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Award-Winning Author Talks About Public Schools And Democracy During OU Visit
By: WOUB Staff Writer
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Educator and author Deborah Meier said to improve the education system, society should think about the purpose of education.
“We should think about what it is we really want children to come out with and make sure that's what the school is attending to,” she said.
Meier spoke at Ohio University Monday about the importance of public schools in a democracy. She was recently named Samuel I. Hicks Executive-in-Residence at OU's Patton College of Education and will be visiting Federal Hocking schools this week.
The award-winning author had written several books on education. In 1987, she was the first in her field to receive a MacArthur “Genius” Grant.
Meier said the public education system is “better than it probably ever was.”
Still, she sees potenbtial for improvement through measures like spending more money on education and improving the relationship between parents and teachers. She also favors smaller schools.
“If you want schools to be a place where people work out problems, then it helps to have a school small enough for the faculty to sit around a table,” Meier said.
She said society should think about how to educate children on democracy and politics.
“Most kids are growing up in a situation where they can’t even physically see the governance,” Meier said.
She said governance is becoming a “black box” for many because they don’t have the opportunity to learn about it.
“It’s going to take a lot of citizens catching on to the idea that this isn’t really good for our kids," said Meier.