"Show Me What Democracy Looks Like"
Our guest author today is John McCrann, a Math teacher and experiential educator at Harvest Collegiate High School in New York City. John is a member of the America Achieves Fellowship, Youth Opportunities Program, and Teacher Leader Study Group. He tweets at @JohnTroutMcCran.
New York City’s third through eighth graders are in the middle of state tests, and many of our city’s citizens have taken strong positions on the value (or lack thereof) of these assessments. The protests, arguments and activism surrounding these tests remind me of a day when I was a substitute civics teacher during summer school. “I need help," Charlotte said as she approached my desk, “what is democracy?"
On that day, my mind flashed to a scene I witnessed outside the White House in the spring of 2003. On one side of the fence, protestors shouted: “Show me what democracy looks like! This is what democracy looks like!” On the other side worked an administration who had invaded another country in an effort to “expand democracy." Passionate, bright people on both sides of that fence believed in the idea that Charlotte was asking about, but came to very different conclusions about how to enact the concept.