A More Democratic Approach to Education

A More Democratic Approach to Education This essay will elaborate on the validity of Gerald Graff’s argument in his article “The Undemocratic Curriculum”, as well as outline how the argument could be improved. Graff’s article proposes that the education system in America is flawed in the sense that not all students are taught how to process or what to do with the information that they are exposed to. This puts them at a disadvantage to those student who have been taught adequate methods of expressing their ideas through argumentation. Oxford dictionary defines democracy as the practice or principles of social equality (1). So how can an education system claim to be democratic if not all students are all enlightened on the method of thinking required of them to be successful in their academic careers? Graff’s argument is strengthened by not only clearly defining his view on how undemocratic aspects of academic institutions in America are , but also explaining why this is the case and how it can be fixed. I agree with Gerald Graff’s perspective on how undemocratic education can be, and I agree with Graff’s proposed solution of encouraging academic argumentation, and educating students on how to compose a strong argument. Incorporating argumentation skills into the curriculum will without a doubt benefit students by encouraging them to be independent thinkers, giving them the ability to express their own creative ideas, and support those using logic and reasoning. However incorporating argumentation skills into curricula alone is not all that can be done to make academic institutions more democratic.

Gerald Graff’s paper presents a productive idea of using intellectual socialism as a way to make the education system in America more democratic. His reasoning for this idea, as stated in his paper, is “the curriculum presents students with an extraordinary diversity of texts, ideas, subjects, intellectual perspectives, and approaches, but it fails to