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Love. It’s not a word you hear very often in professional settings. In discussions of education, “accountability” and “achievement” are far more common. It’s as if people are afraid to lose credibility by saying the word “love,” even if it’s what they know, deep down, that children need.

Justo Mendez and Ana Yris Guzman, the founders of Nuestra Escuela (“Our School”) in Puerto Rico, don’t pay this social convention any mind. They will tell you within the first five minutes of meeting you that Nuestra Escuela, the “Center of Sustainable Support for Young People and Their Families,” is based on love. They know that no matter how many resources they offer to young people, no matter how many opportunities, nothing is going to stick if the youth don’t have a sense of being authentically cared for and respected.

This spring, Justo and Ana Yris got to know the IDEA team at the IDEC 2010 in Israel, and they invited us to visit the Nuestra Escuela community in May. Dana Bennis, Jonah Canner, and Melia Dicker happily accepted and spent roughly a week visiting two of the five school sites and meeting students, parents, and community partners. We saw firsthand that not only is the organization changing the lives of the approximately 300 students and 300 alumni, but it’s also shifting the focus of the Puerto Rican leadership toward education.

The purpose of IDEA’s trip was for IDEA to further build a relationship with Nuestra Escuela, and for city and education administrators in Puerto Rico to learn more from us about the possibility of hosting the IDEC in a couple of years. 

Mission, Vision, and Overarching Goal of Nuestra Escuela

Students who enroll in Nuestra Escuela are typically between ages 13 and 22 (though some are older adults) and have had major academic or life challenges. Many have been expelled from previous schools. Beginning with an intensive Esencia Vital (“Vital Essence”) retreat, students are required to spend time processing their own emotional issues and learning how to heal. The school employs full-time psychologists and social workers, some of whom are alumni, who offer ongoing counseling to students and their families.  Each student also chooses an adult mentor from among the staff who serves as their main point of contact and support. 

“We deal with dropout kids who have been hurt by life,” Justo says of Nuestra Escuela, which celebrates its tenth anniversary this August. “We start the healing process.” 

The school’s stated mission, vision, and goal are as follows:

Mission

Our school, founded in love, where youth and adults, like Quixote, make their dreams and goals a reality by creating quality of life for their families. So help us God!

Vision

A great family, who believe in themselves and others, develop a sense of belonging, based on love, peace and service to achieve their goals with joy in life and win.

Goal

Ensure that 75% of students in our school and their families increase their capacities to obtain and retain employment or to generate employment opportunities enabling them to achieve social and economic self-sufficiency and a better quality of life.

“We don’t enroll students,” says Justo. “We enroll families.” It’s essential, he says, that families participate in the transformation of the student, and that they’re also willing to transform themselves. Family is so important to the school culture that any family member of any previous student is automatically admitted to the school, jumping ahead of the waiting list of over 2,000 willing applicants. Nuestra Escuela is a private non profit community based school, funded by the Alliance for Alternative Education, the Department of Education, foundations, and the private sector. Students do not pay a dime.

At its five sites located throughout Puerto Rico, Nuestra Escuela offers regular core academics like history, math, and writing, and many extracurriculars as well. The Alternative Communication and Popular Education Workshop, for example, encourages creative development through the arts and sports. Youth Serves trains young entrepreneurs in business skills and offers them employment in school services (such as transportation and maintenance).

Students are respected as full members of the Nuestra Escuela community who help to create many school policies.  All students can be part of the school’s National Student Council, provided that they meet certain expectations regarding attendance, grades, and attitude towards the school.  The National Student Council is the main vehicle through which staff work with students to improve the school and make important decisions.

At the Caguas site, the IDEA team met several parents and students who said that Nuestra Escuela had changed their lives. One woman, for example, had made a pact with her teenage son to enroll simultaneously and both get their diplomas, which they did. Another student had enrolled, ended up in prison for a couple of years, but found his spot at Nuestra Escuela waiting for him after he had served his time. He is now a well-respected artist in the school.
 
