hitch his horse to his buggy and travel dirt roads
to paint local scenery.
Woodwards formal education in painting was limited to part of a
year at Bostons School of the Museum of Fine Arts. In 1919, he won
the Hallgarten Prize for landscape at the National Academy of Design.
His rural scenes of western Massachusetts and southern Vermont were
exhibited regularly at the Vose Gallery of Boston and in regional
museums. Many of Woodwards paintings were placed in the homes of
wealthy clients of Los Angeles designer Harold Walter Grieve, who
knew Woodward during his youth. Among the owners of Robert Strong
Woodwards paintings were Hollywood screen actress Beulah Bondi;
entertainers Jack Benny, George Burns, and Gracie Allen; poet Robert
Frost; and US Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
During the course of his life, Woodward had a total of five studios,
three of which were lost to fire. Between 1937 and 1950 he had a studio
in Heath, where the White sisters arranged showings of his paintings at
their home. When Woodward acquired a 1936 Packard Phaeton and
customized the back seat so he could ride and paint outdoor scenery,
Flora White often accompanied him along with chauffeur Mark
Purinton. Contemporaries reported Woodward regarded Purinton as the
son he never had.
7
The Letters
Robert Strong Woodward wrote letters to Cousin Flora to update
her on local happenings when she was away from Heathsometimes to
visit friends in Springfield, Massachusetts, but more often when she
journeyed by train to Oklahoma City to spend the winter with her
brother, Joseph. Long-distance travel was not an option for Woodward.
I live in an isolated way, he stated, And Im not able to get at things.
With me its been local country, the local scenery Ive cared for.34
Occasionally Woodwards letters offer a glimpse of the athletic
woman who built a professional reputation developing female physique.
For example, in 1941 he writes the 81-year-old White, So you are taking
tango & rumba lessons! Look out for your knees!35 A constant theme
in Woodwards letters, however, is his concern about Whites health and
well-being. For example, he writes, Your card came to-day. I do thank
you for writing it telling of your safe arrival there. I was quite worried
about your traveling on such a fearful day. Be very careful to keep
well.36 Nine days later he writes, I do pray you are keeping well in all
your travels and that you will write to tell me so.37 The following year
he observes, You were thoughtful to send word back, so promptly, of
your arrival in Chicago and the final termination of the journey at
Oklahoma City. I was anxious lest you be ill on the trip so it relieved me
greatly to know all was well.38 Later he writes, I pray ardently you
continue well.39 With the approach of spring, Woodward writes, I am
glad you kept so well this winter, pray it lasts til you get back.40
Woodwards letters also offer White a candid appraisal of his own
health issues. He makes continual reference to the unbearable pain he
is experiencing, and confides, My moves of mere existence take so
much planning!41 He expresses fear that an exhibition of his paintings
in New York City will not be financially successful, since nothing had
sold to date. Woodward also relates how the precarious nature of health
threatens his livelihood. He reports being quite crushed that a wealthy
benefactor who enthusiastically anticipated the exhibition & planned to
go several times with guests became ill and was confined to bed a day
before the opening.42 Woodward subsequently writes, My exhibition in
New York was not a complete financial failure, but adds, These are
dreadful, incongruous days for artistswith worse ahead, I fear. What is
to become of me I do not know.43 In the same letter Woodward
expresses uncertainty about whether he can attend an upcoming
exhibition of his work in Boston, adding It will depend upon health,
financesand rubber tires!44
For his entire adulthood Woodward was prohibited from modeling
the active, masculine life Theodore Roosevelt described, although in
1910 he wrote on a photograph of himself in his buggy, [Y]ou can see I
8
162 L. C. Morice
am strong and husky this Spring and far from an invalid.45 Occasionally
his letters to White make humorous references to gender roles, as when
he bought Cousin Flora a scarf for Christmas:
Now in texture & weight & size I believe it is what you want
but it is very gay. Anything plainer didnt have the three above
mentioned attributes. I do think it is very beautifulif only
you do not think it too bizarre. If you dont care for it just
return it to me. And Ill give it to one other of my lady loves!
Probably Beulah Bondi would wear it!46
Whites Response to Woodward
The life narratives of Flora White and Robert Strong Woodward
illustrate why a shared concern about healths fragility might have been
an important element in their friendship. Woodwards attitudes are
clearly articulated in his letters. Since Whites responses to him are not
available, a biographer must consult other sources to understand how
she viewed Woodwards paralysis, pain and accommodation to everyday
lifes demands. White made a practice of revealing her private thoughts
through poetry while maintaining her public persona. She typically
identified the person for whom her poem was intended (using the full
name or initials, a first name in the title, or a postscript). In 1939two
years after Woodward established his studio at HeathWhite dedicated
the poem, That Which Abides, to Robert Strong Woodward and
published it in Poems by Mary A. White and Flora White. The poem
describes Woodward as a youth who confronts Life and Death, with
Death claiming half of his body. The youth responds, I am still I,
proclaiming with creative fire that You shall both [Life and Death]
serve me! In a miracle of miracles Woodward produces art depicting
the never-ending strife between the two forces. His canvases include
symbols of Life and Death (for example, Light that creeps through
every hue to all-absorbing white and Houses fallen to decay seeking a
brighter day through [r]oots of windblown, maple trees). Whites poem
gives testimony to her own hope and realism in describing Woodward:
Theseall these
He has portrayedAnd knowing Life, and trusting Death
He is their Master, nothing hides, but with a masters
Hand reveals that which is not either Life nor Death
That which abides, transcends
And never ends.47
Beyond communicating her admiration for Woodwards handling of
his paralysis, Whites 1939 book of poems suggests she spent
considerable time reflecting on her own vulnerability in the ongoing Life
9
and Death struggle. Of Flora Whites 44 poems in the volume, ten deal
directly with death. In Unus Est Artifex Deus, White asks, What is
life and what is death? Which is which? Or are they one?48 Another
poem, The Darkness Deepens, describes the death one year earlier of
Mary White, Floras sister and lifelong companion:
Unconscious of the world she stood,
Unconscious of us all, and read
Abide with me, fast falls the eventide,
Her very posture was a wordless prayer
Incertitude of motion, drooping shoulders,
Weight of years, aureole of white hair,
Tremulous voice, orchestrated there
An inner need of that on which
Her struggling soul could lean.
Her eyelids lifted, and her winged gaze
Swept past us, seeking wider space.
Softly the words fell as far-off vesper bell
The darkness deepensLord with me abide.
Still reaching as she stood, reaching elsewhere,
Gravely she smiled and laid the book aside
She had received an answer to her prayer.49
Several other poems in the same book offer images of old age and death.
For example, The Old Beech Tree describes a tree Mottled of trunk
and battered of limb, asking, What will he do when death draws
nigh?50 In another poem, On the Home Stretch, White writes, It is
not death to die.51 In The Osprey, White describes a bird that
strives for the love of striving and grapples with Death in the
dark.52 Since the volume was published a year before White began
receiving Woodwards letters, the poems are useful in discerning Whites
private thoughts during a period when her correspondence to
Woodward is not extant.
While Whites poetry answers one question, it raises another: Do
her expressions of vulnerability surface only in the final years of her life,
or are they apparent earlier? One way of answering the question is to
recall Verbrugge, who offers insight on the way vulnerability was
expressed in changing historical contexts. Verbrugge notes that between
the 1820s and 1860s, American fatalism concerning health was replaced
by the possibility of physical well-being. However, with the triumph of
industrialism and urbanization, Americans of the late 1800s regarded
0
164 L. C. Morice
health as more tenuous than in the antebellum period. As the US

moved into the twentieth century, physical well-being was regarded as a
buffer against the forces of modern society, and health became a
pragmatic adjustment to the demands of urban, industrial life.53 After
reading Verbrugge, I wondered if Whites statements in the late-
nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries reflected a belief physical
activity could mitigate the negative effects of industrialization and
urbanization. The answer is found in her 1896 speech to the NEA as
well as her 1899 article in the Sloyd Bulletin.54 White writes of the
importance of schools cultivating the ruddy cheek, the full chest and
quickened blood currents55 of students through physical space and
movement, as well as good air circulation, lower temperature,
cleanliness, and proper nutrition. White presents these conditions as
being in marked contrast to the situation of many public schools in the
industrial era. She discusses a societal vulnerability by observing:
We build dreary brick buildings on small plots of ground, and
drive the children into rooms by fifties and sixties, with the
hobgoblin of the law and the truant office behind them; and
there we compel them to sit for five long hours each day over
verbal tasks, permitting them for motor activities only
wigglings of the fingers with pen and pencil, wigglings of the
tongue in using words, and a few rigid movements of the arms
taken under peremptory commends.56
As if to underscore the importance of the issue, White writes, The
crowding of our schoolrooms is our greatest sin against childhood.57
Analysis and Conclusion
Robert Strong Woodwards letters to White, and her published
poems, speeches, and articles, show her awareness of healths fragility.
Her attitude was likely influenced by her own life narrative as well as by
the climate in Massachusetts in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth
centuries as described by Verbrugge. Especially as they aged, White and
Woodward wanted to access contemporary life by making
accommodations for their physical challengesas, for example, through
planning and taking chauffeured rides in a retrofitted Packard. Mark
Purinton recalled of White:
I had driven the big car up to her front door and she came out
to enter the rear seat. I opened up the rear door and she
grasped for the strap to help her enter, but was unable to get
up onto the running board except with one foot. She turned,
looked down at me and said: Young man, put your hands on
my rump and push. This I did, and she made it into the back
seat. We went for another ride.58
1
Flora Whites and Robert Strong Woodwards lives serve as

reminders of the importance of keeping curiosity and skepticism
running in tandem in biographical research, and remind historians of
the value of revising dispositions and theses when evidence warrants.
Their unexpected friendship resulted in a more complex interpretation
of Flora White as I dug deeper into primary and secondary sources
including Whites poetryand adjusted my depiction of Whites
attitudes toward health that prompted her to spend a career developing
physique in others.
Endnotes
1
Nigel Hamilton, How To Do Biography: A Primer (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 2008), 67.
2
Kate Rousmaniere, Citizen Teacher: The Life and Leadership of Margaret
Haley (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2005), 106.
3
Miss Whites Home School, 1900, 2.
4
Ibid., 3.
5
Grace Moyer Share, Notes on the Lives of Mary Abby and Flora
White, 1986, 4. Unpublished manuscript, private collection.
6
Poetess, Educator Lives Quietly in Retirement, Greenfield Gazette and
Courier, 14 July 1947, 6.
7
Linda C. Morice, The Progressive Legacy of Flora White, Vitae
Scholastic 22, no. 1 (2005): 5774; Linda C. Morice, A Marked
Success: Physical Activity at Miss Whites School, Gender and
Education 20, no. 4 (2008): 325334.
8
Martha H. Verbrugge, Able-Bodied Womanhood: Personal Health
and Social Change in Nineteenth-Century Boston (New York: Oxford
9
Ibid., 9.
10
Barbara Finkelstein, Revealing Human Agency: The Uses of
Biography in the Study of Educational History, in Writing
Educational Biography: Explorations in Qualitative Research, Craig
Kridel, ed. (New York: Garland, 1998), 45.
11
Carroll Smith-Rosenberg and Charles E. Rosenberg, The Female
Animal: Medical and Biological View of Woman and Her Role in
Nineteenth-Century America, Journal of American History 60 (1973):
332356.
2
166 L. C. Morice
12
Stephanie Twin, Woman and Sport, in Sport in America: New
Historical Perspectives, Donald Spivey, ed. (Westport, CT: Greenwood,
1985), 193217.
13
Jan Todd, Physical Culture and the Body Beautiful: Purpose Exercises in the
Lives of American Women, 18001875 (Macon, GA: Mercer University
Press, 1998).
14
G. Stanley Hall, Adolescence: Its Psychology and its Relations to Physiology,
Anthropology, Sociology, Sex, Crime, Religion and Education (New York: D.
Appleton Company, 1915/1904).
15
Jeffrey Jensen Arnett, G. Stanley Halls Adolescence: Brilliance and
Nonsense, History of Psychology 9, no. 2 (2006): 186197.
16
Patricia A. Vertinsky, The Eternally Wounded Woman: Women, Doctors, and
Exercise in the Late Nineteenth Century (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois
Press, 1994).
17
Verbrugge, 114.
18
Twin, Woman and Sport.
19
Joel Pearlman and Robert A. Margo, Womens Work? American
Schoolteachers, 16501920. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001).
20
Twin, Woman and Sport, 199.
21
Theodore Roosevelt, The Value of Athletic Training, Harpers
Weekly 22 (1931): 1236.
22
Alastair Maitland, Robert Strong Woodward in Heath, in The Book of
Heath: Bicentennial Essays, Susan Silverster, ed. (Ashfield, MA: Paideia,
1985). 159171.
23
Massachusetts Vital Records, 18411910, volume 147, 325.
24
J. D. White Life History, unpublished manuscript, private
collection.
25
Address at the Funeral of Mr. Joseph White, Heath, Oct. 18, 1861,
unpublished manuscript, private collection.
26
Golden Moyer, White, Joseph David, in Our Ellis County Heritage,
18851974, vol. 1. (Gage, OK: Ellis County Historical Society, 1974),
493; J. D. White Life History.
27
Grace Moyer Share, Notes on the Lives of Mary Abby and Flora
White, 1986, unpublished manuscript, private collection, 1.
28
Flora White to Harriet M. White and Mary A. White, 6 June 1887,
Flora White Papers, private collection.
29
Ibid.
30
Looking Back Over Centuries White Family First Mentioned in
3
1333, The Franklin Press and Shelburne Falls News, 2 May 1929, 13.
31 Flora White, Life Facts of Flora White and Family Recorded Mar. 18,
1939 (Heath [MA] Historical Society), 14.
32 Forty-first Annual Meeting of the Alumnae Association of the
Womans Medical College of Pennsylvania, (Philadelphia, PA:
Alumnae Association of the Womans Medical College of
Pennsylvania, 1916), 35.
33 Maitland, 161.
34 Ibid., 169.
35 Robert Strong Woodward to Flora White, 5 December 1941, Flora
White Papers, private collection.
White Papers, private collection..
38 Robert Strong Woodward to Flora White, 18 November 1941, Flora
39 Robert Strong Woodward to Flora White, 31 January 1942, Flora
40 Robert Strong Woodward to Flora White, 12 March 1942, Flora
41 Woodward to White, 18 November 1941.
42 Woodward to White, 12 March 1942.
43 Robert Strong Woodward to Flora White, 10 April 1942, Flora White
Papers, private collection.
44 Ibid.
45 Robert Strong Woodward Letters and Papers, Smithsonian Archives
of American Art.
46 Woodward to White, December 18, 1940.
47 Mary A. White and Flora White, Poems by Mary A. White and Flora
White (New York: Paebar, 1939), 6263.
48 Ibid., 17.
49 Ibid., 18.
50 Ibid., 19.
51 Ibid., 49.
52 Ibid., 36.
53
Verbrugge, 4.
4
168 L. C. Morice
54 Flora White, Physical Effects of Sloyd, Sloyd Bulletin 2 (1899).

