Norma Rebollar Sanchez on Aristotle, Democracy, and Education

Today I had to read two readings by the authors Aristotle and James Baldwin. These two texts are based on education, but this time I will only rely on the first text; I find it interesting since it makes me connect with some situations today. During the first chapter of first reading, "Democracy and Education" by Aristotle, he mentions that education in city-states should be abundant for young people, because constitutions are affected by lack of education.

Aristotle also declares that education is currently private and completely wrong, because he considers that city-states have the same purpose. He believes that education must be public and not private, since public education is not the same as private, because when a doubt arises on the public side, the opinions of others can be heard; on the other hand, the private side is only one opinion and will not take into account the opinions of others. Aristotle gives another example of why education should not be private, which is that the human being should not be considered alone but rather should be part of society since he is an essential part of it, otherwise it would be more difficult for him to continue with his life on his own. And how does this happen? Well, clearly if education is private and everyone fends for themselves in learning, things will be different because students would only listen to their own opinions and would not have the slightest interest in asking for other opinions. I agree with all this, because even if a person is independent, he will always need something from someone; it's not like he can always do everything on his own. That's why I also consider that education should be public, since with classmates around, the student can hear different arguments that may even make him change his mind. On the other hand, a student alone will believe that what he thinks is right and that others are wrong, when he may be wrong and does not notice it because he studied alone and did not have the opportunity to listen to someone else's opinion.

During the next chapter, Aristotle thinks that not all students should be taught the same thing since not all students may have the same ability to understand, and some students may have better skills for different things. The extra subjects, so to speak, are reading, writing, gymnastics, writing and drawing, these are indispensable so that there can be other different options for the interest of the students. Aristotle explains how these subjects contribute and help students. According to the text, “ Reading, writing, and drawing are taught because they are useful for life and have many applications … Nowadays, most people take part in music for the sake of pleasure” (Aristotle 229). Aristotle clearly describes that reading, writing and drawing are indispensable for life. Below I will explain the evidence that is needed in the three points. Well, he basically says that gymnastics teaches because it contributes to courage. Drawing, writing, reading and music are important, because they all somehow provide teaching in their own way, helping students' skills to develop. And apparently this is true, since nowadays we can easily realize that all people are different. Everyone has different careers, just like at school there are extra classes or clubs of different subjects, whether robotics, art, or mechanics, and students are interested in different things. For example, when I was in my country, in my school there were these clubs that taught blacksmithing, carpentry, art, and if I remember correctly, sewing. These clubs at the beginning were not chosen by the same students or the teachers, but rather the secretary of public education chose the students and created the lists. With this, several students didn't pass the classes and others did and with high grades. Why? Simple: because not everyone was good at the same thing, and when the directors noticed that the students in the other classes were great and that they only had problems with the clubs, they decided to make a change and gave students the right to choose their own clubs. With this a great change was noticed, since the grades of the others went up. Basically what I want to prove with my personal example is that not all of us are good at everything, that we all have skills to excel in other things. Ending with this text seemed important to me because it relays how it is that we are all special, and how the ability to do different things is the truly intelligent way to progress, just as education must be public to be able to listen to everyone and, above all, the most important thing to be heard.