Democratic education respects the human and civil right of young people to have a say in their lives and learning, a right that is affirmed by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, especially Articles 5 and 12; unbelievably the United States is one of two countries in the world not to ratify this document. Beyond this inherent right, though, democratic education leads directly to a more vibrant, creative, and sustainable society, the essential challenge of our times as our planet faces new and devastating threats. Yaacov Hecht, the charismatic director of the Israeli Institute for Democratic Education and a leading educational thinker, explained during his presentation at IDEC 2008 that as each young person finds his or her uniqueness they become positive, powerful contributors to the improvement of society and the creation of a more sustainable world.

But what I really wanted to mention in this post are some of the amazing schools, programs, and people at the IDEC and in the international world of democratic education. In particular, I believe this IDEC highlighted one of the slight but significant changes in the democratic education movement over the past 5+ years; namely, the growing interest especially among young people (teens and twenty-somethings) and others to bring democratic education practices to students and schools in all socio-economic neighborhoods and in many ways, through starting new democratic schools but also through public school programs such as Fertile Grounds, personal learning efforts such as Reschool Yourself, and non-profit advocacy work, such as the growing number of Institutes for Democratic Education and Democratic Education Communities around the world.

These people and efforts inspire me every day and give hope to the serious possibility we have to collaborate internationally and work towards giving all young people a chance to find their uniqueness and work to create a better world.

So, here are just some of these excellent projects and people:

• Windsor House School, North Vancouver, British Columbia
• Helen Hughes and the Society for the Advancement of Non-Coercive Education (SANE)
• Adam Fletcher, Free Child, Sound Out, Common Action
• Melia Dicker, Reschool Yourself
• John Harris Loflin’s paper, “A History of Democratic Education in American Public Schools“
• The European Democratic Education Community
• The Village Free School folks from Portland, Oregon
• Jonah Canner, Fertile Grounds Project, New York City
• Yael Biber Aviad, Mendel Leadership Institute - Mandel School for Educational Leadership fellow, Israel
• Laura Stine, Northwest Institute for Democratic Education, Oregon
• The Odyssey Program at Thomas Haney Secondary School in British Columbia
• Tae Wook Ha and the Korean alternative schools (Korea will host IDEC 2009!)
• Femka and Hope Flowers School in Bethlehem

…and so many more.

So, with all these projects and people thinking along similar lines, now is truly the time to act and get to work. Let’s make connections, collaborate, and advance democratic education around the world!

http://www.nwrel.org/nwedu/13-03/

You can view each article online, download a PDF version of the issue, or order a hard copy from the organization. As Adam said in his blog, “I would recommend this entire issue to anyone interested in the practical, application avenues available to promote meaningful student involvement in schools today.” Hear, hear!

At a campaign stop in Fargo, North Dakota on July 3, Obama responded to a question from a young audience member regarding education, and proceeded to outline his views and plan. Here are some highlights from Obama’s response, which you can watch and listen to in full on YouTube:

• We are in an international education competition: “The most important thing to make sure we are competitive in the 21st Century is our schools, how well we are educating our children….Schools in other countries work harder.”
• Our schools are still designed for the agricultural age, so we should have longer school schedules.
• NCLB and testing: “You don’t measure the quality of a school only with a single high-stakes standardized test.” We are pushing out art, music, and civics and teaching to the test.
• BUT: We have to raise standards in our schools.
• Other recommendations: pay our teachers more, more professional development for teachers, invest in early childhood education, college tuition credit to young people who engage in community service

Unfortunately, most of his recommendations will only continue and expand the current standardized and hierarchical approach that alienates young people and burns out teachers. Even his critique of a reliance on high-stakes testing went nowhere new as he reiterated the line about “higher standards” without describing what an alternative conception of such standards would be apart from tests.

Now here are the highlights from Bill Clinton’s comments on education during an interview with Jane Wales at the Aspen Ideas Festival in Colorado on July 5 [you can listen to the full interview as posted by Minnesota Public Radio, the education question begins just before 38 minutes in]:

• We are in an international education competition: “American kids actually do pretty well compared to our counterparts at the 4th grade level…the gap shows up at the 8th grade level and then it’s a chasm at high school.” We need to work as hard as schools in other countries and have a longer school schedule.
• “We still are basically in an agricultural age educational framework.”
• NCLB and testing: Our resources are going to the tests, we are teaching to the test, and cutting out art, music, history, etc.
• BUT: We need “a national commitment to … principals and superintendents that can actually be held accountable for results.” We need national standards with local control within that. We should use the NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) as an evaluative assessment 3 times in an educational career.
• Other recommendations: pay our teachers more, and have better professional development. Find the 20 schools that are “internationally competitive,” see what they are doing and pay for it everywhere else.

Take a listen to both of those excerpts and hear how similar these two are on education: support for more of the same conventional educational thought, a soft critique of high-stakes tests combined with standard remarks about the need for more standards, and recommendations that either support the current system or will do little to make positive change (paying teachers more and providing more and better professional development for teachers being one exception).

