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Democratic
Education Around the World
by David Gribble
Founder, Sands School, England
Author, Real Education, Lifelines,
and Worlds Apart
Democratic education is not so much a system as
a culture in which mutual respect, trust, and
affection among adults and young people are
taken for granted. Different democratic schools
around the world manifest this culture in
different ways.
At Sumavanam, for instance, a small school in a
poor village in rural India, the timetable and
teaching are conventional, but the children are
trusted to a unique extent. Not only do some of
them choose to spend nights in the school,
sleeping, unsupervised, on the concrete floors
of the classroom, but the married couple who run
the school once left it in the hands of the
older boys for five weeks, while they visited
England. Everything ran smoothly.
Another kind of trust is shown in the schools
modelled on Sudbury Valley School, in the USA.
At Sudbury there is no timetable so students of
all ages choose what to do every day. They are
trusted to use their time well without adult
intervention, which is seen as interference.
Sudbury schools, however, do have long lists of
laws and a judicial system which decides on
punishments for those who break them, whereas
David Wills, who ran the Barns Hostel in
Scotland for unbilletable during World War Two,
was certain that punishment was
counter-productive. The hostel ran successfully
without it.
Tokyo Shure, in Japan, was founded for school
refusers, so those who are enrolled there do not
have to attend. The school is simply open all
day. There is a timetable of activities
requested by the students, and they come to
school as and when they want to.
The street children who attend non-formal
sessions with the street educators provided by
the Butterflies organisation in Delhi, India,
are not merely free from any obligation to go to
school, they face a life-threatening obstacle –
they have to give up valuable earning time in
order to study. This may result in beatings from
their parents, if they still live with them, or
in hunger if they have no homes. They learn to
read and write and calculate because they so
badly need the ability to do so. For them the
Butterflies street educators are like elder
brothers and sisters. There is no need for any
rules or punishments.
So much for differences of method. There are
also many concrete differences. Butterflies
manages without school buildings, and over a
thousand children learn on the streets, but most
democratic schools are small, with fewer than
100 pupils. Exceptions are the Democratic School
of Hadera, in Israel, with over 300, and the
School for Self-Determination in Moscow with
1300. Most democratic schools are independent,
so either parents have to pay fees or the
schools depend on charitable grants, as do
Butterflies in India and Moo Baan Dek in
Thailand. However, there are some democratic
schools supported by enlightened governments.
These include the two schools mentioned at the
beginning of this paragraph, as well as a small
number of schools in other countries – Windsor
House in Canada, for instance, or in the 1970s
Countesthorpe College in the UK, another
democratic school with over a thousand pupils.
Democratic schools have many different
inspirations. Moo Baan Dek, in Thailand, a
village of children who have been orphaned,
abandoned or abused, is based on a blend of
Buddhism and Summerhill. The Barbara Taylor
School in New York was a Vygotsky school, with
its own special interpretation of the idea of
the zone of proximal development. Mirambika, in
Delhi, developed from the teachings of Sri
Aurobindo and the Mother. Room 13, the art
studio in a primary school in Scotland, was
created by the children who ran it. Many schools
have grown around one particular teacher or
group of teachers, who have independently
discovered the value of mutual trust and
respect.
It is of course not only the education that
differs. I was also struck by the depth of the
differences in cultural expectations. It is not
just a matter of superficial things, like eating
with your hand in India and with chopsticks in
Japan. When I visited the Doctor Pedro Albizu
Campos Puerto Rican High School in Chicago, USA
in 1999, the staff stood on the sidewalk when
the students left the school because of the
threat of gang violence, whereas in Leipzig,
Germany in 2006, children of seven or eight
travel on their own across town to the Freie
Schule by public transport. At Sumavanam in
India some parents objected to their children
drinking from the same well as children of a
lower caste, overlooking the fact that the worst
educational problem, at certain times of year,
was starvation. Girls were taken away from the
school when they were twelve to get married.
There are national cultures built on the
principle of hierarchy, and others bent on
destroying it. In Japan intuitive understanding
is valued above clarity of expression, whereas
in the West it is the reverse. In some countries
nationalism is seen as a virtue and in others it
is seen as a danger. Bribery may be a normal
part of business practice, or a guilty secret.
