Confronting Power: Success Isn’t Everything—But It’s Not Nothing Either. A Response to “Beyond the Catch-22 of School-Based Social Action Programs: Toward a More Pragmatic Approach for Dealing with Power”

Authors

Joel Westheimer, University of OttawaFollow

Abstract

Fehrman and Schutz contend that the fine balance between having students experience real-world obstacles to social change and having them learn how to navigate around those obstacles can be achieved by having adults both pre-select community action projects that are both possible and meaningful to ensure a modicum of success, and jump in and redirect wayward efforts when necessary to get them back on a trajectory aimed at a positive outcome. I agree. I also suggest that other factors are significant as well, namely the purposeful nurturing of a sense of community and hopefulness. Finally, I point out that adult intervention and democratic teaching are in no way mutually exclusive, especially by any standard John Dewey might have suggested.

Response to Article

Darwyn Fehrman and Aaron Schutz, Beyond the Catch-22 of School-Based Social Action Programs: Toward a More Pragmatic Approach for Dealing with Power

Recommended Citation

Westheimer, J. (2011). Confronting Power: Success Isn’t Everything—But It’s Not Nothing Either. A Response to “Beyond the Catch-22 of School-Based Social Action Programs: Toward a More Pragmatic Approach for Dealing with Power”. Democracy and Education, 19 (1), Article 10.
Available at: https://democracyeducationjournal.org/home/vol19/iss1/10