Hamlet like, I’ve tossed this idea back and forth in my mind for some time now. Do I have anything of interest to put before the readers at TPM Café? Am I obsessive enough to keep at it? Is my ego too delicate to stand a buffet or two when I get critical responses, or worse, no responses at all? This first entry indicates that I’ve decided "what the heck–why not give it a try?" (After all, I can always retreat, tail between legs if I have to. If worse comes to worst, I can always put a bag over my head when I leave the house).

I’ve decided two things, reserving the right to change my mind. First, that I’ll make this a topical blog. I want to share thoughts with people about the connection between educational philosophy and a democratic society. Education pops up around here often enough–but the discussions are primarily at the policy level or tangential to the topic at hand; things like No Child Left Behind, or whether Unionization is detrimental to the educational apparatus. Very often, there is an underlying assumption about educational purpose–that it is primarily, if not exclusively, associated with the economic sphere. The solution to globalization? More education! The antidote to downsizing? Retraining!

I’m not silly enough to pose the counter-assertion, that the purpose of education is to make a person unemployable. Some of you may enjoy Garrison Keillor’s riffs on English Majors or Reference Librarians (I love those myself). But since the early days of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, education has been seen as a civic necessity. Thomas Jefferson, pivotal in the development of American democratic institutions, returned to this theme time and time again. As an old man, he said, "No nation is permitted to live in ignorance with impunity," and "A system of general instruction, which shall reach every description of our citizens from the richest to the poorest, as it was the earliest, so will it be the latest of all the public concerns in which I shall permit myself to take an interest." Why? Because "Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government;... whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights."

So, what kind of education informs the common good: this idea of Commonwealth in its most literal sense. That’s what I’d like to explore in this blog. What do we mean at the most basic level. What assumptions underlie Democracy: assumptions about human nature, about rationality, about the instrumentalities of creating and preserving Democracy? How do we recognize Democracy when it passes before our eyes?

All that is point one. Wow! If anyone is still awake, I’ll get to point two. I’d like to make this a group blog–something for which there is no direct mechanism, but I think there’s a workaround which will serve. If anyone would like to contribute to this discussion, he or she can send me his or her offering by using the Write To Author link. I’ll cut and paste that offering into the blog itself, attributing it to the person who submits it. I’ll post it as is.

Having taken so much space to explain my intentions, I’m out of space to fulfill any of them. I’ll get to the first "real" entry in a day or so–perhaps even later today if I get tired of doing laundry.

aMike