55 Ibid., 910.
56 Ibid., 8.
57 Ibid.
58 Robert Strong Woodward, accessed March 15, 2008, http://
robertstrongwoodward.com/Friends/Friendshtm
1

vol. 63, no. 1, 2013, pp. 169180
Teaching to Transcend:
A Personal Educational Philosophy
Don Hufford, Newman University
Introduction: A Creative Tension

One who finds an academic home in a universitys School of
Education must continually fine-tune the tensions that arise when
alternative views of best educational practices and philosophies
collide. In todays educational world the establishment preaches an
empirically defined, instrumentalist, technique-driven, assessment-
dominated, high-stakes-oriented, follow-the-recipe orthodoxy. The
collision occurs and the tension is generated when more humanistic
ways of thinking, questioning, and imaginingeven beingpenetrate
the educational atmosphere.
This tension created by a confluence of paradoxical ideas may, of
course, generate negative vibrations. But such tension also can be
recycled into a creative process that moderates absolutist, black-and-
white thinking and allows both sides of the educational dialectic to
reimagine possibilities in a more open-minded way. I pause to remind
my readers of a piece of practical wisdom expressed in metaphorical
terms by a mid-twentieth-century social philosopher and activist labor
leader, Eric Hoffer (1969): Vigor and creative flow have their source
in internal strains and tension. It is the pull of opposite poles that
stretches souls, and only stretched souls make music (p. 56). Without
contrasting educational philosophies competing in the educational
arena there is an absence of creative tension that metaphorically
stretches souls, and inspires thoughtful innovation in the world of
teaching.
The tension I speak of may be described in Nietzsches famous
metaphor, as a tightrope over an abyss, which man must walk
across. If the rope is too slack he will fail; if it is too tight
he will also fail. So the rope must be continually adjusted
and supported at its weakest point, whatever that may happen
to be. (quoted in Harris, p. 43)
What follows in this writing is a personal expression of an
educational philosophy: one that expresses a somewhat heretical
counterpoint to the philosophy that dominates much of todays
2
170 D. Hufford
educational discourse and decision making. Herein resides a

paradoxical imbalance in need of adjustment: a tension that generates
dialectical opportunities to reimagine the educational landscape. There
are, of course, many positives flowing from the powerful educational
orthodoxy that permeates the educational atmosphere. But, there are
also positives in the philosophy I explore. I proceed with an
understanding that Contradiction [is] the beginning of all intellectual
awakening. Polarities are the only way you can save man from a
formula situation (Buchanan, 1970, p. 91). Reflecting upon
educational polarities is a way for one American educator to stretch his
or her soul and prepare to walk the tightrope stretched across the
educational divide.
Getting Personal
The social foundations classes I teach are not formulaic; they do
not fit into pre-determined molds or measurement-by-objectives
expectations. Students are not measured by an orthodox grading
process that fits into a traditional assessment model.
Numerical/standardized rubrics are not used to determine student
outcomes. The academic structure that undergirds my classes is not
constructed from prefabricated lesson plans, but rather from
educational reality and whatever scraps of thought, imagination, and
philosophical wonder I can conjure up to engage students in creative
learning experiences. Dwight Eisenhowers World War II words sum
up my thinking: Plans get thrown out on the first day of battle. Plans
are not so important, but planning is everything. Plans are specific
recipes; planning is preparation for the unplanned. I do not teach from
a sacrosanct syllabus, rather I frequently encourage a class to engage in
a little Taoist wu wiego with the flowand move in uncharted
directions.
I cheer for todays educational prophets who have the courage to
translate inner conviction into active intellectual confrontation: such
idiosyncratic thinkersto name but a fewas Alfie Kohn, Susan
Ohanian, William Ayers, Jonathan Kozol, Cornell West, Howard Zinn,
Linda Christensen, and Bill Bigelow. These are transformative
intellectuals (Giroux, 1988, p. 151) not shy about challenging the
educational status quo. These are the men and women whose words
motivate and inspire educators, whose
[l]anguage is luminous and explosive, firm and contingent,
harsh and compassionate. The prophet is intent on
intensifying responsibility, is impatient of excuse,
contemptuous of pretense. The prophet is an iconoclast,
challenging the apparently holy, revered, and awesome.
3
Teaching to Transcend 171
Beliefs cherished as certainties, institutions endowed with

supreme sanctity, he exposes as scandalous pretensions.
(Heschel, 2000, pp. 7 & 10)
We need to open our mindsand heartsto those prophetic thinkers
whose iconoclastic messages challenge the pretensions of experts,
often without educational credentials, who are all-too-certain of their
certainties, and who seek to impose their certainties on the less certain. I
maintain educators have reason to respond to todays prophetic
educators who heed the call of conscience. In the words of Rev. Dr.
Martin Luther King, Jr.:
Cowardice asks the question, Is it safe? Expediency asks the
question, Is it politic? Vanity asks the question, Is it popular?
But conscience asks the question, Is it right? And there comes
a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor
politic, nor popular, but he must take it because his conscience
tells him that it is right. (quoted in Lent & Pipkin, 2003, p. 141)
I challenge my students, future teachers, to become acquainted with
the ideas and heresies of educational iconoclasts who take risks, who
prick the conscience of their readers, who encourage teachers to
challenge the educational status quo, and who issue provocative calls
that threaten behaviorist educational models. This, even though I realize
my students are preparing to enter a world of highly structured,
enforceable, efficient, monitorable, and controllable (Jardine, 2005, p.
47) pedagogical practices. I realize they will be held accountable for their
students objectively measurable exam scores that will be assessed and
measured against standardized criteria, for we are faced with the reality
that
once a phenomenon has been converted into quantifiable
units it can be added, multiplied, divided, or subtracted, even
though these operations have little meaning in reality.
Numbers provide the comforting illusion that
incommensurables can be weighed against each other, because
arithmetic always works: arithmetic yields answers. (Stone,
1997, p. 176)
Quantifiable answers represent a steady stream of reductionist
materialism (Smith, 2003, p. 30) that seeps into the educational arena
future teachers will enter. I encourage teacher education students to
challenge the seepage, to ask hard questions of an educational system
that tends to reduce the art of teaching to a technically competent
but metaphysically impoverished method (p. 199). I expect my students
to think paradoxically, to become metaphysically sophisticated as well as
technically competent. In metaphysical terms, they are expected to be
seriously concerned about the philosophically tinged why questions that
4
172 D. Hufford
should penetrate any meaningful discussion of educational reality. My

students are encouraged to continue questioning as they enter the world
of pedagogical methods; even as they must become skilled in the hows
that define a technically qualified professional.
I suggest to my students they struggle toward becoming teachers
who are artists and poetsthe ones who threaten the status quo
(May, 1980, p. 22). I remind students a teacher with an aesthetic
disposition is often a menace to conformity (p. 80), and conformity is
built into a system that standardizes both teacher and student. A teacher
as pedagogical artist and poet is one who finds ways to be a
nonconformist, to respond creatively to the standardizing culture of
education. And, so, my students are encouraged to transcend, and to
become teachers who willas educational professionalsteach to
transcend.
The Teacher as Transcender
For a teacher to transcend is to move beyond the what is and to
rise above the parameters of an educationally socialized conformity.
Transcending is to surpass the limitations of a standardized model of
teaching efficiency; it is to pull from within the self the transcendent
qualities that can give life energy and meaning[:] qualities like courage,
compassion, energy, ingenuity, and tenacity (Egan, 1997, p. 255). To
transcend is to define and then live into a personal educational philosophy
that allows one to think in terms of ever-emerging possibility rather than
becoming limited by handed-down rules that insist upon educational
conformity. The transcending teacher is an enabler of possibilities, both
in self and student.
To educate means no less than to let someone exist, to stand
out or transcend into existential space as the unique person
that he is. the teacher is visualized as the enabler of the
process of self-transcendence. (Macquarrie, 1972, pp. 260261)
To transcend is to surmount the boundaries in which customary views
are confined, and to reach a more open territory (Heidegger, 1968, p.
13). Finding open territory is a matter of transcending the given, of
entering fields of possibilities (Greene, 2000, p. 111).
A teacher enters fields of possibilities when she or he begins a
philosophical questa search for that which defines the true, the good,
and the beautiful in teaching, those educational qualities that transcend
the confines of quantification and empirical verification.
Many persons have been provoked to engage in philosophical
quests because they were so outraged by the thought of confinement, by
the trampling down of energies, by living beings trapped and immobile
in the dark. (Greene, 2000, p. 63)
5
To transcend is to be provoked into an adventurous, questing

search for what might be, rather than remaining in the confining darkness
of a metaphorical cave of bureaucratically imposed shadows of rules,
regulations, and systems. To transcend is to ascend into the light of
imagined possibilities: to move beyond handed-down, measurable
expectations and toward an education that begins and ends in
exploration, in the perpetual uncovering and unfolding of self and
othersin the world (OBrien, 2006, p. 5).
Those teachers-of-teachers have a special responsibility to be
models: to be intellectual explorers, to unfold the self, to be
transcenders. And this
means to renew oneself, to grow, to flow out, to love, to
transcend the prison of ones isolated ego, to be interested, to
strive, to give. Yet none of these experiences can be expressed
in words. (Fromm, 1976, p. 88)
To transcend ones selfones isolated egois perhaps an indescribable
possibility. It is, however, possible to consider the essence of man is
not a fixed reality but a potentiality to be realized[within] the human
capacity for self-transcendence (Hutchison, 1956, pp. 65 & 69). Self-
transcendence is a teacher quality that always remains outside the
realm of the measurable, and, therefore, transcends an outcome to be
exhibited for an NCATE-accreditation visit. Self-transcendence requires
the courage to be (Tillich, 1952, p. 2): to be authentic to possibilities that
define a unique, unrepeatable human personality. I ask my reader reflect
upon the possibility that
the openness of existence is reflected by its self-
transcendence. When the self-transcendence of existence is
denied, existence itself is distorted. If self-transcendence
and the door to meanings and values is closed, reasons and
motives are replaced by conditioning processes. Man isby
virtue of the self-transcending quality of the human reality
basically concerned with reaching out beyond himself. Self-
actualization is possible only as a byproduct of self-
transcendence. (Frankl, 1978, pp. 5253, 66 & 94)
Self-actualization isor should bea goal of education, whether at the
K12 or the graduate level: a goal for both student and teacher. The
highest purpose of education isto draw forth the transcendent creative
powers that are inherent in human nature (Miller, 1992, p. 72).
Therefore, transcendence as an educational goal, both for teacher and
student, is a legitimate topic for discussion in schools of educations
social foundations classrooms. It is within these classrooms we teachers
must make an intensified effort to break through the frames of custom
and, to touch the consciousness of those we teach (Greene, 2000, p.
53).
6
174 D. Hufford
Transcendence refers to the very highest and most inclusive or

holistic levels of human consciousness (Maslow, 1971, p. 279). If this is
so, then the teacher-of-teachers, as model, mentor, and motivator, has a
responsibility to strive toward self-transcendence to seek a level of
higher consciousness that expands the boundaries of thought: a
transcendence that leads to an emancipation from a pre-formed, handed-
out, educational reality. Such transcendence opens the door to an
enlarging consciousness and an imaginative flexibility (Egan, 1997,
pp. 124 & 279). It leads to an open-minded awareness that stimulates a
teachers willingness to challenge todays educational orthodoxy,
an educational orthodoxy about how we know and what we
cannot know. This orthodoxy has adopted a narrowly
quantitative, materialistic, and functionalist view of knowledge
with such zeal that it tends to exclude feeling, the imagination,
the will, and intuitive insight from the domain of rationality.
This orthodoxy maintains that we can know only that which we
can count, measure, and weigh. (Sloan, 1983, pp. xxi)
There is, of course, another epistemological reality, one that allows a
teacher to transcend the narrow, disembodied rationality (Egan, 1997,
p. 135) that dominates the thinking of those who formulate todays top-
down educational policies. A quote often attributed to Albert Einstein
offers a motto for the teacher who would transcend the narrow confines
of a scripted, assessment-motivated, measurement-driven, test-
dominated, educational culture: Not everything that counts can be
counted, and not everything that can be counted counts. The teacher
who transcends is one who rises above narrow rationality and
imaginatively broadens the definition of what counts in terms of
educational purpose. This is the teacher who experiences a deeper
restlessnessalways roaming with a hungry heart (Thurman, 1951, p.
5). The teacher who transcends is the one who experiences a restlessness
with the educational status quo; who hungers for self-expressive ways to
do and to be. He or she is an intellectual roamer, a discontented wanderer
always searching with an open mind for something to feed the
educational spirit. And God bless the wandererthey that seek and
seldom find, yet all ceaselessly do seek some truer, better thingsfor the
way of the wanderer is wide and winding, his soul hungers (DuBois,
1980, p. 38). It is the teacher with the seeking, hungry soul who is able to
feed the students hungry longing for personal becoming.
Teaching to Transcend
I believe as an educator of educators I am called to be an
educational wanderera transcending seeker who is willing to cross
educational boundaries. Here I draw upon and make metaphorical
7
comparisons to the Emersonian model of a thinker who engages in the

radical strategy of transcendentalism and practices transcendental
heresy (Turner, 1985, pp. 801 & 163). I reinterpret transcendence, that
which has been essentially a religious term, and transpose it to an
educational setting. I am responsible to teach to transcend. In many
ways the education of future teachers has become an exercise in
technical efficiency, a pedagogical limitation that must be transcended. I
want my students to shake themselves out of an authoritatively induced
conformity to this mechanistic given to think organically. I want them
to become intellectually and imaginatively thoughtful, to think from a
transcendental vantage point (Wexler, 1996, p. 4). I want to provoke
challenges to a culture that maximizes educational conformity and the
taken-for-granted recipes of pedagogical success. I want to create an
active classroom engagement with political/social/cultural/economic
educational realities rather than hide from diverse realities that affect the
individual classroom to encourage a habit of intellectual
controversy[and to] teach thinking not orthodoxy (Russell, 1926, p.
175).
I have a responsibility to encourage my students to transcend
boundaries, to think outside the box of scripted recipes, to challenge the
orthodoxies of educational power. I want them passionately to reflect
upon that which is transcendentally important (Whitehead as quoted
in Niebuhr, 1968, p. 245), for the transcendentally important lies outside
the box of economic competitiveness, technology and powerhollow
formulas, [and] media-fabricated sentiments (Greene, 1988, pp. 1 & 3)
so heavily reflected in todays educational realities. Reflecting upon the
transcendentally important widens and intensifies ones intellectual and
emotional field of vision.
Neil Postman (1988) reminds us that, in this time when ideological
power defines educational purpose, we are fortunate to have available
an alternate tradition that gives us the authority to educate our students
to disbelieve, or at least be skeptical, of the prejudices (p. 22) of those in
power. In teaching students to transcend we should encourage them
to be warily skeptical of those prejudices so often embedded within
transmitted information, facts, and knowledges and which are to be
found in textbooks, assigned readings, handouts, instructors speech, or
other representations of authority.
There is, however, a caveat to be noted. It is important teacher and
student reflect upon the positive aspects of skepticism regarding
representations of truth. But we must remind students to think in such a
way that thoughtful skepticism does not degenerate into lazy
skepticism (Russell, 1926, p. 176) or, even worse, cynicism. The
skeptical thinker is a questioner. He or she does not automatically assume
that authorityin whatever formis to remain unquestioned or
8
176 D. Hufford
unchallenged. To be intellectually skeptical is to be open-minded: to look