Community Partnerships

During our stay, the Nuestra Escuela staff took the IDEA team to meet many of their community partners, all of whom were supporters of both Nuestra Escuela and democratic education as a whole:

     
• University of the Sacred Heart, which is considering co-hosting a future IDEC with Nuestra Escuela
     
• Community Foundation of Puerto Rico
     
• Office of the Governor of Puerto Rico, Education Department
     
• Banco Popular, the only Puerto Rican bank and the largest company in Puerto Rico
     
• The City of Caguas, which is designating itself an Education City and working closely with Nuestra Escuela

Nuestra Escuela had impressively rallied these community partners around their vision for education for empowerment and social justice. They had built close personal relationships with the staff at these institutions and pride themselves on putting aside any political differences in service of improving education.

Pausa Evaluativa

The IDEA team was privileged to join Nuestra Escuela’s “Pausa Evaluativa” (an in-service day of evaluation) in the eastern town of Fajardo. Representatives from all five sites convened at the gorgeous Fajardo Inn, including around 60 staff and over 20 student members of the National Student Council. Nuestra Escuela was kind enough to have arranged live translation for their American guests.

After going through the 2010-2012 strategic plan, various other presentations about the past semester, and breakout groups on various topics, the IDEA team and Lourdes Aponte, a representative of the City of Caguas, spoke on a panel about our support of democratic education.

Finally, the meeting concluded with the presentation of a resolution that the Nuestra Escuela community had been developing together for some time, discussing it thoroughly and making changes to it. The Pausa Evaluativa was the time that Justo would present the final draft.

Justo read the resolution aloud in Spanish, which laid out a case for democratic education in a page and a half, including its focus on human development and equitable access to education. The document concluded, “Therefore: It is proposed to this Assembly to acknowledge Nuestra Escuela as a democratic school.”

“Those in favor, please raise your hands,” Justo said. Hands around the room flew up.

“Opposed?” Not a movement.

“The resolution passes unanimously,” said Justo, and staff and students burst into applause.

IDEA is a national effort to unite education with our nation’s democratic values.  We believe that young people ought to be active co-creators of their own learning and valued participants in a vibrant learning community.  This is democratic education in action, which as you know is sharply different from the reality experienced by most young people and educators throughout the country. 

Yet we know there are countless teachers, young people, parents, education leaders, youth workers, policy-makers and others who believe in the power of democratic education to transform the lives of young people and help build a more vibrant, just, and sustainable society. 

We have created IDEA to build off the insight and energy of this diverse national community, creating ways for YOU to join the conversation, contribute and gain valuable skills and resources, and work together with others around the country to create real changes in our schools and communities. 

Check out our current and upcoming projects. Visit our Get Involved page to find out ways to connect with us and the democratic education community.

Thanks, and welcome to IDEA.  We’re excited to work with you to build an organization that can drive educational change in this country. 

Dana Bennis, Co-Founder and Research and Policy Director

Alumni and students talk about their powerful experiences at Jefferson County Open School, founded in 1970.

For over thirty-five years, Jefferson County Open School (JCOS) has provided a viable, vibrant, and life changing alternative to conventional schooling.  JCOS features a Pre-Kindergarten through 12th grade environment with inter-age groupings throughout the school.  At all levels students work closely with their advisor in the development of their personal curriculum.  Both individually and in groups, advising is about developing strong, caring relationships between adults and students, and between students and their peers.  JCOS is committed to preserving educational choices for all students and parents. In the face of increasing standardization, its emphasis on personal, social, and intellectual development helps to prepare students for an ever changing world.

The United States of America is founded on democracy and the democratic values of meaningful participation, personal initiative, and equality and justice for all.  

Democratic education infuses the learning process with these fundamental values of our society.  Democratic education sees young people not as passive recipients of knowledge, but rather as active co-creators of their own learning. They are not the products of an education system, but rather valued participants in a vibrant learning community.

