Paideia Proposal

By Mortimer J. Adler

The Paideia Proposal is a system of liberal education intended for all children. It was a response to what Adler characterized as the United States' antidemocratic or undemocratic educational system, a holdover from the 19th century, when the understanding of basic human rights fell short of 20th century expectations.

The Paidea Proposal was based upon the following assumptions: 1) All children are educable; 2) Education is never completed in school or higher institutions of learning, but is a lifelong process of maturity for all citizens; 3) The primary cause of learning is the activity of the child's mind, which is not created by, but only assisted by the teacher; 4) Multiple types learning and teaching must be utilized in education, not just teacher lecturing, or telling; and 5) A student's preparation for earning a living is not the primary objective of schooling.

Adler stressed that the proposal is much more than just a return to the basic skills of reading, writing and arithmetic. It is not simply a return to the values of classical civilization, but a return to what is of enduring value. It is a democratic proposal intended for the education of all, and not an elitist program as some have alleged.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Touchstone
• Release date: Oct 1, 1998
• ISBN: 9781439104903

Mortimer J. Adler

Dr. Mortimer J. Adler was Chairman of the Board of the Encyclopedia Britannica, Director of the Institute for Philosophical Research, Honorary Trustee of the Aspen Institute, and authored more than fifty books. He died in 2001.

Book preview

PART ONE

The Schooling of a People

1

Democracy and Education

WE ARE on the verge of a new era in our national life. The long-needed educational reform for which this country is at last ready will be a turning point toward that new era.

Democracy has come into its own for the first time in this century. Not until this century have we undertaken to give twelve years of schooling to all our children. Not until this century have we conferred the high office of enfranchised citizenship on all our people, regardless of sex, race, or ethnic origin.

The two—universal suffrage and universal schooling—are inextricably bound together. The one without the other is a perilous delusion. Suffrage without schooling produces mobocracy, not democracy—not rule of law, not constitutional government by the people as well as for them.

The great American educator, John Dewey, recognized this early in this century. In Democracy and Education, written in 1916, he first tied these two words together and let each shine light upon the other.

A revolutionary message of that book was that a democratic society must provide equal educational opportunity not only by giving to all its children the same quantity of public education—the same number of years in school—but also by making sure to give to all of them, all with no exceptions, the same quality of education.

The ideal Dewey set before us is a challenge we have failed to meet. It is a challenge so difficult that it is understandable, perhaps excusable, that we have so far failed. But we cannot continue to fail without disastrous consequences for all of us. For the proper working of our political institutions, for the efficiency of our industries and businesses, for the salvation of our economy, for the vitality of our culture, and for the ultimate good of our citizens as individuals, and especially our future citizens—our children—we must succeed.

We are all sufferers from our continued failure to fulfill the educational obligations of a democracy. We are all the victims of a school system that has only gone halfway along the road to realize the promise of democracy.

At the beginning of this century, fewer than 10 percent of those of an age eligible for high school entered such schools. Today, almost 100 percent of our children enter, but not all complete such secondary schooling; many drop out for many reasons, some of them understandable.

It has taken us the better part of eighty years to go halfway toward the goal our society must achieve if it is to be a true democracy. The halfway mark was reached when we finally managed to provide twelve years of basic public schooling for all our children. At that point, we were closer to the goal that Horace Mann set for us more than a century ago when he said: Education is the gateway to equality.

But the democratic promise of equal educational opportunity, half fulfilled, is worse than a promise broken. It is an ideal betrayed. Equality of educational opportunity is not, in fact, provided if it means no more than taking all the children into the public schools for the same number of hours, days, and years. If once there they are divided into the sheep and the goats, into those destined solely for toil and those destined for economic and political leadership and for a quality of life to which all should have access, then the democratic purpose has been undermined by an inadequate system of public schooling.

It fails because it has achieved only the same quantity of public schooling, not the same quality. This failure is a downright violation of our democratic principles.

We are politically a classless society. Our citizenry as a whole is our ruling class. We should, therefore, be an educationally classless society.

We should have a one-track system of schooling, not a system with two or more tracks, only one of which goes straight ahead while the others shunt the young off onto sidetracks not headed toward the goals our society opens to all. The innermost meaning of social equality is: substantially the same quality of life for all. That calls for: the same quality of schooling for

Reviews for Paideia Proposal

[Tim Grennan · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Underwhelming; idealistic and utopian with many great ideas that are highly unlikely to work in teacher union controlled urban schools

[kirklowery · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A fantastic Utopian proposal, actually implemented in one of the Chicago school districts. But inevitably doomed to failure in our dumbed-down, committed to mediocrity, anti-intellectual, narcissistic, Oprah-fied culture.

[stormraven_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This book proves it is possible for me to agree with the philosophy and goals of a proposal, and yet find the proposal to be almost entirely wrong-headed in execution. Adler and a group of other educators got together and came up with a proposal for reforming the U.S. education system, which resulted in the Paideia Proposal.The primary thrust of the book is that all children should get an equal education as a prerequisite for being preprared to participate fully in a functioning democracy, which is a laudable goal. To achive that goal, the book proposes that multi-track educational systems that direct some kids into one or more college preperatory tracks, and others into various vocational tracks should be abolished, and that all children should get an education through the end of 12th grade that is identical in content. This, in my opinion, is both wrong headed, and counterproductive.One assumption made through the book is that a classic liberal arts education through the end of high school is arequired to create a functioning member of a democratic society. The book consistently downplays the importance of physcial education, vocational education, and other "unnecessary" courses. The book also downplays the differences between students, both up the scale, and down it. These differences are handwaved away with the assumption that those lacking in aptitude for traditional academic subjects will pull themselves up if only educational expectations are raised.The problem with this assumption is that it ignores those at the top of the educational scale - who will become bored and frustrated by the now slow pace of their classes (remember, we got rid of all tracked education), and expects those who struggle to keep up without truly accounting for their capabilities. Assuming a single cirriculum will fit all children simply flies in the face of reality.One annoying side light is that the authors assume that levels of homework should be increased acorss the board, which seems to be one of the parts of the book that has been adopted. But teachers get kids for eight hours a day five days a week as it is. Do they really need to tack on two to three hours of homework on top of that? (Especially since studies have shown that the educational benefits for children resulting from homework are negligible at best). Is eight hours of daily instruction not enough to squeeze in sufficient learning?In the end, while I agree with the authors that all chilren should have equal educational opportuntity, at least through the end of the public school experience, a single cirriculum is clearly not the answer. Further, the core learning experience necessary to provide a sufficient grounding to understand and participate in a democratic society should form the basis of the public education experience, but that should serve as a core upon which to build a cirriculum that offers student choices (at least at the high school level), not a straitjacket that pushes everyone into a single track.The book is built upon a promising idea. Unfortunately, I simply cannot agree with the prescription that results.

[the1butterfly · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Basically what Adler was proposing was impossible and wouldn't work. His idea- get rid of honors classes, get rid of specialty classes, drop woodworking (he didn't say it quite that way, but I got the message, and, having had loved woodworking, I felt justifyably angered), and basically put everyone through the same thing. Hey Adler, guess what- I want my honors classes, my art classes, my creative writing classes, my extra English and Science and Spanish classes, in short, I want choices! Your program sounds like it might be fine for children (who have a similar one anyway), but not for adolescents who are groing up and need to make some choices.