Teaching for Dissent

Citizenship Education and Political Activism

Sarah Marie Stitzlein

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781317250913
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Pedagogía
• Subtopic: Educación general

Teaching for Dissent looks at the implications of new forms of dissent for educational practice. The reappearance of dissent in political meetings and street protests opens new possibilities for improved democratic life and citizen participation. This book argues that this possibility will not be fulfilled if schools do not cultivate the skills necessary for our citizens to engage in political dissent. The authors look at how practices in schools, such as the testing regime and the 'hidden curriculum', suppress students' ability to voice ideas that stand in opposition to the status quo. Teaching for Dissent calls for a realignment of the curriculum and the practices of schooling with a guiding vision of democratic participation.

Chapter 1

Dissent in an Era of Public Protests

What will happen if teachers become sufficiently courageous and emancipated to insist that education means the creation of a discriminating mind, a mind that prefers not to dupe itself or to be the dupe of others? Clearly they will have to cultivate the habit of suspended judgment, of scepticism, of desire for evidence, of appeal to observation rather than sentiment, discussion rather than bias, inquiry rather than conventional idealizations. When this happens schools will be the dangerous outposts of a humane civilization. But they will also begin to be supremely interesting places. For it will then have come about that education and politics are one and the same thing because politics will have to be in fact what it now pretends to be, the intelligent management of social affairs.

—John Dewey, 1922

FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MANY YEARS, ESPECIALLY SINCE 9/11 USHERED IN AN era of relative acquiescence under President George W. Bush's Patriot Act and official proclamation "You are either with us or you are with the terrorists,"¹ leaders and significant segments of the public are celebrating and invoking dissent. Figures from both ends of the political spectrum, from Hillary Clinton and Jon Stewart to Karl Rove and Sean Hannity, have publicly endorsed dissent.² The Left dissented against the Bush administration and launched a movement of change propelled by grassroots campaigning for Barack Obama in 2008, while in town hall meetings the Right ignited dissent regarding health care and protests challenging economic reform in 2009 and 2010. The year 2011 began on the heels of a national election that demonstrated displeasure with leadership on Capitol Hill, a shooting rampage in Arizona that left an elected representative clinging to life, and a national poll calling for the elected leaders to listen to the dissenting voices on both sides of the aisle while ultimately working together.³ It accelerated into widespread protests of economic inequality via the Occupy Wall Street movement that started in New York City and spread globally.

Because good dissent is key to the maintenance and improvement of democracy,⁴ the resurgence of dissent in town halls, on street corners, and in public parks—even if not always effective or well done—brings new promise for improved democratic life and citizen participation. But this promise cannot be fulfilled if schools do not celebrate or cultivate skills and dispositions necessary for our next generation of citizens to successfully engage in political dissent. Indeed, this book reveals troubling practices in schools, resulting from the testing atmosphere to the hidden curriculum, that omit or suppress the ability to dissent. A close look at educational practice and policy today reveals a mismatch between the goal of education for active civic and political participation and the actual practice of schooling, which is largely one geared toward consensus and complacency.

To better understand dissent and its central role in a vibrant democracy, this book investigates the historical and philosophical foundations of dissent in the work of the American Founders and the pragmatist philosophers who followed them. Many of today's protestors from the Right celebrate the dissenting actions of the Founders, while a portion of those from the Left echo the dissenting approaches of the Progressive Era pragmatists. Each sees certain acts of dissent as important contributions to democracy. In this book, I move beyond simple celebrations of dissent by asking a new question: Is dissent not just a valuable act but rather a right—a capacity that all citizens are entitled to develop and invoke? To pursue this question, I examine the ways in which dissent is understood as a negative right—a freedom to be engaged without government intervention—and propose instead that dissent should be seen as a positive right—a freedom that requires certain governmental supports. Because positive rights typically require services from the state, my argument for dissent as a positive right leads to my call for a particular type of citizenship education to be provided to our nation's public school children. I claim that schools should teach children how to dissent. This book calls for a realignment of curriculum and the practices of schooling with both a guiding vision of ideal democracy and a realistic interpretation of democracy as it is currently invoked in the era of Tea Party protests and campaigns for change in order to maximize this historic moment of dissent on our streets, to invigorate future eras marked by lack or suppression of dissent, and to work toward more robust democracy as a whole.

This book is intended to speak to educational scholars and practitioners, including K–12 teachers, who are concerned with educating for democracy. Many of you may be intrigued by recent shifts in politics and culture that suggest both a need and a unique opportunity to improve citizenship education, including special attention to the voicing of alternative perspectives in schools and the discussion of controversial social and political issues. Some of you may desire historical foundations and philosophical justifications for your educational projects in social studies classrooms or across the curriculum. Those with interests in philosophy of education or curriculum studies may be intrigued by the proposition that dissent is a democratic practice in peril within our schools and my claim that dissent can be resurrected through nurturing and examining current sociopolitical movements and recentering dissent within pragmatist accounts of living in democracy. This book aims to fulfill those interests and to provide each of you with theoretical and practical insight into one important element of educating for democracy: the cultivation of dissent.

