Advocacy+&+Democratic+Citizenship



I wrote this particular paper for my first education class, Sociological and Philosophical Foundations of Education. The prompt was to write a paper on a social justice issue, and I chose racism, because it remains an important issue in today’s society. It is very relevant topic to equal opportunity in education. If people don’t discuss this issue, it is doubtful that we will be able to eliminate it.

I believe that this paper portrays my growth in Advocacy & Democratic Citizenship, the value and commitment to equal opportunity and eliminating the barriers that exist in education today. It is important to have everyone participate in creating equal educational opportunities because this will ultimately lead to people being able to work together in society.

Throughout the paper I explore the ways that racism can be dealt with in education. Essentially, I use some of John Dewey’s ideas about democracy to touch upon existing barriers and how we can break them down so that students will all receive equal educational opportunities. The paper conveys my understanding of the issue and my concern for how it can be fixed.

This paper was also assigned in my Sociological and Philosophical Foundations of Education class. It explores how the concept of democracy can be applied to a classroom setting and speaks about the barriers that exist within society and why they make it difficult to maintain the balance that is necessary in both a society and a classroom. This paper emphasizes the importance of working together towards a common goal as well as the need for not only equal opportunity, but also equal participation.

This paper is part of Advocacy for Students & Democratic Citizenship because it deals with how people need to work together towards a common goal in order to eliminate barriers and move toward equal opportunity for education. Equal participation in the classroom is necessary in order to achieve such enormous feats just as it is in society.

Through this paper, my interest in and commitment to exploring how to make work in classrooms more equitable and collaborative is conveyed. Democracy is a value that must be implemented both inside and outside of the classroom. In the paper, I speak about being able to create a shared interest as a teacher so that students are encouraged to participate equally in order to achieve their common goal. I am already thinking about how I can bring this value into my classroom and implement it. 

I wrote this paper in my Literacy for Diverse Learners class. The prompt was to explore how literacy can be used as a seed, a tool, and a weapon, highlighting its overall importance in the realm of education. In this paper I was able to incorporate and reflect upon my own experiences with literacy and a seed, a tool, and a weapon and apply my own experiences to some of the readings from class. I also explore how the past can be a useful element in what students are learning now.

I have chosen to include this essay in Advocacy for Students & Democratic Citizenship because throughout the essay I speak about the ways that literacy rights have been denied to certain groups and why literacy is so important to education. It is essential that people are not denied their right to literacy because it is something that we use to communicate and collaborate. It is necessary in being able to share ideas amongst one another and to elaborate and build upon those ideas. For people to be denied literacy is for society to be denied the thoughts of many useful minds.

I found that through this essay I learned a great deal about myself. One’s own experiences are so much a part of their teaching style and the values that they implement in their classroom. This paper helped me to become more informed about literacy practices and how my own experiences can be applied to all different types of situations. I feel that I was able to get a better idea of how I will use literacy practices in my own classroom through writing this paper.