Democratic education begins with the premise that everyone is unique, so each of us learns in a different way.  By supporting the individual development of each young person within a caring community, democratic education helps young people learn about themselves, engage with the world around them, and become positive and contributing members of society. 

Uniting democratic values with the educational process is not a new idea. Over the last 120 years, leading thinkers from John Dewey to Marian Wright Edelman and Margaret Mead to Paulo Freire have articulated the basic hypothesis that:

 
 
What Does Democratic Education Look Like? 
Guided by this vision, democratic education can take countless forms, each shaped by the adults and young people in a community or educational setting.  Here are a few ways in which democratic education is practiced by teachers, young people, schools, programs, and communities (follow the links for specific examples): 
 

• Teachers creatively engaging students. They may work within more conventional school settings, but still provide students with a chance to have choice in their learning. These teachers go beyond the conventional curriculum to build a more relevant and engaging experience that connects to the lives of young people.


• Schools implementing democratic education on a day-to-day basis. They may employ practices like self-directing learning, shared decision-making, individualized project-based work, and student-chosen internships in the community.  This includes schools that use the label “democratic schools” and others  that practice these values and use other terminology.


• Meaningful youth voice forums providing students with the opportunity to be part of educational planning and decision-making such as through student councils and student-teacher-administrator committees.


• Young people leading reform efforts in their schools and communities.


• Cities and school districts undertaking broad educational reform efforts to personalize learning, break out of the conventional structures and curriculum, and build an “education city”.


• Non-profit and after-school programs empowering young people to explore their personal interests and connect to the outside community.


• College and university programs engaging young adults in the development of their own learning plans and in community decision-making. Also, teacher education programs focusing on preparing teachers for democratic and progressive education.


• Parents and youth learning out of school through empowering learning centers and youth centers.


• Policy groups such as youth advisory councils that are involving young people in policy discussions with legislators, governors, and mayors.

 

What’s the common denominator in all these examples?
The commitment to go outside the box of standardized one-size-fits-all education, so that young people are enthusiastic, active learners.

Democratic education is both a means and an end in itself. In the long-term, it helps develop well-informed citizens who work toward creating a democratic, vibrant, and just society. In the immediate term, it nurtures self-determined and caring individuals who enjoy learning for the sake of it.

Learning in an engaging and participatory environment is not just for the privileged few. Because equality and justice are at its core, democratic education must be available to all young people and their families. In addition, the educational process itself ought to instill young people with the skills and critical thinking they need to build a more equitable and socially just society. 

Why Democratic Education?
While it sounds like common sense for a democratic society to base its educational approach on democratic values, a great deal of research lends further support to democratic education. 

Studies show that educational environments engaging young people as active participants in their own learning are linked with higher student attendance and student achievement, greater creativity and conceptual learning, and increased intrinsic motivation and determination in learning.  Moreover, recent brain and cognitive research points to the value of the democratic education learning environment, including key elements such as collaborative projects, age mixing, learning through active experiences, and the importance of a caring community.*

Yet democratic education is important not only for the benefit to the young people who experience such a learning environment.  Democratic education also carries the potential for a broader societal impact, as the self-determined and caring individuals who experience democratic education will be the leaders in building a more democratic, vibrant, and just society.

*See, for example:
- Caine, R. N. et al (2008). 12 Brain/Mind learning principles in action: Developing executive functions of the human brain. California: Corwin Press.
- Gray, P. & Feldman, J. (2004). Playing in the Zone of Proximal Development: Qualities of self-directed age mixing between adolescents and young children at a democratic school. American Journal of Education, 108-145.
- Self-Determination Theory (http://www.psych.rochester.edu/SDT), for example, Ryan, R. M. & Deci, E. L. (2000); Intrinsic and extrinsic motivations: Classic definitions and new directions. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 25: 54-67. 
- Kohn, A. (1993). Choices for children: Why and how to let students decide. Phi Delta Kappan. (see text for specific references to research studies).