carefully, reflectively, and critically at statements of truth, no matter
what the source. Skepticism involves questioning certitudes, challenging
absolutes, doubting the dogmatic, and confronting cultural norms. It
involves transcending the constricting bonds of behaviorist constructs
which surround Americas educational system.
Cynicism, however, descends to a level of dark, brooding distrust
that eliminates all opportunity for open-minded, dialectical engagement
with diverse possibilities. Cynicism is a negation of opportunities;
skepticism is a way to expand boundaries of thought. The skeptical
thinker escapes the trap of cynical thinking, and instead engages in an
open-minded awareness of those possibilities exposed by critical
thinking.
Critical thinkingconjoins imagination and criticism in a single
form of thinking. The free flow of the imagination is
controlled by criticism, and criticisms are transformed into new
ways of looking at things. the educator is interested in
encouraging critical discussion as distinct from the mere raising
of objections. (Passmore, 1975, p. 33)
The use of imaginative, free-flowing, critical discussionsa dialectical
exposure to divergent patterns of thought, worldviews, and ways of
beingrepresent a way educators may help students transcend the
politically inspired ideologies of a facts-based, technicist, behaviorist,
educational philosophy. Open-ended, dialectical, critical thinking
provides a way to encourage students toin the words of Iris
Murdochface the world as it is, questioning, skeptical but not
cynicalseeking ways to disbelieve the official line, without being
trapped into endless disbelief of all ideals and ideas (quoted in Myerson,
2000, p. 28).
A transcendent educational philosophy allows teacher and student
to explore possibility rather than be restricted to standardized
educational expectations. It opens up intellectual avenues that allow
open-minded learners to move beyond the world as we find it with its
conventional patterns and its received wisdom in pursuit of a world and
a reality that could be, but is not yet (Ayers, 2001, p. 23). It makes
possible a joyful uncertainty (de Chardin, 1960, p. 121) regarding the
canonical claims of an educational orthodoxy. It allows uncertainty to
fan the flame of imagination in search of alternative ways of knowing,
understanding, and being. In a university school of education, a teach
to transcend educational philosophy would most easily find a home in
the social foundations classroom. This is a place where questions are
more numerous than answers, and where the adventure of risky
intellectual exploration trumps the security of textbook knowledge and
9
pedagogical expertise. Social foundations classrooms are where

uncertainty is welcomed, and doubt is a feeling not to be feared, but
welcomed and discussed (Dershowitz, 2004, p. 113). Here is where it is
okay to be an educational iconoclast, and an intellectual hereticone
who makes choices based on intellectual reflection, not on authoritative
decree. Here is where the what is of ordained educational theory and
practice is challenged by the what might be of educational possibility.
In the social foundations classroom there is a metaphorically
implicit understandingfirst noted by Friedrich Nietzschethat a little
creative chaos can give birth to a dancing star. Here is where it is
acceptable, even encouraged, to be a transcendental rebel. Here is where
there is a liberation of the individual from the absolutist, authoritarian
spirit (Niel, 1973, p. 146). Here is where future K12 teachers may be
vaccinated against too much conformity to the system and against too
much reliance upon prefabricated recipes and standardized expectations.
Will such a vaccination take? Who knows? Only the inner-self of a given
individual, the flow of time, and exposure to educational reality will tell.
A Few Final Thoughts
This discussion has been my reflection upon a possibility. For many,
teaching is considered to be a skilled profession designed for those who
have been trained to testable levels of measurable knowledge and
technical efficiency. It is, however, important for teachers of teachers to
think of teaching as a way to express and to facilitate transcendence and
seriously to reflect upon those questions and issues which are
transcendentally important. There is a certain wisdom to be mined in a
thought from the Hollywood film The Color Purple (Spielberg, Guber, &
Peters, 1985), based on an Alice Walker novel: I think us here to
wonder, myself. To wonder, to ask. And that by wondering about the
big things, and asking about the big things, you learn about the little
things almost by accident.
There is the possibility for a teacher to facilitate a process, both in
self and student, that leads to transcendencerenewing the vitality of
life (Palmer, 1999, p. 18). A teacher does not renew or stimulate the
vitality of life by imposing a limited focus on providing knowledge, or
enhancing test-taking skills, or preparing students to fill places in a
production-based, consumer society and neoliberal, global economy.
The teacher has a more meaningful, life-vitalizing, transcendent
responsibility; even as he or she responds to more politically defined and
socially acceptable instrumentalist goals of education. The responsibility
is to teach students to transcend: to transcend self-imposed intellectual
rigidities, politically imposed ideologies, and even certain narrow
boundaries of socially imposed values.
0
178 D. Hufford
Educational transcendence is a process in which we reflect on

reality and on our received values, words, and interpretations in ways
that illuminate meanings we hadnt perceived before (Shor, 1992, p. 22).
The teacher who teaches to transcend helps students understand that
conflicts too, if only they are decided in a healthy atmosphere, have an
educational value (Buber, 1965, p. 107). Such a teacher escapes the
restrictive boundaries of institutionalized demands and helps students
search for revised meanings to values, words, and interpretations. He or
she implements a transcending move from following recipes to building
relationships, from being a conformist to finding ways to become a
creator. The teacher is driven to transcend the [given] roleby
becoming a creator, and in the act of creation transcends himself
(Fromm, 1958, pp. 3637). It is by way of this self-transcendence that a
teacher achieves the emancipation of sensibility, reason, and
imagination (Marcuse, 1978, p. 9). In the process of emancipation a
teacher turns a technical task into a labor of love and transcends the
boundaries of bureaucratic expectations. Such a teacher enters the realm
of creative possibility.
References
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vol. 63, no. 1, 2013, pp. 181194
Naming Her World: A Freirean

Analysis of a Young Woman with
Asperger Syndromes Post-High-School
Experience
Donna M. Sayman, Wichita State University
Daniel G. Krutka, Texas Womans University
Background
Paulo Freire (1970) contends one of the gravest obstacles to the
achievement of liberation is that oppressive reality absorbs those within
it and thereby acts to submerge human beings consciousness (p. 51).
As we sought to appreciate the major life transition beyond high school
of Francine, a young woman diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome (AS),
we discovered Freires contention all-too-often resonates through her
story. In this study we sought better to understand to what extent the
Individual Education Plan (IEP), a written document developed for
students with disabilities eligible for special education services,
adequately prepared one girl for major life transitions following high-
school graduation.
We gleaned vital information from Francines words in several in-
depth interviews concerning the heart of our project, but her
recommendation to others with disabilities was particularly telling. When
asked, What advice would you give to an incoming freshman who had
disabilities? she responds, Use your teachers. Use the resources
provided for you and get help when you need it. Paradoxically, she
admits she did not ask for help in high school, even though her mother
is a teacher for special needs students. She eloquently summarizes her
high-school experiences by explaining, You are kind of scared because
its your first year. The other freshman, theyre not going to help you
because they are just as scared as you.
During subsequent interviews with Francine about her experiences
in college, she offers evidence her fears have not abated with maturity.
Although enrolled in a local community college for two years, she still
experiences an overwhelming sense of confusion and loneliness. It was
as if she were waiting for life to begin as she failed to make the types of
2
182 D. M. Sayman & D. Krutka
decisions expected of a responsible adult. Keenly aware of difference,

her self-perception seems anchored in being an outsider wrapped within
a dread of independence. Even years after graduation, she still feels
isolation from being categorized with a disability. How were we to
explain why a process and plan meant to meet Francines unique needs
would ring hollow in her experience? A Freirean analysis of Francines
words and experiences helped us delve into why she struggled through
much of her post-high-school transition. Perhaps this honest glimpse
into her story will offer hope to other students with AS and the
educators who work with them.
Recognizing the majority of special education research is composed
of quantitative studies, we determined a qualitative investigation would
allow us to delve deeply into a single participants complexities (Paul,
Kleinhammer-Tramill, & Fowler, 2009). Our purpose was to explore the
post-high-school experiences of a young woman with AS, and we chose
a qualitative, single-case-study design to uncover her unique supports
and needs (Heck, 2011). Because individuals with AS are distinctive in
their strengths and weaknesses, a focused study was essential to identify
factors of concern and to offer insights concerning the in-depth
complexities of lived experience. Our research initially was guided by the
questions: How does an individual with AS negotiate the journey into
post-high-school life and, how might Francines experiences inform
educators developing transition plans better to assist students with AS to
be more successful while in high school?
Review of the Literature
Characteristics of the Disability
Asperger Syndrome was first identified by Hans Asperger in 1944,
and is currently classified within a collection of disorders under the
Pervasive Developmental Disorders (PDD) category of disability in the
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-IV-TR- (DSM-IV-TR)
(APA, 2000; Wolf, Brown, & Bork, 2010). Included in the same PDD
category are other conditions such as autism, Retts Syndrome, and
childhood disintegrative disorder. AS is a genetic, neurodevelopmental
condition with no known cause or cure. Understanding individuals with
AS is a growing field of study, yet remains shrouded in confusion and
mystery (Hesmondhalgh, 2010, p. 32). The Centers for Disease Control
(CDC) (2012) recently released new data focusing on all areas of AS,
estimating about one in 88 children are identified as having AS.
However, CDC data sheds little insight on causes or effective
treatments.
Individuals with AS are often considered highly functioning
compared to others on the autism spectrum. While some argue the
syndrome falls within the mild continuum of Autism Spectrum
3
Naming Her World 183
Disorders (ASD), Raymond (2012) cautions, mild does not mean not
serious (p. 7), further elaborating these terms represent decades of
debate among researchers, parents, and educators. This controversy is
expected to continue when changes to the classification of ASD and AS
are released with the DSM-5 in May 2013 (APA, 2011) since the newest
diagnosis guidelines adhere to a more-stringent definition within ASD
(Autism Research Institute, 2012).
While definitions of AS syndrome remain fluid and complex, typical
characteristics include normal or above-normal cognitive functioning
and limited interpersonal skills, including poor eye contact, diminished
facial recognition, awkward body movements, challenges interpreting
body language, impaired social interactions, and difficulty with
organization.
Legislative Mandates
Preparing for and understanding the post-high-school needs of
individuals with AS is a new and widely understudied area of research
(MacLeod & Green, 2009). Effective secondary transition planning for
students with disabilities plays a critical role in their post-school-life
success (Kochhar-Bryant & Greene, 2008). Legislative mandates for
effective transition planning were first enacted in the Individuals with
Disabilities Education Acts (IDEA) 1990 reauthorization, and again in
1997 (Wehmeyer et al., 2007). Then transition services were vaguely
defined as a means to assist disabled students to achieve independent
living skills and increase post-high-school employment opportunities
(Kochhar-Bryant & Greene, 2008). The most current reauthorization of
IDEA in 2004 tightened the mandate for transition services while
ushering in a contemporary design for transition programs for students
with an IEP. New emphasis was placed on the concept of transition as a
synchronized action plan to prepare students for adult living. However,
findings from several ground-breaking research studies on disabilities
and post-school success, such as the Special Education Elementary
Longitudinal Study (SEELS), determine those students labeled ASD
have the poorest outcomes in employment, advocacy and social skills
(Wagner et al., 2005).
Transition and Post-High-School Success
Transition services are known to be critical for ASD students
successful post-high-school employment, independent living, and social
skills. It is therefore wise for teachers to embed transition goals within
the students IEP, thus actualizing these skills across the curriculum
based on the students strengths and needs to provide a cordinated set
of activities engaging a wide range of community resources. This
overarching, forward-looking strategy is built on a backward preparation
design to the post-high-school world. Although well established in the
4
literature, how this design strategy looks in actual practice is often a

nebulous, ever-changing ideal. Despite an influx of legislative and
curriculum-based approaches, post-school outcomes for individuals with
disabilities lag far behind their non-disabled peers, resulting in
devastating consequences (Barnard-Brak, Lechtenberger, & Lan, 2010;
Higbee, Katz, & Schultz, 2010; US Department of Labor, 2011).
Raymond (2011) finds special education may inadvertently promote a
lifetime of learned helpless behavior if self-advocacy and social skills are
not embedded within ones IEP. Her caution reverberates with Freires
(1970) suggestion that people can only become fully human when they
are subjects who actively participate in transactional mediations with
their world. In light of the many documented historical inequities in
special education, it is imperative educators focus significant effort to
assure IEP goals are well established and incorporate a wide continuum
of services so students have every opportunity for success upon public-
school graduation. However, as Freire (1970) generally argues, success is
dependent not simply upon support in the objective sense, but also
necessitates those with disabilities like Francine are humanized
throughout schooling processes so they may have the confidence and
knowledge to act upon their world.
Theoretical Frame
Through his literacy work with Brazilian peasants, Freire (1970)
theorizes oppressive relationships fundamentally are dehumanizing and
prevent individuals and groups from acting as equal participants in
society. He defines oppression as those situations in which guidelines
and choices of those in power are imposed upon, and consciously
internalized by, the oppressed. Oppression is manifest in both subjective
consciousness and objective conditions that prevent people from
becoming fully human or constructing their own understanding of
reality. Those oppressed are likely to doubt their abilities and defer to
others as capable beings with the necessary knowledge and answers for
shaping the world. Freire maintains the hierarchical organization of and
lack of dialogue within traditional schools sustains the systematic
oppression of larger society.
Freire contends traditional schools adhere to a banking model of
education in which information is deposited from the knowing teacher
into his or her passive students. Student-teacher relationships therefore
consist of a one-way narration of a motionless, static,
compartmentalized, and predictable reality (p. 71). The role of students
in this paradigm becomes to accept information without questioning
or even understandingmeaning or purpose. Content is often foreign
to students lived experiences and, by consequence, students are unable
to make worthwhile contributions and rendered dependent upon their
teacher.
5
Liberation becomes possible only when oppressed peoples engage

