A wonderfully readable update on brain research is Jonah Lehrer’s How We Decide that looks at how our emotions affect decisions and what the brain tells us about it. Lehrer worked in the lab of Nobel Prize-winning neuroscientist Eric Kandel, is editor-at-large for Seed Magazine, and publishes regularly in major magazines and newspapers. He has both [...]
A Deeper Democracy Where We Learn (and Teach)
Our schools, colleges, and universities could be more deeply democratic, more effective, and more efficient if they were organized according to the values, principles, and methods of dynamic governance. In the United States, we think our educational system is democratic but our children are required by law to attend schools that are poorly staffed, using outmoded books and technology, overcrowded, and often poorly maintained. Parents have no control and little influence. Our teachers teach from curriculums with no choices. They have no control over their own working conditions, and often have to buy materials for their classrooms themselves.
Civics, how we govern ourselves, has all but disappeared from the curriculum. We teach nothing about what participating in a democracy requires. Where do we go from here? How can dynamic governance help?
