Chapter 6: The Foxfire Approach to Student and Community Interaction

Though students reside in their own communities, and some may even have a sense of attachment to that community, most will make their way through and out of their respective communities with little grasp of what can be learned there or what they could contribute. In the process of growing up in a community, students absorb their communities’ prevailing attitudes and habits of mind in an unreflective and uncritical process that tends to impair the development of the skills and dispositions essential for effective citizenship. Evidence of that impairment abounds in the poor performance of U.S. citizens on national and international tests of history and geography, including the kind of provincial ignorance of cultures and geopolitics that enables U.S. political leaders to embark on ill-advised ventures abroad.