in reflection and action to replace the guidelines of oppressors with
autonomy and responsibility (p. 47). Freires idea and implementation
of praxis addresses both subjective consciousness and objective
conditions with the aim of transforming and, ultimately, liberating the
world. Freire (1970) argues reality is not static and set, but constantly
remade, so those in search of liberation should understand their present
place in history as a point of departure for becoming. Therefore, to
exist, humanly, is to name the world, to change it (p. 88), and those
oppressed must become able to see their world as a problem in need of
new naming (p. 88) through assigning language to reality. The traditional
dichotomy of oppressive interactions can then be replaced by dialectical
relationships that engage participants as co-equal investigators. Dialogic
relations among people, with consideration of objective conditions,
allows for naming.
Freire proposes a problem-posing education encourages students to
view the world and their position in it critically, but to do so the student-
teacher relationship must be revised as authority gives way to
coperative and committed engagement. The current, dichotomous
roles of teacher and student must be blurred so students are also free to
act as teachers and teachers as students. The task of students therefore
becomes not merely to take in knowledge about topics alien to lived
experience, but to work as co-investigators with teachers to identify
pertinent problems in need of investigation. The efforts of liberatory
pedagogy must coincide with those of the students to engage in critical
thinking and the quest for mutual humanization (p. 75). Through this
process students can come to see reality re-presented as a problem they
are fully capable of acting to affect.
Methodology and Methods
A qualitative, single-case-study design was utilized for this project to
provide in-depth insights to the experiences of an individual with AS.
Case-study research historically has been used to capture the unique,
complex needs of individuals with AS (MacLeod & Green, 2009). While
the strengths and weaknesses of people with AS differ significantly,
social interaction difficulties and repetitive behavior are common
characteristics that cause difficulties with independent living. As
MacLeod and Green (2009) state, Young people with Asperger
Syndrome are trying to make sense of a complex condition which
[affects] every interaction they have and it can be difficult for them to
recognize what support they need (pp. 638639). Francines case
provides an important example of those struggles typical, recent, high-
school graduates with AS may encounter. We are interested in Francines
case for its similarities to the experiences of others with AS, but also for
6
the deep insights we stand to gain from better understanding the singular
ways she navigates the complexities of adult living (Stake, 1995).
Data consisted of transcripts from semi-structured, audio-recorded
interviews conducted over a span of three, consecutive years. Data
analysis was accomplished through the use of open coding, line-by-line
analysis, identifying themes, and categorizing subcategories until themes
emerged. We then identified indigenous themes through analytic
processes of constant comparison, data coding, analytic statements, and
descriptive analysis. Triangulation then strengthened and confirmed the
identified themes through the convergence of multiple data sources,
such as field journals, member checks, and peer debriefing.
Our Participant
Francine was diagnosed as having AS when she was in high school,
but previous psychoeducational testing from her middle-school years
determined she was eligible for special education services based on the
category Other Health Impaired due to her severe anxiety, depression,
and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Francines last re-
evaluation in 11th grade indicated AS with a comorbid diagnosis of
anxiety disorder and ADHD. She graduated three years prior to our first
interview. She identifies her ethnicity as Caucasian, and currently lives
with her adopted mother and father in a small rural home in the
Midwest. Francine was chosen through purposeful sampling (Patton,
2002), specifically recruited as a former student of one researcher while
in high school.
Themes
Several compelling themes emerge as Francine describes her
experiences. In all three interviews she seems unable to articulate
disability. Her conscious powerlessness is coupled with an equally
troubling revelation; she cannot perceive how her disability affects the
objective conditions of almost every aspect of her life. A second theme
centers on her ability to self-disclose and self-advocate. Other subthemes
include issues of socialization, occupational success, and functional
independence. At times, these threads seemed to dovetail, weaving in
and through one another, creating a tightly woven weft representative of
Francines challenging world.
Articulating Disability
When first asked to identify the disability category making her
eligible for special education Francine says, I think it was autism, but
Im not sure. Subsequent interviews reveal persistent, contradictory
understandings of her disability. For example, when asked the same
question during the second interview, her response is, I dont know
that I ever knew. I think my mom just told me I was going to be in
7
special education. By the third year, however, she seems to have

developed a growing perception of her disability: I have, what is it my
mom said? I have low-scale Aspergers or something. Her inability
consciously to understand her disability results in a lack of competence
necessary to advocate for her own needs while in college. Sadly, a review
of her IEP reveals the ability to articulate her disability was never a part
of her high-school-transition goals.
Because Francine is largely unable to identify her disorder, it is not
surprising she also is unable to specify what accommodations and
modifications are appropriate for her, evident in her attempt to ask for
assistance in a college math course. She explains, I said that I had a
math disability to see if I could get different colored paper or
something. Although the use of colored paper is appropriate for some
individuals, Francine has never utilized this particular accommodation.
Calculator use is listed as an accommodation in her middle- and high-
school IEPs, and yet, in college, she seems to equate its use to cheating
when she recalls, [The professor] said we could not use a calculator
because we need to depend on our brains. But I cheated and used a
calculator anyway! Most surprisingly, her mother enforces the
professors view, If she sees me sitting at the kitchen table using a
calculator, she says, Does Mr. Smith let you use a calculator? No,
Mommy. Then put it away. Yes, mommy. A hired math tutor
exhibits a stronger grasp of Francines needs by allowing her to use a
calculator. Francine says the tutors reasoning was because most of
these problems I cant do in my head. Interestingly, she does not view
an accommodation used in school for many years as necessary in college.
During her matriculation at the local community college, Francine
communicates conflicting explanations concerning her need for
modifications. At the time of her first interview, she was attending
summer classes and claims she does not need to disclose her disability
because it is unnecessary. However, by the end of her first full year of
study she recognizes she needs help because classes are becoming more
difficult. Francine indicates poor organization causes her to struggle in
her classes when she discloses, I am not motivated if it is not in front
of me, then I dont really think about it.
She further expounds upon her feeling of isolation in college when
she says, I was on my own. I would go to class and [the instructor]
would do the lecture and she would say, Your homework is this and this
and this. And then that would be it. She cites her lack of organization
as the reason for finally dropping out of college, If I could write down,
then I think Ill be better. Instead of articulating an understanding of
her disability, she attributes her college failure to being lazy. She says,
I just wasnt motivated to study. I have to get off my lazy butt and do
8
this. By the third interview, however, she recognizes some of her needs,
saying, My math probably was the hardest, that was the worstand I
just didnt want to do it.
Whether due to maturity or intervention by vocational rehabilitation
services, Francine is able clearly to articulate nascent self-understanding
by the third year of data collection. She remarks, I always knew I was
different from other people because I could tell by the way I interact
with them. When asked if knowing about her disability helps her, she
responds, What it means to me, basically, it helps explain why I have
trouble connecting to people. I think different than other people. This
statement represents a prodigious move forward for Francine. It signals
she is able finally to recognize who she is, appreciates her unique
strengths, and may be able to initiate processes of self-disclosure and
advocacy. However, her understanding of how her disabilities fully affect
her life is, even now, both incongruous and not fully realized.
Shortly after her diagnosis with vocational rehabilitation services,
she begins to develop more confidence and an elevated sense of self-
esteem. Between the second and third interviews, she begins work at a
job she genuinely enjoys. Her work with a vocational-rehabilitation job
coach seems to make a difference in her employment success compared
with previous short-lived jobs. Her coach mentors her and her manager
about various nuances of ASD. Francine articulates her transformation
in her third interview when she reflects, I think Im braver. This job
helped because I have to have more confidence in myself, and Im not
afraid to try new things now. Her increased confidence at her place of
employment translates to school, but that confidence is short-lived. She
admits, I was braver in my classes, but I wasnt as brave to ask for help.
I should have asked for more help, especially when I started having
trouble. I thought, well, I think Ill be okayand I wasnt.
Growth
By her third interview, Francine articulates growth that seems to
grow both from her formal diagnosis by Vocational Rehabilitation
Services (VRS) and her new job. Although steps taken over the three-
year time span are small, she begins to realize her dream of happiness
and independence in adulthood. Some specific illustrations concisely
demonstrate her growing strengths. Francine employs a self-
accommodation when she begins taking a friend with her to talk to one
of her community-college professors. This accommodation affords her
the assurance to overcome some of her fears as she admits, I still need
my big security teddy bear. Francines friend even convinces her to join
several clubs and participate in various on-campus activities. Francine
recognizes she is uncomfortable in social settings, explaining, The more
people there are the more scared and nervous I get. I dont like big
9
groups of people. Ill just sit there and be quiet. However, she also
acknowledges the need to become more involved in the college
community and she looks for ways to overcome her fears.
Francine shows additional strength by disclosing her disability to
her employer. She confesses her difficulty with money, and allows the
VRS coach into her place of employment. After she talked to them, I
noticed they didnt treat me different, but they would step in and ask if I
needed help. This collaborative approach supports her growing self-
assurance by allowing the safety of making mistakes without fear of
ridicule. I started changing because I started asking for more help.
Emergent confidence equate with Francines deeper self-actualization:
Im not ashamed of my disability, but I dont want to broadcast it
because I am afraid that people will treat me different. Im different, but
Im NOT! Im the same kind of person as you.
Analysis, Findings, and Implications
Francines dehumanization is evident in her initial, post-high-school
experiences because she is unable successfully to address the subjective
and objective conditions of her reality. Those who are oppressed can
only achieve liberation when they perceive the reality of oppression not
as a closed world from which there is no exit, but as a limiting situation
they can transform (Freire, 1970, p. 49). Initially, there is little
indication Francine saw her reality as something she could affect and,
not surprisingly, she does little to liberate herself. Some growth is
discernible by her final interview, but still she struggles to translate
subjective growth into changing objective conditions. Subjective
consciousness and objective conditions are often interconnected and
cannot be separated in lived experience. However, for the purposes of
our argument, we offer evidence from Francines story pertinent to each
aspect of praxis.
Subjective Consciousness
Even though Francines disability was addressed extensively in her
high school IEP, she struggled to articulate or name her disability and
what it means for her life. The fashion in which she discusses her
disability is typical of someone who has been told a diagnosis, not
someone who has been engaged in a meaningful dialogue about the
intricacies of her strengths and needs. For example, this lack is evident
when Francine exhibits self-depreciation by deferring to her mothers
knowledge of her disorder. She seems to distrust herself and often seeks
out others for knowledge and to whom [she] should listen (Freire,
1970, p. 63). She also seems to have internalized negative connotations
often associated with being labeled a person with a disability. Francines
experiences at the local community college reveal a hesitancy to be
0
considered different, even when she must articulate her needs to be

successful.
For many individuals with AS, the ability to disclose or self-identify
as having a difference may be hindered by many factors: fear,
embarrassment, lack of support, communication difficulties, or self-
esteem. Yet, if students with AS cannot name their world then they are
likely to be at a loss as to how to change it. MacLeod and Green (2009)
observe that, like Francine, many individuals AS is identified later in life.
Indeed, Francine is not able correctly to identify her disability until she is
24 years old. Dependence upon others to name disability characteristics
and then make accommodations for instead of with AS students in high
school can be oppressive as it renders students passive spectators of
their own lives. Students with AS face enormous challenges as they
move from the highly structured, parent/teacher-supported
environment of high school into the adult world where they face the
daunting task of having to advocate for themselves, seek assistance from
countless agencies, and navigate reality, often with limited
communication and social skills. While numbers of students with all
disabilities are growing in post-secondary education, they remain at
highest risk for dropping out (Barnard-Brak, 2010).
Freire (1970) argues those who are oppressed cannot be explained
to, but must be dialogued with, as they develop their own understanding
of and plan for their lives. Wehmeyer et al. (2007) argue for the
importance of teaching students with disabilities self-determination skills
in order to equip them with a better understanding of how their
differences affect their place in the world. School personnel can work
collaboratively with students to cultivate self-determination skills that
might affect more positive outcomes in a students adult life compared
to those that do not. Ideally this process begins as early in the
educational process as possible. Waiting for the IDEA-mandated age of
16 for students to become a part of the IEP process proves far too late.
Components of self-determined behavior include: choice-making skills,
problem solving, goal setting, and self-advocacy. All these characteristics
must be understood by students in meaningful and relevant ways and
then generalized to be effective. A dialectical approach to cultivating
self-determination skills encourages students subjective understanding
through active participation so objective conditions might be addressed.
Unfortunately, if both sides of praxis are not addressed then
liberation will fall short. Freire (1970) contends dialogue without action
results in mere verbalism and action without dialogue results only in
activism. For example, throughout three years of interviews Francine
talks of a need to be organized in order to be successful in college.
1
However, she is never able to equate the use of her assignment planner
in middle and high school with her college planner. Her ability to
transfer that skill once she leaves the structured environment of high
school sadly is lacking, so her objective conditions remain unaffected.
Francines inability to translate plans into action also leads to her
eventual dropping out of community college. Although she attempts to
locate the Office of Disability Services (ODS) to self-identify, she is
never successful in accomplishing this quest: I must not be going into
the right thing because they said they would not be able to take on my
case. I asked, Is this not the place you go when you have disabilities? So
I was really confused. Francines experience is consistent with recent
research uncovering how students with disabilities in higher education
face segregation and experience both overt and more subtle forms of
discrimination (Higbee, Katz, & Schultz, 2010, p. 8) due to their
inability to navigate the maze of paperwork, identify appropriate
personnel, or perform self-disclosure.
Objective Conditions
Francines inability to name her reality, much less communicate a
nuanced understanding of that reality, results in her powerlessness to
change it (Freire, 1970, p. 88), evident in numerous circumstances
where she remains unable to obtain appropriate, needed assistance.
Fortunately, Francine seems liberated when she is able to advocate for
herself and once vocational rehabilitation services helps her better to
name and disclose her disability.
Francine is able to produce the most favorable changes in her post-
high-school life when she works in association with others. Taylor and
Seltzer (2011) report individuals with AS and a comorbid psychiatric
disorder such as Francine have limited independence and diminished
social functioning in adulthood compared to those with an AS
identification alone. For such students, additional post-high-school
supports are critically needed to assist in their transition from high
school to adult life; recall Francine only realizes occupational success
with the help of her VRS job coach. Because many people who need
VRS are not eligible or are placed on lengthy waiting lists for services, it
becomes all-the-more critical transition skills are explicitly addressed in
students IEPs.
Implications for Objective Conditions
Students with disabilities should also be taught to understand the
unique accommodations necessary to address individual strengths and
needs. Role-playing scenarios with directed teacher feedback can assist
in this regard. VanBergeijk, Klin, and Volkmar (2008) suggest the use of
2
a personal digital assistant (PDAs) for a visual representation of an

organizer. Other accommodations include: audible alarms, hard copies
of class notes or lecture slides, breaking down large assignments into
more manageable chunks, and assistance with abstract terms. These
evidence-based accommodations easily can be called upon in myriad
situations in which a student might find him or herself.
In the high-stress world of higher education, it can be especially
critical institutions construct a structured environment for AS students
in order to counterbalance the social difficulties they encounter.
Although an IEP is not valid in higher education, ADA mandates are in
place to assure individuals with disabilities have equal, accessible
instruction. Accessible curricula and academic programs must also be
implemented if higher education is to become a reality for all people,
regardless of ability. Lechtenberger and Lan (2010) attribute the lack of
accessible university curricula and programs to universities failure
adequately to provide for this populations diverse needs.
Although never explicitly stated, Francine could tell some of her
professors considered her as different, as defective: Some teachers, they
dont mean to, but they are just so used to what they are teaching and its
so obvious to them, so their answers just kind of come out like they
think you are stupid. Francines experience is referred to by Higbee,
Katz, and Schultz, (2010) as marginalization of language (p. 10), a
situation in which oppressive ways and demeaning language can work to
segregate those with learning differences. Many students classroom
difficulties may be the result of professors misinterpretation of AS
characteristics, a key reason why mutual coperation is imperative to
successful adaptation. For example, individuals with AS exhibit limited
response to facial cues, which may be misinterpreted by faculty, other
students, or administrators as rudeness or disinterest (Wolf, Brown, &
Bork, 2009). Most universities do not provide training to faculty and
staff on working with students with learning differences, but some ways
to assist faculty and staff may be through the dissemination of fact
sheets or through small workshops that focus on marginalizing language,
perceptions of labels, and help for parents.
Concluding Thoughts
Results from our case study may be significant at several levels for
students with AS. We argue Francine would have benefitted if both
thoughts about her situation and her ability to translate these ideas into
action were addressed more fruitfully throughout her education.
Ultimately, we maintain liberation is only made possible through the
profound love (Freire, 1970, p. 89) of educators and other individuals
willing fully to engage in coperative dialogue with students like
3
Francine. A transformation must begin with the students inclusion in

dialogue during, and even before, the creation of his or her high-school-
IEP transition plans. Additionally, Francine could have benefitted from
immediate support as she transitioned from high school to higher
education, for she required a learning design welcoming and supportive
of students of all abilities. While, ultimately, Francine does not achieve
her goal of college graduation, we hope others with AS and those who
support them can work to create a more robust, accommodating
environment for students with AS so others, like Francine, may liberate
their fullest potential.
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vol. 63, no. 1, 2013, pp. 195207
Democracy and Citizenship Education:

Fostering Clarity of Meaning through
John Dewey1
Sam F. Stack, Jr., University of West Virginia
Robert A. Waterson, University of West Virginia
Introduction
Walt Whitman writes,
We have frequently printed the word Democracy, yet I cannot
too often repeat that it is a word the real gift of which still
sleeps, quite unawakened, notwithstanding the resonance and
the many angry tempests out of which its syllables have come,
from pen or tongue.2
John Dewey, who refers to Whitman as the seer of democracy, spent
much of his professional life as a philosopher trying to conceptualize the
role of education in a democratic society. Like Whitman and Dewey,
educators are also concerned with the need to engage in serious
discourse better to understand democracy and citizenship. We argue
Dewey can provide some clarity to these broad, confusing terms. For
Dewey, the purpose of education is to help us all, through experience,
better to comprehend and act on our understanding of democratic
citizenship. Discussing conceptions of democratic education, Dewey
poses two standards in the form of questions by which to gauge a
democratic society: 1) How numerous and varied are the interests that
are consciously shared? and 2) How full and free is the interplay with
other modes of association?3
The genesis of this paper derives from dialogue between Dr. Robert
A. Waterson, a social studies colleague and Director of the Center of
Democracy and Citizenship Education at West Virginia University, and
Dr. Sam F. Stack, Jr. as we worked to prepare a book proposal on the
topic of democracy and citizenship. Our discussions led us to reexamine
the Centers guiding themes which include citizenship, professionalism
and ethics, civic education, values and the common good, community
engagement, theory and practice, communication, and technology. In
2
196 S. Stack & R. Waterson
this paper we use Deweys ideas on democracy and citizenship to guide

our discussion of these themes.
Dewey envisions no more important role of the school than to
prepare the future citizenship of the country.4 In Freedom and
Culture he writes,
I can think of no question that is more socially and practically
important than just this question of how the schools today are
to render the idea of democracy a living and effective reality in
the minds of the youth who form the future of citizenship of
the country.5
Freedom for Dewey means self-control, self-direction, and self-
determination, but within a social context. He understands freedom not
in absolute terms or individualistic terms, but undergirds it with inquiry,
toleration of diverse opinions, communication, and responsibility. These
characteristics can form the basis for citizenship, but what actually is
citizenship?
What Is Citizenship?
Generally, the concept of citizenship implies some form of status or
membership in a community or society. The concept may apply to an
inhabitant of a town or state in a geographical sense, although in the
modern era it might also refer to ones allegiance or political rights
protected by a power such as that of a sovereign- or nation-state. To be
a US citizen suggests an identity, but also the protection of certain rights
and beliefs generally spelled out in the Bill of Rights. These include
freedom of speech, freedom of religion and assembly, the right to bear
arms, prohibitions against improper search and seizure, along with
suffrage and civil rights. Furthermore, a US citizens rights include
freedom of thought, expression, conscience, religion, association,
movement, etc. Ideally, citizenship is not merely defined as a legal
status; it also requires a sense of belonging.6 It implies a shared
commitment to these basic principles and ideals. The problem with the
modern conception of citizenship is its ambiguity, which leads to
confusion among professional educators in their attempts to prepare
students for participation in a democratic society, one of the primary
purposes of US education.7
In a world showing at least some attention to a greater voice for
oppressed peoples, within the context of social, political, and economic
change, it is important and timely to engage the subject of what it means
to be a citizen of a democracy. While the notion of freedom is associated
with democracy, it is often misunderstood and conceptualized in an
absolute sense, sometimes without responsibility for ones personal
choices or how those choices can affect others. In reality, democracy
3
Democracy & Citizenship Education 197
demands great individual responsibility. Being a citizen in a democratic

society implies a respect for difference, though not necessarily support,
of ones position. Democracy demands free and, at best, undistorted
communication and willingness to engage in civil debate meant to serve
the greater, common good.
While we have given the task of civic education to the public
school, by its very nature education is a political process undergirded by
philosophy and ideology. Teachers and teacher educators have a
responsibility to prepare students for living in a democratic society
which involves the constant reexamination of theory and practice: why
we do what we do.8 Citizenship within a democracy is more than loyalty
or duty to the nation-state, as found in the rhetoric of contemporary
politicians (certainly in that from the Reagan era to the current Obama
administration). Citizenship has not lost its political allegiance with
nationalism or devotion to country, but this rhetorical shift must be
understood in context. Howard Zinn concludes, as democratic citizens,
it is critical we understand the difference between the interest of the
people and that of government, being attentive when expressions like
national interest, national security, and national defense attempt to
obscure that difference and entice citizens into subservience to power.9
Schools tend to support rather than challenge this relation. Dewey
statesin many waysthe primary purpose of education in a
democratic republic is the formation of habit of mind, which lasts
through life, of which the attributes are freedom, equitableness,
calmness, moderation, and wisdom.10 Today the purpose of education
implies more of a global role, since the world, in essence, has become
flatter due to enhancements in communication and technology.11
There is some concern our societys social fabric is being challenged and
even weakened by this new global focus, thus presenting a challenge to
democracy. We argue there is much confusion in understanding
citizenship and democracy in US society; education can play an integral
role in enhancing that understanding.
What Is Citizenship Education?
Some politicians, particularly those on the political right, implore
the public to remain silent and patriotic, for example, not challenging
political or military strategies, for to do so is to insult men and women in
uniform. As longtime students of military history, we are continually
disturbed at how the meaning of hero is degraded both by media and
political rhetoric. Charles Eliot Norton (18271908) writes about his
conception of a true citizen-patriot in 1898 in response to the Spanish
American War:
The voice of protest, of warning, of appeal is never more
needed when the clamor of fife and drum, echoed by the press
4
and too often by the pulpit, is bidding all men fall in and keep
step and obey in silence the tyrannous word of command.
Then, more than ever it is the duty of the good citizen not to
be silent.12
It is critical better to conceptualize citizenship education beyond
patriotism and blind obedience and identify citizenship education as
vitally important to a democratic society. Of course, education plays a
crucial role in the socialization of democratic values. Citizenship
education in a plural society must nurture respect for the other, respect
for the worth of all human beings and the right and responsibilities of
all; and a rejection of any form of exploitation, taking account of
difference where that is appropriate, but not where it is not.13
Civic Professionalism and Ethics
Professionalism embodies the characteristics of autonomy, a
specialized body of knowledge, and ethical standards for conduct by
placing an emphasis on decision-making and reflection. Part of civic
professionalism is the nurturing of the whole child in preparation for
critical citizenship and participation in democratic society.14 Dewey
wrote Freedom in 1937, clearly aware of fascisms growing threat to
democracy.15 Attention to this theme directs us to consider the
importance of an educator modeling professional behavior in the sense
of helping students understand what constitutes the democratic ethic
and why it is important for the teacher to model that ethic. As Dewey
understands professionalism, he implies a degree of freedom to teaching
and learning for development of citizenship. He claims freedom is
necessary to take part in the social reconstructions without which
democracy will die.16 An important role of the teacher is to nurture an
environment open to dialogue on the days pertinent issues. Dewey
writes, Without freedom, light grows dark and darkness comes to
reign.17 Undergirding dialogue is freedom of inquiry and
communication which must be protected by eternal vigilance, the
schools being the ceaseless guardians and creators of this vigilance.18
Civic Education
We argue the central aim of civic education is to foster
responsibility and participation. Unfortunately, too many students
experience civics courses as learning the institutions of representative
government rather than those principles guiding it. They learn
obligations (such as voting and paying taxes) and not the personal and
social responsibilities associated with being a democratic citizen.
Psychologist and philosopher William James, in his The Moral
Equivalent of War, writes Democracy is still upon its trial. The civic
genius of its people is its only bulwark.19 Like Dewey, James
5
understands democracy not as a given, but as a notion to be nurtured

through experience. Through civic education such nurturing takes place
and so civic education must stress American citizenship, but also global
citizenship. Historian R. Freeman Butts provides a list of civic virtues
guiding civic education including both the obligations and rights of
citizens. Under obligations of the citizen, Butts lists justice, equality,
authority, participation, truth, and patriotism. Under the rights of the
citizen he lists freedom, diversity, privacy, due process, property, and
human rights.20 It is the process of civic education by which we nurture
students for participatory democracy. Strong civic education fosters civic
character. Dewey advocates better training in political citizenship
beyond that of knowledge of the formal structures of voting and
government. Dewey senses this tradition of teaching civics as
knowledge of the institutions of governance rather than the democratic
thought and actions of citizens leaves the citizen ignorant of the forces
that operate in political life and of how such forces act,21 the answer to
which is political literacy. Political literacy implies a reflective and critical
ability to read between the lines of policy in terms of who may or may
not benefit and for what purpose.
Democratic Values and the Common Good
Robert Hutchins believes democracy to be the only form of
government based upon the dignity of man. Hutchins expresses concern
for democracy, arguing, the death of democracy is not likely to be an
assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy,
indifference, and undernourishment.22 While they often disagree, on
this point Hutchins and Dewey at least play in a similar ballpark. A value
is something held as a principle to guide ones life and how it is lived,
while a value generally is perceived both by the individual and society as
a good. Dewey notes, A democracy is more than a form of
government, it is primarily a mode of associated living, of conjoint
communicated experience. He further articulates democracy as
characterized by shared, common interests.23
What are democratic values and why is there so much confusion
and contradiction over them? We argue there exists a need to explore
confusion and contradiction among those who see democracy as a form
of absolute freedom, often using that conception of democracy as an
excuse for refusing to accept responsibility and a license to undermine
the common good. The National Council of Social Studies defines
democratic beliefs and values as individual rights, individual freedoms,
individual responsibilities, and beliefs concerning societal conditions and
governmental responsibilities.24 But the NCSS definition is, at face
value, itself problematic in that it places emphasis on an individualism
Dewey understood, but that now has become copted under the guise
6
of economic neoliberalism. Economic neoliberals heroes are Frederick

Hayek, John Locke, Herbert Spencer, Ayn Rand, Milton Friedman, and
Adam Smith. Dewey implies liberty is a social matter and not just a
claim of the private individual. He clearly says the public school should
not be an instrument of capital, preparing students for work over
preparation for citizenship.25
Civic Community Engagement
Robert Putnam suggests there is some support that civic and
especially political engagement in the US has generally fallen short of
what one might hope in a democracy, especially over the past 30
years.26 However, Cliff Zukin attempts to make sense of civic and
political engagement trends, arguing young US citizens choose non-
traditional forms of civic engagement over traditional political forms
such as voting or participating in political parties, and this type of
engagement often takes place in their local communities,27 focusing on
community-based organizations over government or political
organizations. Zukin suggests young people are not more disengaged,
but see their actions more as responsibility than obligation. Zukin thinks
this may be due to their distrust of larger political and economic
institutions as exhibited through such activities as the loose Occupy Wall
Street movement. However, the question arises: Does less political
engagement find itself outside the ability to challenge power when it lies
within the economic, social, and political? Zukin seeks a balance
between political and civic engagement, positing civic engagement can
lead to political awareness.28
In Deweys writings, community is positioned as central to the very
nature of democracy. More than a geographical entity, it is also a social
and ethical sphere where individuals generally work together for the
benefit of the common good rather than for individual gain. Dewey
scholars recognize he posits the transition from rural, agrarian society
undermined community life, and a primary role of the school is to help
restore community life. In the Public and Its Problems Dewey writes,
Democracy must begin at home and its home is the neighborly
community.29 Joe Burnett writes, Deweys own [educational] approach
was through advocating techniques for restoring/developing a sense of
community in an era during which individualization, science, technology,
and urbanization were destroying community as known in a mainly
agrarian, communal-neighborhood, extended-family America.30
Community engagement is guided by democratic values such as respect
for individual rights and dignity. Engagement, in this sense, implies
deliberate action in what needs to be and should be done. The US public
school was founded in the local community and designed to meet local
7
needs, yet the modern school too often is isolated from rather than
engaged with its community. All of which leads us to ask, what are the
concerns of developing an active citizenship, including those that
emphasize community service and character building?31
Character Education in Democracy
Character distinguishes an individual. Often used in the context of
reputation or moral excellence or mental and ethical traits, it marks a
person or a group. Character is the regular display of virtuous behavior,
assuming one knows what that entails. Echoing Dewey, political scientist
Richard Dagger argues, Virtues are valuable because they promote the
good of the community or society, not because they directly promote
the good of the individual.32 In contemporary educational discourse,
character often refers to ones ability to meet certain conditions or
adhere to rules, but in a democratic society character must be more than
obeyance. While individual character undergirds the foundations of
democratic society, an individual must be cognizant of those social
responsibilities associated with possessing the freedom to choose. What
dispositions make up the democratic character and guide action? These
might include civility, open-mindedness, compromise, judgment, and
toleration of diversity. Dewey sees character as deriving from a sort of
disposition; ones character is defined by the more general term ethos
[Greek] or mores [Latin]. These dispositions are culturally defined by
what a social group perceives as right or wrong, good or bad.33 A
groups traditional character traits might include wisdom, courage,
temperance, and justice, which might be coupled with honestly, loyalty,
and compassion.34 Clearly, Dewey sought and envisioned a democratic
character. To democratic character might be added affection, respect,
care, curiosity, and concern for the well-being of all living beings.35
Teaching Theory and Practice
Dewey advocates that to learn to be a democratic teacher, one must
experience democracy, and his advocacy reflects upon how teachers are
prepared. An integration of theory and practice with an understanding
of why we do what we do, teacher education should be guided by the
traits of critical dialogue, openness, reflection, and creativity. In the
formation of a democratic character, it is important teachers model
these traits and allow students experience in practicing them. But how
can we teach teachers a democratic-theory-guiding practice which
prepares students to embody and practice democratic dispositions?
Communications Development in Democracy
Communication is central both to the democratic process and the
transmission of culture, though, of course, a culture need not be
democratic. Dewey articulates, men live in a community in virtue of the
8
things they have in common; and communication is the way in which