This endeavor is certainly not apolitical, nor is my own orientation to it. I was raised in a staunchly Republican farming family in the Midwest and have begun to identify myself with the Left only more recently in my adult life, as I recently resided in the reddest of the New England states. I recognize that there are kind, wise, and patriotic citizens on both sides of the aisle. I aim to speak to readers from both the Right and the Left by showing that issues of dissent are central to both parties at the present moment and within the larger picture of a successfully flourishing democracy. Dissent, and the notions of justice and political agency it rests upon, although described in different languages by each party, are central to the aims of both. I aim to depict a conception of dissent that is useful to both parties and that can bridge some of the divides between them. Moreover, I contend that both parties have a mutual interest in improved citizenship education. My suggestions may be criticized in ways that are common in both parties. I recognize that the Right sometimes too quickly casts citizenship education that is based around expressly political participation as endorsing an activist agenda,⁵ and the Left tends to reduce some forms of civics education that celebrate the distant past by conjuring moving renditions of the Founders and that rely on the cultivation of shared characteristics as endorsing blind patriotism.⁶ The educational platform I describe may fall prey to both of these at times, but I hope that readers from each party will hold off these assessments and strive to find some common ground in the preparation of children as future dissenters. Admittedly, dissent maybe more easily aligned with the Left because the "conservative" nature of the Right is, by definition, aimed at preserving certain ways of life or values, whereas dissent often entails proposing new ideas or practices and, in this way, is closer to the denotation of "progressive," and, thereby, the Left. But certainly the Right also uses dissent to reassert their guiding principles when they feel society has strayed too far, hence proposing a new alternative of sorts. The Right has recently championed the efforts and beliefs of early dissenters, most explicitly through the adoption of the Tea Party name and image, which many have invoked through slogans, placards, and costumes at rallies. I argue that the Revolutionary Era is a good place to start when calling for improved political life today, but try to show that the Founders' form of civic living and some of their political commitments were improved upon by the Left, especially during the Progressive Era. The Right continues to assert deep commitments to individual liberties like freedom of thought and expression that are central to dissent. The Left upholds similar freedoms and has shown how they are central to public struggles for justice. The resulting form of dissent, which I will describe in the following chapters, marries the best of both parties and is feasible in today's world, rendering it useful and valuable across the political spectrum.

Changes in American Dissent

Dissent was essential to the establishment of America as a political state. From early immigrants seeking religious freedom and early statesmen fighting against British tyranny, America grew out of dissent. As it aged, dissent waxed and waned, sometimes celebrated, sometimes silenced. The country grew more powerful and more just over decades of dissent, which led to fairer labor laws, civil rights, and women's suffrage, to name just a few triumphs of citizen dissent. The past ten years have brought significant changes to the appreciation and practice of dissent in America. The year 2000 closed with controversy surrounding the election of George W. Bush. A recount was conducted, and while hanging chads were inspected, frustrated voters from both parties debated the appropriateness of determining an election based on an electoral vote that did not match the popular vote. Some citizens, especially those from the losing party, questioned whether or not their voices, as expressed through their votes, were truly being heard. While such feelings might have led to larger discussion of the role of citizen voice in America, the nation's focus was redirected just a few short months later when the nation was attacked on September 11, 2001. Reeling from unexpected attack, the overwhelming response was one of patriotic togetherness. Within a matter of hours, Democratic and Republican leaders gathered together on the steps of the Capitol to lead the country in singing "God Bless America." In the weeks and months following, communities across the nation joined in similar patriotic anthems, adorned their homes and vehicles with the Stars and Stripes, and spoke proudly of a shared American identity. Such a response reflected one viable way of responding to and healing from national tragedy. It brought people together and reasserted American strength and unity. This spirit of unity, while offering much support to the country, also led to Conditions of both acquiescence and overt suppression of dissent, thereby setting a tone of consensus—even at times forced consensus—throughout the first half of the decade.

