Education and Democracy

Democracy is not a prescription that a person takes for a certain period of time and then becomes a democrat. It is not a commodity like medicine, canned goods, and refrigerators that can be imported from abroad. It is not like clothes that are one size for all, each country takes what suits it. It is not a magic wand that changes the fate of peoples, and it is not innate, but can be acquired like other values such as cleanliness, honesty, integrity, respect, and tolerance through practice and example. Democracy in many countries is a temporary electoral prescription that ends with the end of the elections. There are a set of questions that weigh heavily on me and many others, including:
1. Why do the people who invented democracy abandon it according to circumstances? Democracy can wear any dress, any color, and any scale, as it is like a chameleon that changes its color according to the surrounding environment.
2. What is the difference between democracy and primacy as we see it?
3. Can democracy be practiced in an ignorant, illiterate society?
4. Do the teaching methods used in schools lead to democracy in the classroom, school and street?
5. Do the practices and positions we see from advocates of democracy encourage a move towards democracy in light of double standards? If so, then democracy is neither welcome nor easy, because as noted, there is no destroyed house, no stone out of place, no orphaned child, no poor person, no oppressed and ignorant people, or no severed hands without the traces of democracy being found there.
Many people admit that the civilization of the current era is characterized by cunning, propaganda, and the exploitation of social media and the media to program the mind of the reader and society. We have been convinced that democracy, development, progress, and prosperity mean the West, and that anyone who wants to join the progress of developing countries must follow the Western model. Despite these resonant words presented by social media, the democracy and progress presented by the Western model, which carries within it the happiness of humanity, is the same progress and democracy that humanity suffers from. It seems that this civilization has created a lot of suffering for peoples, and as the saying goes, “Every people has its share of suffering.”
Democracy does not come from scientific subjects alone, but is an inevitable result of the social and human sciences, such as philosophy, sociology, psychology, education and art.
Fahd Al-Shaqairan believes that democracy is not a magic solution, and here I will present some of the opinions of thinkers about democracy, ignorance, and education:
Imam Al-Ghazali says: If ignorance prevails among a people, then they are prey for humiliation and fear, and if ignorance, hypocrisy and oppression prevail, then the state will fall like sinking ships.
The German Nietzsche says: Education is a tool of states to control, suppress and tame man. It is a machine of manipulation and maneuvering, distorts man’s consciousness and eliminates his self.
Bertrand Russell says: Democracy is linked to education, upbringing and culture, and it is difficult to apply in an ignorant people where illiteracy is widespread. Karl Popper linked democracy to the level of civilization of the people, while Bond Ferry agrees with Russell that democratic culture precedes the application of democracy. The German Hegel believes that the application of democracy in a society where illiteracy is widespread will be incomplete and lame, but he believes that the existence of democracy is much better than its absence. He believes that people practice democracy, make mistakes and learn, and he calls for the application of democracy as soon as possible. He called for a scientific revolution before a practical revolution. In societies where illiteracy and ignorance are widespread, the credibility of their elections will be opaque and lack integrity, and will be questionable because the voter’s independence, decision-making and choosing the right person are affected by the party, tribe, clan, social relations and personal interest, because he is not accustomed to making decisions for himself independently. When tribalism, clannishness, partisanship and companionship prevail over belonging to the homeland and the public interest, democracy becomes questionable in its results and does not enjoy transparency and integrity. When minds are rented and consciences are absent, know that democracy has no credibility and is devoid of transparency and integrity.
The American John Dewey, the father of modern education, says: If we teach today’s students with yesterday’s methods, we will steal their future. This is an explicit call to use methods that suit the age and the future. John Dewey set conditions that he considered necessary, without which self-development of the individual and society cannot occur:
The first condition is to link the school to the needs of the individual and society, because today the school has become leading the activities of society and plays extremely important roles.
The second condition is to focus on practical and professional subjects, because they renew the spirit of the school and connect it to life. If the school does not serve society, then there is no need for it to exist.
The third condition is the role of the educational process in democracy through the practice that he considered in his book Democracy and Education as a Way of Life.
The student learns the readiness to receive through home first and then school. This is the method followed in education and upbringing, and more importantly, the type of what is taught or fed has not helped to change the student’s mentality and has not freed the student from receiving, narration, obedience and memorization. The student is exposed to verbal inputs and verbal outputs. This is due to teaching methods and approaches that are no longer suitable for this era and do not address the mind.
Indoctrination places the student in the position of a passive recipient who consumes what the teacher teaches through guidance, preaching, threats and punishment. It is a one-way education from the teacher who knows everything to the student who knows nothing and does not participate, interact, discuss or think about what he has been taught.