they come to possess things in common.36 Within democracy,
communication acts as the means to understand aims, beliefs,
aspirations, and knowledge. Communication is like art, in that it offers a
way we share and articulate experience beyond the confines of
language,37 and a process by which we share information to solve
problems and work together for the common good. In an era of
information explosion, how does one know what information is useful
or practical in working together to advance the cause of democracy?
One primary role of todays educator is to teach a student how to sort
through information, separating the wheat from the chaff, all the while
remembering controlled knowledge or distorted knowledge poses a real
threat to democratic society, for conveying beliefs, persuading others,
and making arguments with reason and sense are the heart of democratic
and community engagement. Dewey says communication is key to
transformative political change, because through communication the
public must acquire knowledge of those conditions that have created it,
and of how these conditions affect the value of associate life.38 So, how
can we enhance knowledge sharing and how can communication be
developed in order to nurture democratic principles in schools and
society? Some suggest technology enhances such communication.
Technology and Citizenship Development for the 21st Century
Technology is a tool crafted and used to achieve some practical
purpose or provide human sustenance or comfort. Larry Hickman
suggests technology involves the inventions, development, and
cognitive development of tools and other artifacts, brought to bear on
raw materials and [an] intermediate set of parts, with a view to the
resolution of perceived problems.39 Hickman, who produced a
documentary on Dewey, suggests the early technology of Deweys day
was based on wind and water, tools even the ancients understood, yet
within Deweys lifetime the atom would be split. Dewey proves a
proponent of technology, arguing technology can help us emancipate
individuality, the most serious defect of our civilization, the most
dangerous threat being the control of technology for economic gain or
private profit. In the end, Dewey argues technology be used for social
over simply private ends.40 Ultimately, experimental inquiry, as a tool,
could become the basis for scientific inquiry and social ends, but
should not be utilized for ends which are not controlled by economic
institutions where competition for pecuniary gain is supreme.41
Within the context of democracy and citizenship, technology
cannot merely be viewed as a tool that makes life easier, but as
something that enhances our ability to communicate and provides access
to knowledge so we might make informed decisions. Significantly,
9
decision-making is limited when information is unavailable to a citizen

or a citizen is not capable of sorting through information without
adequate intelligence. As Neil Postman states, technology is both friend
and enemy and can provide greater access to knowledge but at the same
time works against openness and access, undermining certain mental
processes and social relations that make human life worth living.42
While technology can open the door to learning subject matter not
possible in the traditional classroom setting and plays an integral role in
education today, technology education must become more than learning
the skill of tools practical use. Deweys best quotation on technology
offers a strongly democratic flavor:
Technology signifies all the intelligent techniques by which the
energies of nature and man are directed and used in satisfaction
of human needs; it cannot be limited to a few outer and
comparatively mechanical forms. In the face of its possibilities,
the traditional conception of experience is obsolete.43
Concluding Thoughts on Democracy and Citizenship Education
A democratic way of life is challenged by many forces: the political
and economic ramifications of the global order and the misuse and
distortion of freedom by those who adhere to economic freedom on
their terms rather than political freedom in the public sphere, among
others. Schools have made little progress in creating and nurturing
democratic experiences for teachers and students. As an historian and a
social studies educator, we often have wondered, how long might it take
a Colonial-era child to adjust to the so-called modern classroom?;
probably not as long as we think. To nurture the democratic citizen
takes experience, practice, trial, and error. For students to be convinced
of democracys value they must see it at work.44 The aim of civic
education is therefore not just any kind of participation of any kind of
citizen; it is the participation of informed and responsible citizens,
skilled in the arts of deliberate effective education.45 Providing the
experiences necessary to foster these citizenship traits requires a radical
change from the current authoritarian atmosphere fostered by high-
stakes testing and STEM initiatives, both driven more by economic than
civic interests.46 Concerned educators will need to create an
environment in which students can engage in discussion, reflection,
analysis, and coperation leading to the growth of respect, creativity and
imagination rather than the proliferation of passivity, submission,
competition, dependency, and inequalityall dangers to democracy.47
Educators must show our students the virtue of freedom within the
context of personal autonomy coupled with public responsibility.48
0
Endnotes
1 There are numerous works on citizenship, but few meet the purpose
of addressing the themes we wish to address. James Arthur and Hilary
Cremin, eds., Debates in Citizenship Education (New York: Routledge,
2011) overlaps ours to some extent, but is based more on experiences
of educators sharing rather than philosophical clarification of the
concepts. Arthur and Cremins work also is based on the British
experience and may not appeal to a US-public-education audience.
Sigal R. Ben-Porath, Citizenship Under Fire: Democratic Education
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006) focuses on peace
education, feminist contributions, and multicultural education. Ben-
Porath looks at civic education in the context of the culture of war
using policy examples from Israel and the US. Norman Nie, Education
and Democratic Citizenship in America (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1996) discusses education as enlightenment, those educated
being more tolerant although apparently growing less politically
engaged. Nie addresses the importance and relation of education to a
commitment to democratic values in the context of political
engagement and creating social networks. His work seems, to us, to be
directed toward political scientists and sociologists, not educators.
Emery J. Hyslop-Margison and James Thayer, Teaching Democracy:
Citizenship Education as Critical Pedagogy (Sense Publishers, 2009) does
address some of our concerns, but within the framework of critical
pedagogy.
2 Walt Whitman, Walt Whitman: Complete Poetry and Collected Prose (New
York: Library of America, 1982), 960.
3 We use the following notation to cite Deweys works, edited by Jo
Ann Boydston, The Early Works [EW], 18821898; The Middle Works
[MW], 18991924; and The Later Works [LW], 19251953
(Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press). For Deweys
reference to Whitman see John Dewey, LW 2:351. This volume is The
Public and Its Problems. See also John Dewey, Democracy and Education
(New York: Macmillan, 1916), 96.
4 John Dewey, Education, Democracy, and Socialized Economy, LW
13:308.
5 Ibid.
6 Audrey Osler, Citizenship and Democracy in Schools (Sterling, VA:
Trentham Books, 2000), 4, 11.
7 For historical background on early discussions of this theme and for
Jeffersons ideas on education see Gordon Lee, Crusade Against
1
Ignorance: Thomas Jefferson on Education (New York: Teachers College

Press, 1961), and also Lawrence Cremin, ed. The Republic and the School:
Horace Mann on the Education of Free Men (New York: Teachers College
Press, 1957) for Manns ideas on the common school which formed
the basis of the modern, US public school.
8 Heidi Biseth, Democracy and Education in a Multicultural
Scandinavia: What Mandate is Designated to Educators? Intercultural
Education 20 (2009): 243254.
9 Howard Zinn, Foreword, in Pledging Allegiance: The Politics of Patriotism
in Americas Schools, Joel Westheimer, ed. (New York: Teachers College
Press, 2007), xiv.
10 Joe Burnett, Textual Commentary, LW 17:614. This is not a direct
quote of Dewey, but is compatible with his thought. The quote is
actually a theme from the 11th Winter Institute of Arts and Sciences at
the University of Miami. The goal of the Institute was to discuss the
integration of arts and sciences stressing the Unity of Knowledge.
Also see John Dewey, Democracy and Education in the World
Today, LW 13:303.
11 See Thomas Friedman, The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-
First Century (New York: Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, 2006). See also
Nel Noddings, Educating Citizens for Global Awareness (New York:
Teachers College Press, 2005).
12 Quotation of Charles Eliot Nortons True Patriotism in John Bartletts
Familiar Quotations, 14th ed. (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company,
1968), 728.
13 See Peter Figueroa, Citizenship Education for a Plural Society, in
Citizenship and Democracy in Schools: Diversity, Identity, Equality, Audrey
Osler, ed. (Sterling, VA: Trentham Books, 2000), 57.
14 Gary Wilkinson, Civic Professionalism: Teacher Education and
Professional Ideals and Values in a Commercialized Education
World, Journal of Education for Teaching 33, no. 3 (2007): 392.
15 This essay is included in Douglas Simpson and Sam F. Stack, Jr.,
Teachers, Leaders, and Schools: Essays by John Dewey, (Carbondale, IL:
Southern Illinois University Press, 2010), 229.
16 John Dewey, The Social Significance of Academic Freedom, LW
11:378.
17 John Dewey, Freedom, LW 11:254.
18 Ibid., 255.
19 William James, The Moral Equivalent of War, in Memories and Studies
(New York: Longman and Green, 1911), 265296. See also Louise
2
Conn Fleming, Civic Participation: A Curriculum for Democracy,

American Secondary Education 40 (Fall 2011): 3950.
20 R. Freeman Butts, The Moral Imperative for American Schools,
American Journal of Education 96: 162194. See also Pedro Noguera and
Robby Cohen, Education in the War on Terrorism, in Pledging
Allegiance: The Politics of Patriotism in Americas Schools, Joel Westheimer,
ed. (New York: Teachers College Press, 2007), 29.
21 John Dewey, Education, the Foundation for Social Organization,
LW 11:234, and Ethical Principles Underlying Education, EW: 59
60. He addresses the traditional training for citizenship such as
voting and obeying, plus the notion the child best experience
citizenship rather than be made a citizen.
22 Robert Hutchins, Great Books of the Western World: The Great
Conversation, vol. 1 (Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1952), 80.
23 Dewey, Democracy and Education, 101.
24 The National Council of Social Studies, A Framework for Teaching,
Learning, and Assessment (Silver Spring, MD, 2010), 167.
25 John Dewey, The Social Significance of Academic Freedom, LW
11:378379, and Individualism Old and New, LW 5:103.
26 See Robert Putnam as quoted in Andrew Peterson, Civic Republicanism
and Civic Education (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), 20.
27 Cliff Zukin, Scott Keeter, Molly Andolina, Krista Jenkins, and Michael
Delli Carpini, A New Engagement: Political Participation, Civic Life, and the
Changing American Citizen (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006),
7.
28 Ibid., 187, 199200.
29 Dewey, LW 2:367368.
30 Joe Burnett, Introduction, MW 1:xxi; and John Dewey, School and
Society, MW 1:2110.
31 Jane David, Service Learning and Civic Participation, Educational
Leadership 66 (2009): 83.
32 Richard Dagger, Civic Virtues: Right, Citizenship, and Republican Liberalism
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 14.
33 Dewey, Ethics, MW 5:8. From the 1908 edition.
34 Dagger, Civic Virtues, 14; Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle,
David Ross, trans. (London: Oxford University Press, 1961), 4878.
Dewey mentions these more classical virtues in Ethics, MW 5:365379.
35 Peggy McIntosh, Gender Perspective on Educating for Global
Awareness, in Educating Citizens for Global Awareness, Nel Noddings,
ed. (New York: Teachers College Press, 2005), 2223.
3
36 Dewey, Democracy and Education, 7.

37 Dewey, LW 9:8; LW 9:13; and LW 10 (Art as Experience).
38 Dewey, LW 2:xiii.
39 Larry Hickman, Philosophical Tools for Technological Culture (Bloomington,
IN: Indiana University Press, 2001), 12.
40 Dewey, LW 5:xviii.
41 Dewey, The Social-Economic Situation and Education, LW 8:70.
42 Neil Postman, Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology (New
York: Vintage, 1992), xii.
43 Dewey, LW 5:270 (What I Believe).
44 Gloria Ladson-Billings, Differing Concepts of Citizenship: Schools
and Communities as Sites of Civic Development, in Educating for
Global Awareness, Nel Noddings, ed. (New York: Teachers College
Press, 2005), 79.
45 Andrew Peterson, Civic Republicanism and Civic Education (New York:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), 20. See also C. Quigley and J. H.
Buchannan, CIVITAS: A Framework for Civic Education (Calabasas, CA:
Center for Civic Education, 1991).
46 Richard Battistoni, Public Schooling and the Education of Democratic Citizens.
(Jackson, MS: University of Mississippi Press, 1985), 121.
47 Ibid.
48 Beth Rubin, Making Citizens: Transforming Civic Leaning for Diverse Social
Studies Classrooms (New York: Routledge, 2012), 9; and Arthur Pearl
and Caroline Pryor, eds., Democratic Practices in Education: Implications for
Teacher Education (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005), x.
208 JoPHE 63
1

vol. 63, no. 1, 2013, pp. 209224
John Dewey and Hannah Arendt

on Totalitarianism, Education, and the
Problems of Democracy
David Snelgrove, University of Central Oklahoma
John Dewey and Hannah Arendt are two of the most important US
philosophers of the 20th century. Deweys and Arendts interests
converge in several ways. After World War II much interest was ignited
in those political and social systems that gave rise to totalitarian states.
Dewey and Arendt both contribute to our understandings of the
political, social, and philosophical issues that dominate the mid-20th-
centurys intellectual history. Their work remains important to us today
for their insight into the place of the individual in society, the role and
function of community, and the place of education. Dewey, near the end
of his life, conceived his ideas in light of a lifetime of work on
democracy, psychology, anthropology, and education. Arendt, at middle
age, was a product of the German philosophical tradition and well
known for The Origins of Totalitarianism and essays she contributed to
various papers and journals. Their lives and their ideas overlap in the
1930s, 1940s, and early 1950s. Examining those overlaps allows one
better to make sense of the contemporary situation, for in many ways
Deweys and Arendts ideas are as important today as when they were
written.
In this paper I compare the ideas and philosophy of Hannah Arendt
with the ideas and philosophy of John Dewey, identifying several
instances where they discuss similar topics, especially totalitarianism,
Marxism, freedom, human life, and education. I draw from Arendts The
Origins of Totalitarianism, The Human Condition, and Between Past and Future,
a volume which includes her essays The Crisis in Education and
Reflections on Little Rock. I rely upon Deweys Freedom and Culture,
Human Nature and Conduct, and Experience and Education, along with his
essays The Necessity for a Philosophy of Education and The Crisis
in Human History.
Dewey and Arendt
Differences between John Deweys and Hannah Arendts
philosophical perspectives and origins are many. Dewey, born a New
England Protestant, was widely travelled, a student of Torrey, Peirce,
2
210 D. Snelgrove
and James, and an experimentalist, pragmatist, and instrumentalist.

