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Post #2 My wrong ideas about how democratic practices work in the classroom

  I initially thought democracy in education had to be a fully participatory form of democracy; one person, one vote. I didn't consider that other forms of democracy exist and have strengths and weaknesses in different contexts. Loosely, the three forms are Representative, Participatory, and Radical. Representative is what the US has, participatory is a one person one vote form, and radical criticizes democracy and notes who benefits and whose voice is not heard. Each has value, but since the 1960s, participatory democracy has influenced our collective thinking about the kind of democracy we want in this country, especially for educators interested in democratic forms of education. When we think of democratic education as participatory, we believe students have equal power with teachers and administrators (an idea that terrifies some and appeals to others). The consequence of this is that I missed noting the ways democracy is unevenly distributed. Often, the focus of unequal distri...
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Post #1 Education Through Democracy

My interest in engaging students in democratic practices is situated at the classroom level. This is to distinguish it from efforts at Civic Education, a subject within classrooms, and from Democratic Schooling, schools that are entirely run by students (cf. Sudbury Model Schools in the U.S and Summerhill School in the UK). While much has been written about engaging students in debates about community and societal issues, engaging in activism outside of the classroom, and becoming knowledgeable about how our government works and functions within it as informed citizens, I call this education FOR democracy. Democratic schools, in which students make administrative decisions and choose what and when to learn, I'll call this education BY democracy. As I will discuss later, my research suggests specific issues emerge about how students experience democratic choices in these settings. But I want to offer a third alternative. My aspirations are less about teaching students to solve so...
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