Quick. What comes to mind when you hear “Democratic Education?” Pause…
Okay, years ago the first thing coming to mind would be that there was at least a Civics class being taught in the school. Later, I would add that there should be a student government. Then I would have thought that an experiential piece should be included, like a mock presidential election or town hall meeting.
Much later I came to understand that teaching about how our democracy works (even including a “mock” event or a student council with limited decision making) is a pale imitation of the lived experience of democracy. And therein lies the rub.
Seriously, how is it that we expect our kids to spend their formative years in a setting that is basically authoritarian (one definition: favoring complete obedience or subjection to authority as opposed to individual freedom) and expect them magically, at age 18, to become functioning members of a democracy (one definition: a form of government in which all eligible people have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives)?
No matter how kind any particular teacher may be, no matter how benevolent any particular administrator may be, no matter how child centered any particular school may be, the structure of school is authoritarian. Only adults are deemed eligible to make the decisions that affect the lives being lived there.
I’d say that’s in large part due to the consensus reality belief that young people are not capable of making most decisions about their lives, that they are not mature enough (or experienced enough) to make wise decisions now that will affect their options in the future. That belief is coupled to another belief, that young people, if able to choose how to spend their time, will choose the easiest path, goofing off, playing, wasting their time.
I have popped out of that consensus reality and see a different reality now. Some of that reality I had begun to suspect, but pushed it aside. Once I popped out though, I saw evidence everywhere.
A key place to look is at a democratic education school. Summerhill school in England is perhaps the most famous, but there is a school here, the Sudbury Valley School, that has been going strong for almost 50 years and is a model that is being replicated around the world. The hallmarks of these schools are no compulsory curriculum, and youth and staff running the school through the School Meeting with one-person one vote.
For the vast majority of people born into the current mainstream education system, a compulsory curriculum delivered through instruction broken down into parts and pieces delivered in segments over time with very little choice by the learner feels not only natural but indisputable. Not just for how people learn, but pragmatically to handle large numbers of students.
In democratic education the assumptions are very different so what we see is very different. A key assumption is that we desire to grow into effective adults and are innately driven to do so. We want to be productive, creative, responsible, and effective. So in this setting it is assumed that the natural learning we as humans do from the moment of birth continues on indefinitely, powered by our innate curiosity and supported by our environment.
What does that look like? It looks like people living their lives no matter their age, in a school location together where they choose, every moment of the day, how to spend their time, what activity to be engaged in, how to make something happen that they want to do. They play, work, talk, cook, study, eat, make music, climb trees, make friends, take part in School Meeting to run the school, play soccer, and/or any of the things each of us, as unique individuals, might choose to do in living and learning.
In such a setting people learn to be responsible because they are responsible, for their choices and actions. In a traditional setting, young people are told what to do and then told they are irresponsible if they don’t do it, or that they have learned to be responsible by doing it. What is really going on is they have learned to be obedient, or rebellious.
In a democratic education setting people are learning all the time, both content and process. They may decide to acquire some knowledge explicitly in a formal setting with instruction of some type or they may decide to do it on their own informally. They may end up acquiring knowledge experientially through play or conversation or various different experiences.
Learning happens in as many unique ways and on as varied timetables as the learners themselves. One person may learn to read at 5, driven by fascination and interest in the letters and books around them. Another person may not be interested until age 11 when it snaps into place for them why reading is something they now want to master, and so they do. (Without having been forced to work at it every day when they didn’t want to, or having developed a sense of being “bad” at it, learning can happen quickly and easily.)
People have the time and space to immerse themselves deeply or go broad and wide. Without testing, ranking and comparison, they come to evaluate themselves, internally motivated to excel at what they are choosing to do. They are constantly learning process because they are living it. The process of running a school democratically, the process of building internal motivation by constantly choosing, experiencing and then evaluating those choices, the process of working together in a mixed-age environment, are just a few of the ways process happens.
The other primary characteristic of democratic education is the School Meeting where decisions are made about running the school, including budget, hiring and firing and operations. It is also through the School Meeting that a system is developed for the rules of the school and handling how those rules are followed.
Each person, youth and staff, has a vote. Day in and day out people in such settings experience the respect and freedom of being included and the responsibility of making it happen. Experiencing life in this way in these kinds of schools develops people who know how to work in community, run meetings, develop proposals, advocate for their position, negotiate, and respect different ages and viewpoints. But more important, they know they have the power to initiate or make change, that it is up to them, and they are responsible for the outcome of their choices.
The other key place I looked that popped me out of the consensus reality was at the young people themselves. Through the veil of assumptions that they are irresponsible, selfish, lazy, rebellious, and needing to be controlled, they are not clearly seen. Also often assumed is that they will rarely do what they need to do on their own, that they need to be cajoled, coerced, directed, rewarded, punished, threatened, motivated, enticed, and generally told what to do.
I now think that if you keep trying to get people to do what they don’t want to do, you will need to do those things and the people will look lazy or rebellious to you. I know some think doing hard academic work in school is not something that most people will choose to do, so it is our duty to make them do it so they will be happy later, but again, this direction is misplaced and those assumptions are a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I have seen young people choose to do hard academic work if that is their choice! And they will find a way to do it that works for them, if it is up to them to find that way. But, the common wisdom says that if young people have that choice most will choose not to do it all. My answer is that if they choose not to do it at all it is because their motivation has already been killed off by having been forced for years to do what isn’t right for them or in a way that isn’t right, or it is simply not on the chosen path of who they are becoming.
I was also looking at infants and toddlers and preschoolers, before they enter formal schooling. How intense and intent they are on their learning! You simply can’t keep them from it. Crawling, walking, talking, negotiating their environment, relationships, play, they are on the go from the minute they wake up until they go to sleep. But some argue that this is mostly physical development, unfolding biologically and that as they get into formal academic learning, curiosity alone isn’t enough.
Again, I think the veil of assumptions is obscuring the vision. Each of us, no matter how much we have in common as human beings, are unique in our aptitudes, talents, gifts, interests, temperaments, from the minute we are born. Following the flow of our unfolding uniqueness is what fuels our internal motivation, is what can truly unleash our creativity, our path. That toddler energy will continue to take us deep and wide when we allow it to continue to guide our path.
Democratic education looks very different. So different that most people dismiss it out of hand as impossible and misguided. But it has been working, for years, for thousands of young people around the world, and working very well. It has worked for my two kids, who are now young adults. Although they didn’t get to experience the running of a school, they did have a youth community where they were on the volunteer staff to run the camps they attended and could volunteer to put on mini camps throughout the year. They had no compulsory curriculum through their high school years, choosing in all aspects what to do with their time. People comment on how well-spoken they are, how thoughtful, how well they relate to “grown-ups” and people of all ages and how they know the process of and take responsibility for forward movement in their lives.
Not all approaches are right for everyone, this one may not be right for many. But our current system is not right, is actually harmful, for many and yet there is no true public choice other than the instruction, authoritarian, non-democratic model. Charters are an experiment with more local control but most still must hew to the current model, especially with test taking. There were a handful of democratic education public schools across the US, but they have been shut down in the past few years as the testing mania came on the scene.
Democratic education offers a path forward for people to develop into effective adults, usually at a comparable cost to public education, and to me, it also holds the tantalizing promise of a world in which people are most able to be themselves, whatever that might be.