Arendt was a German Jew, a European migr forced to leave in order
to escape the camps, nearly fifty years younger than Dewey, and a
student of Heidegger and Jaspers with a first-hand knowledge of day-to-
day life in Nazi Germany. Their various perspectives notwithstanding,
they nevertheless reach similar conclusionsthat culture and tradition as
well as economic conditions have powerful effects on the political,
social, and ideological conditions of government and thereby on the
freedoms enjoyed by their nations citizens. Arendts concern for the
masses is expressed in Eichmann in Jerusalem. Eichmann was unthinking,
socialized into a society that rewarded ones ability to follow orders,
interested only in his own advancement, unconcerned about the broader
consequences of his actions, and thought only of ways to please his
superior.1 Deweys faith in democracy and the common man is based
upon a society that allowed for the fullest possible realization of human
potentialities.2
Much of Arendts work results from her interest in the mass of
indifferent and inarticulate citizens political conditions, though between
1950, when The Origins of Totalitarianism was published, and 1958, with
the publication of The Human Condition, Arendts idea of the masses
changed from one without class distinction to one based on her concept
of animal laborans:3 the rise of the working class. To be sure, the masses
so willing to follow strong political movements and leadersfascist or
communistin the period following World War I were affected by their
economic situation.4 After World War II, the prosperity and growth of
consumerism, first in the United States and soon afterward in Western
Europe, diverted the working masses attention from the political arena
to the cycle of consumption. The masses that had been so aware of the
political clime in the period between the wars increasingly lost political
interest in favor of interest in those goods and services provided by
post-war prosperity. Workers became more and more convinced they
were well-off because of their possessions.5
Democracy is the starting point for Deweys thought, with the role
of education in democracy as central. He has faith in the common mans
intelligence and mistrust for dogmatism and authoritarianism in any
guise. Dewey stresses the importance of experience and the continuous
process of evaluation and synthesis: its reconstruction. Knowledge is
derived from experience and represents the application of peoples
intelligence to their experiences; knowledge is tentative and dynamic,
always changing in response to new experiences and new information,
and continually reconstructed. Knowledge is also a meansone could
say the meansof living. Experimental procedure, the scientific method
to be applied to all forms of enquiry, plays an important role in Deweys
3
John Dewey & Hannah Arendt 211
thought. His political philosophy consists of liberal ideals; maintaining

the governments primary responsibility is to ensure the greatest freedom
to the greatest number and the economic security of an adequate
standard of living. Political activism in the form of active engagement
with political and economic conditions marks Deweys work. He rejects
dogmatism and the slavish acceptance of the status quo. He urges people
actively to engage in society and participate in the development of a
more perfect world.
Totalitarianism
Hannah Arendt is well known as a political philosopher and
historian. Her book, The Origins of Totalitarianism, traces the differences
between totalitarian societies and other systems, both democratic and
non-democratic. Her subsequent writing on political philosophy
examines political action and the roles of people in society. The Origins, in
a way, sets a theme for Arendts later writing in that she is able to reject
totalitarianism as a system done to people with, at some point, their
willing participation. She shows, then and later, that people are complicit
in their own subjugation living their lives striving for personal success,
and if that means running a concentration camp in Nazi Germany or
managing a labor camp in what has come to be known as the Soviet
Gulag or just ignoring the disappearance of friends and neighbors who
were not Aryan or politically reliable, then that is just the way the state
works. Arendts study of totalitarianism is defined by her religious and
ethnic background. Her first two sections on totalitarianism deal with
various aspects of the European Jewish experience and the rise of anti-
Semitism. The second section examines the Age of Imperialism, the rise
of economic-class society, and impact of multinational states before
World War I. She posits the necessary social conditions for the rise of
totalitarian systems are established during the period of the rise of late-
19th- and early-20th-century, socioeconomically classed societies. These
conditions center upon the populations majority not being integrated
into the political process through party membership or social
organizations, resulting in the targeting of indifferent masses for
exploitation through political rhetoric and propaganda.6 The 19th-
century, class-system breakdown and the rise of the bourgeoisie, the
proletariat, and the lumpenproletariat combined with anti-Semitism to
blame Jews for current economic and social conditions. In this the
Jewish population proved singularly vulnerable. In the 18th and 20th
centuries it would have been inconceivable to attack the financially
powerful, Jewish minority, but by the turn of the 20th century most of
that financial power had dissipated so Jews become superfluous.7
A decade earlier John Dewey was also interested in the rise of the
totalitarian state. In Freedom and Culture, published in his 80th year, Dewey
4
212 D. Snelgrove
examines the relationship of various cultural elements as they relate to

the level of social and political freedom in a nation. He writes,
we now know that the relations which exist between
persons, outside of political institutions, relations of industry,
of communication, of science, art, and religion, affect daily
associations, and thereby deeply affect the attitudes and habits
expressed in government and rules of law.8
While Dewey believes the end of government, the goal of political
historyis the attainment of freedom,9 he acknowledges competing
ideologies do not represent the attainment of freedom as a goal.
Tyranny, even the tyranny of the majority, can be found in many
governmental systems. He finds Nazism to represent
the appeal to fear; from desire to escape responsibilities
imposed by free citizenship; from impulses to submission
strengthened by habits of obedience bred in the past; from
desire for compensation from past humiliations; love for
novelty whichhas taken the form of idealistic faith; and
being engaged in creating a pattern for new institutions which
the whole world will in time adopt.10
And all is reinforced by the propaganda machines operation relying
upon the educational institution to support and defend the Reich above
all else.
Obviously Deweys and Arendts views on totalitarianism are
conditioned by their own life circumstances. Arendts views result from
her personal experiences as a Jew in Nazi Germany and as an observer
of the process of that regimes development. Deweys views are, one
could say, more abstract: the views of a well-informed outsider. Arendt
focuses on the development the totalitarian ideology, an atmosphere in
which all traditional values and propositions had evaporated.11
Dewey, in his way, agrees. Focusing on culture, he says, political
institutions are an effect, not a cause.12
Marxist Thought
Arendt argues the theories of Karl Marx mark the end of the
Western tradition of political thought that began with Plato and
Aristotle. The allegory of the cave in Platos Republic describes human
affairsin terms of darkness, confusion, and deception13 to be rejected
by those in search of eternal ideas truth. Marx brought the era of
thought to a close by declaring, says Arendt, that philosophy and its
truth are located not outside the affairs of men and their common world
but precisely in them, and can be realized only in the sphere of living
togetherin society, through the emergence of socialized men.14
5
Philosophy and political philosophers in particular were called upon to

cease interpreting the world in order to begin to change it, challenging,
says Arendt, the traditional God, the traditional estimate of labor, and
the traditional glorification of reason.15 Marxs movement from
philosophy into politics puts dialectics into political action, emphasizes
the ideological, and illuminates the rift between classical political
thought, modern political conditions, and modern economic relations.16
Marxs analysis of history focuses on labor as the production of goods,
not labor as the production of artifacts. The shift from work to labor
emphasizes the emerging conflict between labor power and the means of
production.17
To Dewey, Marxs genius lies in his ability to combine
the romantic idealism of earlier social revolutionaries with
what purports to be a thoroughly objective scientific analysis
expressed in the formulation of a single all-embracing
lawof the existence of classes which are economically
determined, which are engaged in constant warfare with one
another,a law which moreover sets forth the proper method
to be followed by the oppressed economic classes in achieving
its final liberation.18
But such scientific analysis contains, for Dewey, a fallacy. He finds it to
be anti-scientific, derived froma single causative force19 and it
supposed a generalization that was made at a particular date and
placecan obviate the need for continued resort to observation and to
continual revision of generalizations in their office of working
hypotheses.20 Marxist theory holds that the state of forces of
economic productivityultimately determines all forms of social
activities and relations, political, legal, scientific, artistic, religious, and
moral.21 However, suggests Dewey, there exists a rather wide chasm
separating the theory of class warfare and its realization. Only directed
movements like Bolshevism, Maoism, etc. have succeeded in ascending
to political control and those regimes proved anything but democratic,
whereas Socialist or Social Democratic movements offer alternatives and
influence government in an effort to provide more economic and social
equality and more freedom through economic security. While not going
to the extreme, Marxist position of economic determinism, Dewey
accepts the idea of economic forces impact on society and social
relations, for he has serious misgivings about Marxism-Leninism as a
political system while recognizing the importance of economic relations
and the existence of class antagonism, if not warfare. He supports the
constructive goals attainable through democratic, socialist means but not
the destructive goals of revolutionary Marxism.
6
214 D. Snelgrove
In their analyses of Marxism, Dewey and Arendt focus on different

aspects of Marxist thought. From Arendts perspective, the individual is
most important. She considers the Marxist analysis of work and labor
flawed by its reliance on mass behavior and denial of the agency of
personal action.22 Dewey concentrates more on the social and cultural
aspects of Marxism, especially the Marxist assumptions about conflict
and its place in social progress. Ultimately, Marxism has, for Dewey, no
reconstructive element but becomes a dogmatic, monistic theory.23
Freedom
In Truth and Politics, Arendt views truth from two perspectives:
philosophical and political. Since philosophical truth, she writes,
concerns man in his singularity, it is unpolitical by nature.24 Like truth,
freedom, in the philosophical sense, concerns man in his singularity
but also concerns man as a member of a collective: the political aspect of
freedom. Thomas Jeffersons self-evident truths like equality and liberty
stand in need of agreement or consent,25 for meaningful freedom is
only meaningful or politically viable among equals. Equality and freedom
are social constructs arrived at by discursive, representative thinking26
and guaranteed by the political establishment whose purpose it is to
secure and arbitrate the exercise of individual freedom. Freedom is
important to Arendt because it allows the opportunity for individual
action for action and politics, among all the capabilities and
potentialities of human life are the only things of which we could not
even conceive without at least assuming that freedom exists.27 Action
for Arendt is guided by a future aim whose desirability the intellect has
grasped28 and the ability to act, to exercise free will, is the indicator of
personal and political freedom. Freedom exists only where the I-will
and the I-can coincide.29
Dewey writes attainment of freedom is the goal of political history,
that self-government is the inherent right of free menprized above all
else.30 Freedoms important factor is ones ability to choose. Without
genuine choice, writes Dewey, choice that when expressed in action,
makes things different from what they otherwise would be, men are but
passive vehicles through which external forces operate.31 In tying
freedom to action, Dewey finds three elements of importance:
efficiency in action, the ability to carry out plans, the absence of
cramping and thwarting obstacles, the capacity to vary plans, to
change the course of action, to experience novelties,and the power of
desire and choice to be factors in events.32 He finds the power to
actdepends upon positive and constructive changes in social
arrangements.33
Arendt and Dewey both place an emphasis on the role of freedom
of action as both the ends and means of political organization and
7
government. This application of intelligence and forward-thinking

Arendt calls principles, which, do not operate within the self like
motives do, are much to general to prescribe particular action,[and]
fully manifest only in the performing act itself.34 They inspire from
without. For Dewey, these determining influences comprise culture.
The culture of a period and group is the determining influence
in their arrangement; it is that which determines the patterns of
behavior that mark out the activities of any group, family, clan,
people, sect, faction, class. The function of culture in
determining what elements of human nature are dominant and
their pattern or arrangement in connection with one another
goes beyond any special point to which attention is called.35
So the opportunity and potential for meaningful action lie in direct
proportion to the level of freedom in a society: least in totalitarian states,
greatest in democracies. Arendts and Deweys perspectives differ in that
Arendt focuses more on the individual and individual action guided by
principles while Dewey focuses more on community and social action.
Human Life
In The Human Condition, published in 1958, Arendt presents three
conceptions of human life: animal laborans (the person as worker), homo
faber (the person as creator), and zoon politikon (the person of political and
social action in the context of society). These three conceptslabor,
work, and actionmake up what Arendt calls vita activa.36 Each facet of
vita activa is important: labor because it supports societys consumptive
and productive needs, work because it provides outlet for the persons
creativity, and intelligence and action because they provide the
opportunity for social and political impact.37 For Arendt the basic
conditions of action are plurality, which has the twofold character of
equality and distinction,38 and natality, the birth and life of new
individuals into the world and also ones ability to initiate new action, to
think and communicate new ideas, and to create new artifacts. She
writes, This sense of initiative, an element of action, and therefore
natality, is inherent in all human activities.39 Plurality requires a certain
amount of freedom; To be free [means] to be free from inequality.40
But equality in modern society is largely conformist in naturebehavior
that is too far from the norm is not well tolerated in day-to-day society.
The scope of a persons labor, work, and action are determined by the
conditions of ones natality. The fact and the act of being born and those
circumstances into which one is born affect the range and scope of the
life one is to lead. Arendt warns that statistical descriptions of life have
value for large numbers of people over long periods of time but offer
little more than tendencies for specific individuals at specific times. The
8
216 D. Snelgrove
new, says Arendt, always happens against the overwhelming odds of

statistical laws and their probabilities, which for all practical, everyday
purposes amounts to certainty; the new therefore always appears in the
guise of a miracle.41 Indeed, action is the ability to do the extraordinary,
to overcome the inertia of social behavior and act creatively based on
experiences, knowledge, and relationships by communicating with others
or by beginning something new.
Deweys investigation into the human condition is based upon
the structure and workings of human nature, of
psychology,in its wider (social) sense (and a conception of)
moralsas including all the subjects of distinctively human be
import, all of the social disciplines as far as they are intimately
connected with the life of man and as they bear upon the
interests of humanity.42
Dewey recognizes what now we call the nature/nurture debate. On one
hand there are those who emphasize the role of a persons innate
attributes, and on the other, societys overwhelming influence. He
advocates for a balance of the two sides of the scene.43 Dewey
recognizes the difficulty of finding harmony between intrinsic human
natures impact and social customs and social institutions socializing
effects, yet believes such an equilibrium is possible and valuable. Both
viewpoints must be accommodated in any study of human life. In
Deweys view, moral study can be broken into major divisions: habit,
impulse, and intelligence. Habit represents an acquired predisposition
to ways or modes of responsea way of behaving. Habit means special
sensitiveness or accessibility to certain classes of stimuli, standing
predilections, and aversions, rather than bare recurrence of specific acts.
It means will.44 While habits are secondary and acquired, impulses
are highly flexible starting points for activities which are diversified
according to the ways in which they are useddepending onhow they
are interwoven with other impulses.45 The existence of a person as an
individual and a member of a community or society and the ability of
that person to choose from a variety of individual or social beliefs and
attitudes reveals what Dewey calls one of the most serious problems of
philosophy: pluralism. The needs which pluralism endeavors chiefly to
serve are: 1. The possibility of real change; 2. The possibility of real
variety, particularly in the differences of persons; and 3. The possibility
of freedom as a self-initiating and moving power inherent in every real
qua real.46 Only when society can accommodate truly pluralistic
observations and concern itself with special and plural conditions will a
person be able freely to act.
9
Action is the primary societal contribution of an individual. For