Bill’s suggestion of the NAEP given just 3 times in an educational career was the only hint at a suggestion to reduce testing of young people, though the NAEP is riddled with many of the same problems inherent in most standardized academic tests, as Susan Ohanian, FairTest.org, and Gerald Bracey make clear. (It should also be noted that President Clinton did more for national standardized tests than perhaps anyone in the 1990s, here’s just one of many speeches of his on educational standards).

Obama, Bill Clinton and other political leaders emphasize the importance of education for our young people and the country, yet they speak largely from an economic framework and ignore the humanistic framework of education for human growth and happiness, and they strengthen the conventional system of heirarchy and standardization in education even though that goes against our values of freedom and the right to participate in decisions that affect oneself. Anyone know of political leaders who are framing education in terms of these values and human rights? They seem unfortunately few and very far between.

“Technology and the Internet are changing politics — now more than ever. Over the last five years, Personal Democracy Forum (PdF) has become the seminal gathering place for the growing community of people who understand the effects underway, and want to make sure they stay on top of what’s coming next.”

In addition to focusing on the internet’s growing role in politics and elections, the conference will delve into the effect on civic action and advocacy movements. This is why I am here, looking to learn more about the decentralized, equalizing tools of the internet (such as wikipedia, youtube, blogs, social networking, etc.), and how they are impacting and will grow to impact advocacy efforts - most especially for use in advocating for education based on our human rights and our democratic values.

This can be especially powerful because young people themselves are the leaders in our new internet age, and because young people can and ought to be important leaders in the fight for a more democratic education system and practice.

Education based on the same values as the decentralized and democratic nature of the internet mean s greater voice for young people to direct their own learning, democratic decision-making processes in schools, and an ending to hierarchical curricular and assessment policies, and that’s just a start.

More soon…

Here’s close to a direct quote from Mr. Klein on Up Close with Diana Williams on Sunday, June 8, 2008, in response to Ms. Williams’ question about whether the teacher and student award program is working:

“There’s a great story, where a student says excitedly, ‘When’s the next test?!’ That’s not something you hear a whole lot.”

Hmm. So, first create an alienating and damaging situation for young people and teachers by mandating tests that narrow the curriculum, disengage students and teachers from learning, and create stress and unnecessary competition. Then add financial rewards to those who score high on the tests, and we should be surprised and confident in our educational approach and policies because suddenly instead of hating the tests young people wonder when they’ll have another chance to earn some extra money?

Am I missing something??

Mr. Klein completely misunderstands young people, parents, and the general public if he believes that the ability to develop external motivation in response to a potential reward (better known as behavioral training) is really the success sign we are looking for in our schools.

Instead, if you ask most folks what skills they believe young people ought to develop for success in their future lives, the most common answers will include creativity, critical thinking, self-confidence, empathy, responsibility, determination, self-awareness, openness, and internal or self-motivation. Those are the qualities and skills that will enable young people to achieve their personal goals, strengthen our communities, and develop a more just and sustainable world.

It’s time to stop thinking of education as behavioral training and standardization and realize that we are talking about the lives and learning of young human beings, each of whom is unique and deserves a whole lot more respect and support than that being shown through the policies of Klein and Bloomberg.

Colorado’s law established one of the largest councils, with 40 young people age 14-19, 35 of whom are nominated by Senators from each of the 25 Senate districts in the state, with an additional 5 appointed by the Speaker of the House. Very importantly, once the council is up and running, the council itself must approve new youth council members, giving young people a real voice. This is certainly better than continuing a legislator or other adult-directed appointment approach, though a more empowering process would include local youth advisory councils and youth gatherings to choose their own representatives.

We can also hope that Colorado will implement this council in a way that lets it be directed by the young people, who ought to be able to set their own agenda, create their recommendations, and deliver them directly to state legislators. One additional improvement would be to allow the council to draft its own legislation and search for legislative sponsors, as the Maine Youth Advisory Council is empowered to do.

Yet even as is, the Colorado council is an important boost to youth empowerment in the state, and hopefully will continue laying the groundwork for greater recognition of the need to honor and hear the voices of young people - in schools, communities, and legislatures, at the local, state, federal, and international levels.

Youth deserve a meaningful and an equal voice, and I give a hearty congratulations to the legislature and governor of the state of Colorado.

Unfortunately, and not surprisingly, the school has responded by threatening to fire the social studies teacher, Douglas Avella, who the authorities claim initiated the boycott. Because, after all, it is easier to fire a teacher than to recognize that the young people have a point (and to admit that the young people indeed have a clear and compelling argument that ought to be listened to). As Johnny Cruz, an 8th grade student at the school, said, “They don’t think we have brains of our own, like we’re robots. We students wanted to make this statement. The school is oppressing us too much with all these tests.”

Is there any way we, the public, can help the students stand up for their rights, and help Douglas Avella avoid a disgraceful attempt by his school to fire him and ignore the young people’s voices?

Here’s a link to the article, by Juan Gonzalez in the New York Daily News.

