The Strength of Our Nation

Democracy is a broad and far-reaching idea, and carries with it a specific set of relatively vague values. This becomes especially evident when attempts are made to transform the ever expansive interpretations of democracy into actual, tangible practice. An idea - however widely admired in theory - remains only as effective and representative as the mechanisms and persuasions in place to implement it into practice. How people interpret an idea and manipulate its indefinite principals - however self-serving at times or benevolent at others - will determine the subsequent outcomes.

The otherwise seemingly rigid, authoritative value structure with which our culture tends to affiliate democracy - underpinned with notions of freedom and liberty - is instead, and in distinct contrast, an evolving entity intertwined in perpetual transformation, by way of unending reinterpretation. A likely reason for this is the fact that values - the likes of freedom and liberty -typically revolve around one's unique concept of fairness, followed closely by one’s unique concept of the manner in which justice is best served. Thus, given the fact that any number of socioeconomic, spiritual, and cultural factors can shape a diverse range of opinion on what is and is not just, it becomes less certain that one nationally-accepted democratic ideal exists.

Some might argue that perhaps a stronger consensus on the ideals of democracy is more likely to surface from the process in which such innumerable interpretations are reconciled. Yet, even our nation’s earliest leaders exhibited fundamental divergence in their understanding of the ideal democratic process. A key example can be found in the matter of education. In American Education, historian Joel Sp...

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.... As an educator, I will aim to cultivate within my students qualities that strengthen both their roles as members of an economy and roles as civic participants. Respectively, these are roles that can serve to fortify the United State’s economic vitality and resiliency, and reconcile the inevitable injustices, and reward the that result from economic dynamism. The capacity of our nation to endure the will be contingent on our citizen’s ability to serve effectively in each of these complementary roles.

Works Cited

Spring, J. H. (2008). American education (13th ed.). Boston : McGraw-Hill.

PBS Online: Only a Teacher: Schoolhouse Pioneers. PBS: Public broadcasting service. Retrieved April 11, 2011, from http://www.pbs.org/onlyateacher/horace.html

Sleeter, C. (2008). Teaching for Democracy in an Age of Corporatocracy. Teachers college record, 110(1), 139-159.