To acquiesce means to passively agree or to give one's consent by complying without question. For most Americans, their response to 9/11 was to endorse U.S. reports on and policies resulting from the attack by acquiescing. This approach was also adopted by many elected representatives in the later months of 2001. In a unified Congress that is nearly unimaginable a decade later, our leaders passed the bills put before it without significant objections or filibusters. This included passing a $60 billion missile defense system bill. When asked about the ease with which this seemingly contentious bill passed, Senator Carl Levin explained, "We have no need to create dissent while we need unity."⁷ The need for unity was also employed to rally national strength in the months leading up to the war in Afghanistan and again in Iraq. Immediately following the attacks all but one member of Congress gave the President the authority to use force in response to our attackers. The number who questioned the use of military force, however, grew in the 18 months between 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq. Although the numbers still remained a relatively small portion of the American public, 65,000 signed the "Not in Our Name Statement of Conscience" petition and had their collective voices expressed by Saul Williams's "Not in My Name" spoken verse. A handful of well-known people, including actor Tim Robbins and New York Times reporter Chris Hedges, led hundreds of thousands of Iraq war protestors thro ugh the streets of New York, Philadelphia, Washington, DC, and San Francisco in 2003 and 2004. While some were denied significant media coverage, such as Fox News' refusal to feature the 2004 protestors surrounding the Republican National Convention, others were able to spread their dissenting opinions through mainstream and alternative media outlets. A significant portion of the population saw these protests as unpatriotic and many leaders questioned whether such dissenting views might weaken our collective resolve and our military. Other Americans regarded these protestors as invoking the right to freedom of expression—the very type of freedom that they believed America was fighting to defend. They tolerated dissent, at best, as a right that should be ensured, but few genuinely engaged with the dissenting opinions offered and even fewer adopted or celebrated those views themselves. But as Austin Sarat points out, "In dangerous times even such rights-based toleration may evaporate."⁸ Living in the shadow of terrorism, this is precisely what began to happen; the suppression of dissent became overt.

There is a long history of suppressing dissent during times of war in America. A few of the most notable instances began with the Sedition Act of 1798, which made it illegal to criticize the government. It stated

[T]hat if any person shall write, print, utter or publish, or shall cause or procure to be written, printed, uttered or published, or shall knowingly and willingly assist or aid in writing, printing, uttering or publishing any false, scandalous and malicious writing or writings against the government of the United States, or either house of the Congress of the United States, or the President of the United States, with intent to defame the said government, or either house of the said Congress, or the said President, or to bring them, or either of them, into contempt or disrepute; or to excite against them, or either or any of them, the hatred of the good people of the United States, or to stir up sedition within the United States, or to excite any unlawful combinations therein, for opposing or resisting any law of the United States, or any act of the President of the United States, done in pursuance of any such law, or of the powers in him vested by the constitution of the United States, or to resist, oppose, or defeat any such law or act, or to aid, encourage or abet any hostile designs of any foreign nation against the United States, their people or government, then such person, being there of convicted before any court of the United States.⁹

This act, as well as similar future acts, was not met with universal acceptance. It was formally challenged by resolutions authored by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, criticized in petitions signed by thousands of citizens, and protested by Pennsylvanians in an event that is now known as Fries's Rebellion. While most people convicted under this act were eventually pardoned by Jefferson, the spirit of the act appeared again in wartime as the 1917 Espionage Act and 1918 Sedition Act, which made it illegal to "willfully utter, print, write, or publish any disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language about the form of government of the United States, or the Constitution of the United States, or the military or naval forces of the United States, or the flag." Although many of their sentences were later reduced, these acts led to hundreds of imprisonments, including those of socialist presidential candidate Eugene Debs and poet e.e. cummings. The act was invoked to indict other dissenters in the decades following World War I. A bill was recently introduced in 2011 to amend the Espionage Act so that it can be used to prosecute WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and others who share information that might be harmful to the U.S. military. Another example, the Smith Act of 1940, aimed to squelch dissenting parties or individuals within the United States by making it illegal to "knowingly or willfully advocate, abet, advise, or teach the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying any government in the United States by force or violence."¹⁰ Suppression of dissent continued throughout the Cold War as embodied in McCarthyism and throughout the Vietnam War through increased domestic information gathering.

Arguably, a combination of fear sparked by the realities posed in a new age of terrorism and Bush's declaration "You are either with us or you are with the terrorists" set up an environment ripe for the overt suppression of dissent as the United States entered wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Although this was certainly problematic in terms of the overt legal suppression of dissent, which I will describe, it also proclaimed American identity as one of agreement and aligned dissent with being un-American. As Wendy Brown describes,

[T]he most worrisome ramifications maybe less the explicit incidents of censorship than the discursive framing of all dissent as un-American, a framing that not only constrains what maybe said and heard, but replaces a critically important political debate of what America is, stands for, or ought to do in world politics with a more polemical argument about loyalty or a more narrowly legalist one about free speech.¹¹

When some citizens did begin to question the restrictions of their legal rights as part of the proposed Patriot Act, Attorney General John Ashcroft pieced together a contentious puzzle of military strength, national unity, and jeopardized liberties when he responded to those citizens in his address to the Senate Judiciary Committee: "To those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: your tactics only aid terrorists, for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve. They give ammunition to America's enemies and pause to Americas friends."¹² As reflected in Ashcroft's comment, most calls for restricting speech were justified in terms of protecting America and keeping our military strong through a united front. Because of this, most Americans supported the Patriot Act as a source for obtaining information about and stopping those who might harm America. And, although a smaller p...