both Arendt and Dewey, action focuses on pluralism and natality. They
share similar perspectives on the problem of the individual and the
individuals social action though Arendt focuses on the individual in
society, while Dewey focuses more upon society or a community of
individuals. Action, for Arendt depends upon plurality since it is the
only activity that goes on directly between men without the intermediary
of things or matter.47 Natality is also inherent in action in the sense of
initiativeaction is the political activity par excellancethe central
category of political, as distinguished from metaphysical thought.48
Though the terms pluralism and natality are difficult to locate in Deweys
writings, the concepts nevertheless are present, for example, within
Deweys interests in individuality (how one person is distinct, is himself
not another49) and individualism, the primary regard for individual
rights.50 The idea of natality is also in line with Deweys instrumental
and reconstruction thought; life, for Dewey, is perpetuated only by
renewal.51
Education
Arendts discussion of educations role begins on the point of
natality. She writes, The essence of education is natality, the fact that
human beings are born into the world.52 The newborn requires
constant care and nurture, socialization, and instruction in order to
become a functioning adult. Natality is a more complex concept than the
biological act of birth, rather it represents the uniqueness of the person
and their potential for action; the capacity of the person to begin
something new; the ability to conceive of an idea, create some artifact, or
enter into some relationship; and a sort of social contract that grants the
person the right to work, labor, and act as a unique person amidst a
world of unique people. Education, for Arendt, prepares one for life, the
life of the mind, and development of ones faculties of the mind. For
Arendt these faculties include thinking, willing, and judging,53 while the
goal of these faculties application is to understand ones world. She
maintains the social institution of education must be examined with
respect to the three areas of human life: the political, the social, and the
private.54
Arendt is no fan of progressive education. She focuses on the value
of tradition and the traditional roles of teachers and students. In
commenting on a photograph of Elizabeth Eckford (one of the students
who integrated Little Rock High School) being taunted by a group of
white students, she notes the picture looked to me like a fantastic
caricature of progressive education which, by abolishing the authority of
adults, implicitly denies their responsibility for the world into which they
have borne their children and refuses the duty of guiding them into it.55
0
218 D. Snelgrove
She wonders about the state of a society which asks its children to
change and improve it, asking whether the schoolyard is the proper place
to fight political battles. She warns, in 1957, that denial of equality could
prove more explosive in Northern, urban centers than in the tradition-
bound South. If the heterogeneous realm of society, between the
political and the private, is to support broad, democratic conformity
without becoming absolute (a substitute for homogeneity), then
education must, Arendt says, prepare children to fulfill their future
duties as citizens.56 The public world of the school is the place where
the child comes into contact with wider society; this social contact
contains the opportunity for association and social life outside the family
structure.
Arendt terms the educational situation about which she writes a
crisis because designating it as such justifies her discussing education
as an outsider with a view to understanding the crisis roots without the
prejudices of professionals involved in and too close to issues to be
objective. For Arendt the role of education, the propagation of US
tradition, and the assimilation of various subcultures into that tradition
mean schools assume functions which, in other societies, are performed
as a matter of course in the home. She writes, the enormously difficult
melting together of the most diverse ethnic groupsnever fully
successful but continuously succeeding beyond expectationcan only
be accomplished through the schooling, education, and Americanization
of the immigrants children.57 She views the role of continuous
immigration as key to the political consciousness and frame of
mind.58 Arendt argues US education has been greatly influenced by
educational theories originating in Middle Europe. One can only assume
she refers to the influences of Rousseau, Pestalozzi, Froebel, Herbart,
and others. At any rate, the result is a most radical revolution in the
whole system of education.59 She finds the shortcomings of progressive
education to be indicated by three basic assumptions: an autonomous
childs world and society to be left alone, teachers trained in teaching
without mastery of subject matter, and the substitution of doing for
learning obliterating as far as possible the distinction between work and
playin favor of the former.60 By unnecessarily prolonging childhood
preparation the adult world is sacrificed, in Arendts view, to the world
of childhood. For Arendt the end of education is the capacity for
actionand by action she means social interactionsoften of a social
or political nature. She includes the process of education not in the
world of action, but as part of mass societys public realm or common
world.61 Education, she says, can play no part in politics, because in
politics we always have to deal with those who are already educated.62
Arendt focuses on the political role of education to create a new order
1
and to Americanize children of immigrants and thereby affect change

upon their parents.63 In 1958, when The Crisis in Education is written,
there is a significant US conservative reaction to education in general
and progressive education in particular. Arendt says,
conservatism, in the sense of conservation, is of the essence
of the educational activity. we are always educating for a
world that is or is becoming out of jointfor the sake of what
is new and revolutionary in every child, education must be
conservative; it must preserve this newness and introduce it as
a new thing into an old world.64
Arendts essay The Crisis in Education is not an educational
philosophy any more than is Reflections on Little Rock, yet these two
essays give one but a glimpse into Arendts educational ideas. Elsewhere
there is plentiful material in her writings to have supported her
development of a complete educational philosophy. The Human Condition
and The Life of the Mind certainly hold foundational ideas necessary for a
complete philosophy of education, for the interaction of her concepts
animal faber, animal laborans, zoon politikon, vita activa, vita contemplativa,
plurality, and natality provide sufficient philosophical elements.
When the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, beginning the space race
in 1957, there was a great deal of concern the US system of education
was not adequately preparing students, spurring a corresponding interest
in educational change. Various study groups and committees were
established to investigate ways to improve school curricula. Math,
science, foreign language, and other disciplines received curriculum
materials designed to increase students public school achievement.
Intelligence testing was encouraged to identify more-able students and
this practice often led to grouping the ablest students in a tracked
curriculum.65 The National Defense Education Act provided more
support to public schools, colleges, and universities administered not
through the Department of Education, but through the National Science
Foundation. Teacher training was also affected. To attract more students
into teaching, loans administered by the NDEA were reduced by half for
those teaching within public schools. One, however, simply cannot
know from Arendts published writings what she makes of educational
change occurring after 1958.
Dewey, whose ideas would form the basis for the progressive
education movement, writes the secret of education consists in having
that blend of check and favor which influences thought and foresight,
and that takes effect in outward action through this modification of
disposition and outlook.66 Progressive education arises from a
discontent with traditional educational practices aiming to provide an
2
220 D. Snelgrove
education based on not only a new philosophy, but a new psychology of

education: the view of education as a process of development, of
growth. And it is the process and not merely the result that is
important,67 for there is also a wider connection to the community and
the daily life experiences of students so that there is an intimate and
necessary relation between the processes of actual experience and
education.68 Dewey theorizes progressive schools should reject old
educational ideas, instead going to the opposite extreme. He says,
many of the newer schools tend to make little or nothing of
organized subject matter,proceed as if any form of direction
and guidance by adults were an invasion of individual freedom,
and as if the idea that education should be concerned with the
present and future meant that acquaintance with the past has
little or no role to play in education.69
And,
schools have mostly been given to imparting information
ready-made, along with teaching the tools of literacy. the
methods used in acquiring such information are not those
which develop skill in inquiry and in test of opinions. On the
contrary they are positively hostile to it.70
To this end, Dewey constantly recommends a philosophy of education
based upon a philosophy of experience.71 For Dewey life is
interruption and recoveries.72 Day-to-day life often is carried out in the
mode of habitual behavior, but reconstruction is required and, when
such interruptions and recoveries occur, it becomes necessary to apply
intelligence to accommodate a new situation. But a philosophy of
experience must also take into account that some experiences are
miseducative so, the central problem of an education based on
experience is to select the kind of present experiences that live fruitfully
and creatively in subsequent experiences.73 Dewey does not oppose
discipline which, he says,
is indeed necessary as a preliminary to any freedom that is
more than unrestrained outward power. But our dominant
conception of discipline is a travesty; there is only one genuine
discipline, namely, that which takes effect in producing habits
of observation and judgment that ensure intelligent desires.74
Two Deweyan principles fundamental to the application of
experience to education are interaction and continuity. The principle
that development of experience comes about through interaction means
that education is essentially a social process.75 It remains the task of the
teacher to provide continuity of experience through knowledge of the
subject matter and knowledge of students: their character, their level of
3
development, and their attitudes toward learning. Dewey emphasizes the

importance of thoughtful planning for the arrangement of conditions
that are conducive to community activitybased on the capacities and
needs of the particular set of individualssubject matter or content for
experiences that satisfy these needs and develop these capacities.76
While Deweys and Arendts educational ideas read as parallel in
many important ways, there nevertheless are some significant
differences. Arendt sees US education as in a shambles, finding there a
lack of common sense and sound, human reason. She is concerned for
the well-being of young people in schools and in society unprepared for
life, having been taught without being educated, not learning enough
about the outside world because of being sheltered in schools, focused
on their wants and needs as opposed to preparation for activity in
society. Arendts belief Progressive education springs from 19th-century,
radical, experimental, European educational practices undervalues the
wholly US philosophical movement that was Pragmatism. US educators
and educational thinkers were well aware of European thought, but the
impact of US philosophers and educational thinkers would transcend
European conceptions of education and take US education in a whole
new direction. C. S. Peirce, William James, George Herbert Meade, G.
Stanley Hall, Edward Lee Thorndike, and others all influenced US
education and their ideas were transmitted to Europe through literature
and other interactions. But it was John Dewey who synthesized all this
US philosophy and created philosophy of education. Dewey trusted that
science and the scientific method could reform education from
investigation into basic conceptions of the nature and development of
the learner, the role of the school as a social institution in a democratic
society, nature of the task of teaching, and the place and structure of
curriculum and method. In 1897 in My Pedagogic Creed, Dewey sets
down those tenets of educational reform that influence educational
thinkers to this day. The fact that Progressive educators, in some cases,
took his ideas to the extreme certainly is no fault of Deweys.
I find it interesting the ideas of Dewey and Arendt converge as
much as they do. Arendts The Life of the Mind and Deweys Human
Nature and Conduct both explore the individuals place in society. Deweys
work begins with society and culture, then shifts to focus upon the
individual. Arendt starts with the individual and expands to society and
culture. Where in Freedom and Culture Dewey focuses more on the
economic and social basis of totalitarianism, in Origins of Totalitarianism
Arendt relies primarily on historical and cultural analysis. In her analysis
of education, Arendt advocates an educational institution that focuses on
students academic development while protecting them as much as
possible from excessive external influences and distractions. Dewey
views the school as an integral part of society with students as citizens
4
222 D. Snelgrove
designed to serve as a microcosm of larger society, also including those

issues and problems of the macro society.
My examination of the ideas of Arendt and Dewey proves of
interest not only as intellectual history, but also because it reveals the
importance of their ideas in contemporary social, political, and
educational thought. The problems they examine are today the same.
And their analyses and positions are still validstill relevant.
Endnotes
1 Elisabeth Young-Bruehl, Hannah Arendt: For Love of the World (New

Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1982), 342.
2 John Dewey, Freedom and Culture (New York: G. P. Putnams Sons,
1939), 239.
3 Margaret Canovan, The Contradictions of Hannah Arendts Political
Thought, Political Theory 6, no. 1 (1978): 526..
4 Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 3rd ed. (New York:
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1951/1973), 309.
5 Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1958), 100.
6 Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 341.
7 Young-Bruehl, Hannah Arendt, 219.
8 Dewey, Freedom and Culture, 6.
9 Ibid., 4.
10 Ibid., 36.
11 Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 334.
13 Hannah Arendt, Tradition and the Modern Age, Between Past and
Future (New York: Viking, 1961), 17.
14 Ibid.
15 Ibid., 22.
16 Ibid., 32.
17 Arendt, The Human Condition, 106.
19 Ibid., 86.
20 Ibid., 87.
21 Ibid., 77.
5

24 Hannah Arendt, Truth and Politics, Between Past and Future: Eight
Exercises in Political Thought (New York: Viking, 1961), 247.
25 Ibid., 246.
26 Ibid., 247.
27 Hannah Arendt, What is Freedom?, Between Past and Future: Eight
Exercises in Political Thought (New York: Viking, 1961) 146.
28 Ibid., 151.
29 Ibid., 160.
31 John Dewey, Philosophies of Freedom, in The Collected Works of John
Dewey, Later Works, vol. 3, Jo Ann Boydston, ed. (Carbondale, IL:
Southern Illinois University Press, 1983), 9293.
32 John Dewey, Human Nature and Conduct (New York: Modern Library,
1957), 303304.
33 Dewey, Philosophies of Freedom, 101.
34 Arendt, What is Freedom?, 152.
37 Ibid., 2223.
38 Ibid., 175.
39 Ibid., 89.
40 Ibid., 33.
41 Ibid., 178.
42 Dewey, Human Nature and Conduct, v.
43 Ibid., vii.
44 Ibid., 42.
45 Ibid., 95.
46 John Dewey, Pluralism, in The Collected Works of John Dewey, Middle
Works, vol. 2, Jo Ann Boydston, ed. (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois
University Press, 1983), 204.
48 Ibid., 9.
49 John Dewey and James H. Tufts, Ethics (New York: Henry Holt,
1908), 68.
50 Ibid.
6
224 D. Snelgrove
51 Dewey, Human Nature and Conduct, 167.

52 Hannah Arendt, The Crisis in Education, Between Past and Future
(New York: Viking, 1961), 174.
53 Hannah Arendt, The Life of the Mind (New York: Houghton Mifflin
Harcourt, 1981).
54 Hannah Arendt, Reflections on Little Rock, Dissent 6, no. 1 (1959):
55.
55 Ibid., 50.
56 Ibid., 55.
57 Arendt, The Crisis in Education, 175.
58 Ibid.
59 Ibid., 178.
60 Ibid., 183.
63 Ibid.
64 Ibid., 192193.
65 John Pulliam and James Van Patten, History of Education in America, 8th
ed. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill Prentice Hall, 1993), 207.
66 John Dewey, The Need for a Philosophy of Education, The Collected
Works of John Dewey, Later Works, vol. 9, Jo Ann Boydston, ed.
(Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1986), 196.
67 John Dewey, Experience and Education, 13th printing (New York: Collier
Books, 1938/1971), 20.
68 Ibid., 22.
70 Dewey, Experience and Education, 29.
71 Dewey, Human Nature and Conduct, 179.
73 Dewey, The Crisis in Human History, 107.
75 Ibid.

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Journal of

Journal of Philosophy & History of Education

The Journal of the Society of Philosophy & History of Education

Stacy Otto, Illinois State University &

Editorial Advisory B oard

Society of Philosophy & History of Education

The Journal of Philosophy and History of Education is a publication of the Society of

Membership in the Society is open to anyone interested in the profession of

Copyright 2013 Society of Philosophy and History of Education

Journal of Philosophy & History of Education

From the Editors ...................................................................................................... v

US Supreme Court Decisions and Educational Legislation

Academic Freedom in the Post-Garcetti Era:

Critical Race Analysis

Applying Critical Race Theory in Analyzing Two Films by

The Postmodern Secular University and Voluntary Student Religious

Genealogy, Nietzsche, and the Historical Analysis of Concepts

Biography, Philosophy, and Teaching

Confronting the Unexpected in the Friendship of Flora White (18601948)

Democracy and Citizenship Education: Fostering Clarity of Meaning

From the Editors

onerousperhaps forebodingtask. Immigrants included in Burns

Although one may at first blame the neoliberal economy on US

we the people critiquing, prodding, questioning, holding up the mirror to

1 The Statue of Liberty, DVD, directed by Ken Burns (Boston, MA:

Dalton B Rusty Curtis

publications as the Journal of Philosophy and History of Education, Educational

James J. Van Patten

Chipman Gray Chip Stuart

In teacher education, we spend much time trying to codify what good

card on which he had us answer a number of personal questions

Chips teaching seemed to be based on the Chinese proverb, Man

2012 SOPHE Presidential Address

Let Our Songbirds Sing

As I was struggling with what to talk about tonightstruggling with

interests, to facilitate their thriving not merely their surviving? What

psychic, and, sometimes, physical slaughter. Teachers too are in cattle

In contrast to the claim children are being prepareda purpose

And still, no one has mentioned our childrens

Addams, J. (1985). A function of the social settlement (1899). In E. C.

Hursh, D. W., Goldstein, R., & Griffith, D. (2000). Social struggles:

The Drake Lecture

This is especially true when sensitive and/or profitable areas of

secular intellectuals main bastion: to abandon its defence or to tolerate

discussing the challenges Arab world academics face on many levels, I

the mental, conceptual, rational, cognitive, a priori, and theoretical, on

As a result I naturally am extremely sceptical of the business world

3. I believe educators can restore faith in humanity as a whole

possibilities can be seen as good or meaningful, others as bad

Who is Greene describing but teachers? Do you not recognize

Dewey, J. (1897). My pedagogic creed. School Journal, 54, 7780.

Journal of Philosophy & History of Education

Academic Freedom in the

2 L. Duemer & F. Hartmeister

to examine the state of recent events based in a longer historical trend

Academic Freedom in the Post-Garcetti Era 3

humanity and relationships with institutions.15 The most recent shift

4 L. Duemer & F. Hartmeister

no distinction where such speech by a public employee took place. For