Indoctrination is an authoritarian method of education based on coercion and eliminates the student's mind, meaning that the student memorizes the information as it is and is not affected by what he has learned and does not care about understanding what he has learned, but rather stores it, memorizes it, remembers it and retrieves it on the day of the exam, and without application, the information becomes unimportant to the student. Indoctrination, indoctrination, intimidation and threats in schools do not lead to democracy because they eliminate the mind, eliminate discussion, eliminate persuasion, eliminate dialogue and eliminate independence in the learner. The German Herbert says that education becomes tyranny and injustice if it does not lead to freedom of the mind of the recipient, i.e. the student, and modern education, as described by the American John Dewey and the Brazilian Paulo Freiro, places the student in a dialogue atmosphere and helps in the development of personality, establishes respect and opens up ideas, and may be a tool for liberating or taming the mind, as the German Nietzsche says.
The methods of indoctrination and the triad of memorization, recall, and indoctrination lead to a lack of deep understanding, because the student relies on memorization without understanding or analyzing the information. Indoctrination does not encourage participation, nor does it encourage the development of thinking and problem-solving skills, nor does it encourage the development of self-learning skills. The student relies on the teacher, and indoctrination does not provide an opportunity for the student to innovate and create, because the student’s role is limited to memorizing, remembering, repeating, and retrieving the information.
Indoctrination is a method based on coercion, and I say that students will not absorb a thousand hours of lectures unless they live them themselves, because education is based on learning and experience.
Brazilian Paulo Freiro believes that oppressed societies, wherever they are in this world, are prisoners of a culture of segregated silence that renders people powerless and passive, and unable to change their reality. He called for what he called dialogue education to build a dialogue generation. Freiro emphasizes the culture of dialogue and called for education to be dialogical and democratic, based on love for others, then humility and belief in the humanity of man, and that humans are good. He also adds that humans can change their circumstances if they adopt mutual dialogue. He believes that the dialogue crisis that we suffer from is an inevitable result of the weakness of the culture of dialogue that prevails in society. He believes that dialogue education begins at home, then school, then society. He believes that those deprived of it within the family will be enemies of dialogue and will eliminate it from their curriculum, and if they are forced to do so sometimes, they will attempt to mine it before it begins. When an individual is raised on dialogue, he will become a dialoguer, and dialogue will be his method in all his situations, relationships, and life. Here, it is necessary to differentiate between obedience, good manners, compliance, and the right to dialogue, express an opinion, and express conviction and position with complete freedom.
The abundance of controls: do, do, don't do, do this, do like Abu so-and-so, restricts the mind. Mustafa Hijazi says in his book Social Backwardness: The concept of coercive authority goes beyond its political meaning to narrower concepts that are closer to the society of the oppressed, such as the family, school, and work, as they are all areas of oppression. He believes that the causes of intellectual stagnation and backwardness are primarily education, because it is based on indoctrination, teacher oppression, and tyranny. Hijazi believes that the individuals who are most absorbed in the group and are fanatical about it are, in most cases, the most incapable of independence and reaching an individual status and a self-worth that stems from their personality. He says that the state of all Third World countries will not change unless the oppressed person changes first and foremost. Ibn Khaldun confirms what Hijazi indicated in his famous introduction, and believes that teacher oppression corrupts the meanings of humanity among them. I say that creating a dialogical human being through education is the solution, and no nation can change its fate and future unless there is a change in the ideas and concepts it adopts. The ultimate goal of education for any society is to increase the individual’s capacity, create an educated human being, and maintain its survival and continuity. In light of the great interest that Palestinians give to education, it has become necessary for curriculum development to focus on the future vision of education. It is no longer acceptable in the twenty-first century for university graduates, especially colleges of education, to teach in the same way they were taught, especially if this method does not suit the student, the time in which the student lives, or the society. It is not permissible for our curricula to continue to rely on outdated mechanisms that science has surpassed, such as indoctrination methods that produce students who resemble deaf machines. We need curricula that focus on dialogue and open minds, not program or domesticate them. Democracy must be rooted in the souls and minds of future generations so that it becomes a behavior that the learner practices in his daily life, not just repeated words and phrases that lack life and are transmitted through preaching, narration, and guidance. Some curricula include many diverse subjects and topics related to human rights, democracy, and values such as honesty, integrity, and belonging. However, educational materials, no matter how diverse, cannot create and create a student with democratic behavior if they lack the classroom environment and classroom situations in which they are practiced.
If the student lives in an atmosphere of respect, acceptance of others, dialogue, and rejection of all forms of force to resolve his differences with his peers, he learns to be honest, understanding, and accepting of them. Therefore, a flexible, enjoyable, attractive, interesting, and dialogical classroom environment must be provided, in which cooperation, participation, and interaction prevail.
Finally, I say: Plant a thought and you will plant an activity. Plant an activity and you will reap a habit. Plant a habit and you will reap a behavior. Plant a behavior and you will reap a destiny. And I say: We, the educators, the dialoguers, the people of vigilance, the people of the compass, create the compass for the next time, and we do not wait for it.

.................
Indoctrination is a method based on coercion, and I say that students will not absorb a thousand hours of lectures unless they live them themselves, because education is based on learning and experience.