Solution (according to a few “top-notch” schools in the New York City and San Francisco area): Require lunch too and extend the school day to fit that in, according to an article in the NY Times.

Great idea, right?

But wait, let’s think about this for a moment. There seems to be a caring motivation behind these lunch-mandating policies. Superintendent David Fleishman of Chappaqua New York, whose district high school has extended classes to add a free period for lunch, is quoted in the article saying, “students will have more time to eat in a less stressful way.”

Ok. But if we really care about reducing young peoples’ stress and calming the high school to college rat race that pressures students to seek ways to fit more and more in, then we need to address that issue and recognize it as the problem. Adding in a required period for lunch merely addresses a symptom of the large problem, and will create more frustration among students who can see through the disengenuous educational culture that mandates lunch so students can relax yet meanwhile does nothing to slow down the relentless pressure to do the most and take the “toughest” courses.

Some brave schools choose not to offer APs, believing young people can grow and learn without the extra pressure, stress, and competition that accompany those classes (as well as the rigid curriculum of the courses), knowing that young people can gain the important skills they need in other ways. One resource, ExcellenceWithoutAP, lists some of these schools, including several “top-tier” schools not mentioned in the recent NYTimes article. Instead of APs, many schools practice project-based learning, independent studies, and other forms of self-directed learning that give young people an opportunity to have direction over their own education, pursue areas of interest and meaning, and work with othes on topics that are relevant to themselves and the world around them. (See, for example, Big Picture schools, EdVisions schools, the Jefferson County Open School, the Performance Standards Consortium, and Democratic Schools worldwide).

These approaches build not only the critical thinking and intellectual acumen that APs purport to strengthen, but also enable the development of self-determination, cooperation, self-awareness, and creativity - skills that are often overlooked yet in the education establishment, yet are highly valuable to leading a fulfilling life and are becoming more and more important in this global and technological society.

School districts and policy-makers who want to reduce the stress on young people and release their full potential to grow and flourish ought to change the factors contributing to the stress, not simply tweak a symptom of the problem. Young people are smarter than quick fixes. They want to learn about the world, become their own individual, and succeed. But so long as success is equated with taking the most APs (ie Newsweek’s criteria for selecting the “top” schools) and getting into the best colleges, we will continue to see this stress and the damage it causes to young people, families, and teachers.

However, if we re-frame success as something deeper and more personal, as becoming a self-aware, globally-aware, confident, intelligent human being who knows who they are and what they want to do, then we might begin encouraging more self-directed learning and project-based opportunities. We would then see young people engaging in their own pursuits and gaining knowledge about the world and themselves with determination and excitement - and without the need to require young people to take a break and eat lunch.

In a recent op-ed in the New York Times, Nicholas Kristof highlights numerous powerful stories of young people surmounting the barriers and, as the title of Kristof’s op-ed suggests, “Saving the World in Study Hall”: raising money to build a school in Cambodia, speaking around the world about the dangers of global warming, and fundraising to buy mosquito nets that protect families in Africa against malaria, among other initiatives.

I want to specifically mention one section in the op-ed in which Kristof describes some ideas on how to advance more of this type of youth engagement in society:

Senator Chris Dodd has pushed for a requirement of 100 hours of public service in high school. There’s a risk that a mandate undermines the virtue, but on balance I’m in favor. Colleges should also emulate Princeton and encourage young people to take a “gap year” of public service abroad (I list a few possibilities for a gap year and for student activism on my blog, nytimes.com/ontheground).

Kristof mentions what so many people seem to forget - the dangers of mandates. I support the idea of considering a gap year (I wish I had chosen and figured out a way to take a year off before college so that I could have opened my eyes up earlier to different cultures and societies), and getting involved in the community and service projects is a great thing. But even more than the virtue aspect of it, service mandates reduce the opportunity for young people to actively choose to be part of the world around them and limit the effectiveness of such projects on the young people themselves. Think of other educational mandates - math, science, English, etc., and how the external motivation through requirements often creates an adversarial relationship (especially in teens!) that greatly reduces the learning, the enjoyment, and the creativity of the activity, as well as the likelihood that a person will want to pursue it in the future. (See Self-Determination Theory for an abundance of research and resources on motivation and autonomy-support). Contrast that with the excitement and flow state we reach (not to mention the intense learning that goes on) when we personally decide to be involved with something meaningful, challenging, and important to us.

Young people want to learn about the world, want to gain the skills to be a productive part of society, and (often most especially) want to help create a more equitable and just society. Instead of requiring service projects or global engagement, or indeed requiring specific academic courses and units of study, we can acknowledge the natural curiosity and inner drive of young people and have that guide our educational approach. We can bring meaningful student involvement and the principles of democratic education to our schools in all aspects, and give young people not only the opportunity to engage with and save the world, but also to engage with and help direct their own learning process and participate in the planning and decision-making processes of their school.

That is democratic education. And it can indeed save the world.

www.democraticeducation.com

If you have any resources to add or suggestions on the site, please write me at dana.bennis@yahoo.com.