Language Learning and Democratic Development [1996]

I have sought to avoid hopping from one bandwagon to another, a behavior characteristic of American educators. My decisions to embrace or reject phonics or teaching grammar or back-to-basics or process writing instruction or critical thinking courses have not been based on the shrillness or popularity of a particular rhetoric, but upon cautious consideration of practice and theory. As I have argued, often in a winding and inductive way, in favor of pluralistic educational initiatives, against monocultural ideals, in favor of emphasizing literature in basic writing courses, I have been approaching, sometimes unwittingly, a deductive vantage point from which I can efficiently analyze educational proposals. This viewpoint mainly entails a concern with democratic schooling and affords an extremely useful typology: either educational proposals promote democracy and thus are to be favored, or they do not. This is how I am viewing language arts learning proposals for all levels, including adult education programs.