Children may be seen as naturally good, or
imbued with original sin.
In a discussion of these differences with Usha
from Sumavanam I found myself remarking that I
felt I had more in common with the people I met
within the school than with many people in my
own country. She responded that she had found it
easier to talk to me than to many Indians.
Almost all democratic schools started because
the founders, of whatever age or nationality,
were dissatisfied with what was generally
accepted as the proper way to educate children
in their countries. This means that they were
protesting against not merely authoritarian
methods of teaching, but also the authority of
the dominant culture.
That is why Usha and I felt we had so much in
common. We were both rebelling against our own
backgrounds. There is much to be ashamed of in
the aggressive and materialistic culture of the
West, and there is much to be ashamed of in the
culture of India, just as there is much to be
ashamed of in any unthinking acceptance of
tradition. But there is little to be ashamed of
in the respect, trust and affection inherent in
the culture of democratic education. It is
gaining a foothold in countries all around the
world and everywhere it offers hope for a better
future.
IDECs (International Democratic Education
Conferences) offer an opportunity for
like-minded people to discuss differences openly
and tolerantly. Many people are astonished and
delighted when they attend one for the first
time. All at once they discover that they are
not isolated eccentrics, but, in spite of
superficial differences, part of a growing
world-wide movement.
What is the IDEC?
IDEC stands for International Democratic
Education Conference. It is not the name of an
organization or a group. What happens is that at
each year’s conference a school volunteers to
run the conference for the next year. (In
practice there has sometimes been delay in
finding a volunteer, and for 2000 there had to
be a choice made between several schools.) At
intervals calls have been made for an official
structure of some kind - another one came at
Summerhill in 1999 - but in practice the
autonomy of individual schools in arranging
their own conferences has made for exciting
variety.
Once representatives of a school have agreed to
run a conference, everything is in their hands -
dates, participants, cost, accommodation and
style of conference. The length of the
conferences has varied between two days for the
first one to a fortnight in 1997. Students from
both the host school and visiting schools have
nearly always played a large part; the
conference at Sands in 1997 and the Tokyo
conference in 2000 were in fact run almost
entirely by students. The longer conferences
have included days of sight-seeing and varied
social and cultural events. Sometimes there has
been a full program of prepared talks and
workshops, and sometimes the program has been
entirely decided by the participants after they
arrived; sometimes there has been a bit of both.
Some conferences have been funded entirely by
the host schools or by outside agencies, but
some schools have had to charge a fee. All
decisions about such matters are taken by the
host school.
The first conference was in 1993, in Israel, at
the Democratic School of Hadera. A few teachers
and students from democratic schools found
themselves at a large conference in Jerusalem,
called “Education for Democracy in a
Multi-cultural Society.” The participants were
mostly philosophers, professors and politicians,
so the teachers and students hardly had any
opportunity to contribute. A small group was
invited to Hadera for two days after the big
conference, and the discussions were so
stimulating that it was agreed to meet annually.
For the first four years it was known as the
Hadera Conference, and David Gribble sent out a
newsletter two or three times a year. There were
few contributors, and eventually it was
abandoned. The hope was expressed that the
internet could provide a substitute, and AERO
now offers an IDEC listserve (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ideclistserve).
There are differing views as to the purpose of
the IDECs. Some see them as an opportunity to
discuss shared problems in a supportive
atmosphere, where you know that other people
share your values. Others hope to spread the
idea of democratic education by inviting
possible converts and attracting favorable
publicity. Others see the conference as a means
of bonding schools so that they can offer
support in times of crisis, on the “united we
stand, divided we fall” principle. Some see them
as a way of improving the public perception of
the host schools in their own countries. The
purpose of any given conference is decided by
the school that is organizing it.
The host school also decides who is to be
invited. Usually you can get an invitation by
simply expressing a desire to attend, but for
the second conference at Sands a limit was set
to the number of people from any one school, and
it was suggested that at least half the
delegates from each school should be students.
The 2000 IDEC in Tokyo was organized by a
committee consisting mostly of students, and
attracted around a thousand participants.
The best way to demonstrate the development of
IDEC is a simple list of the conferences, their
host, and the countries represented there:
2008 Society for the Advancement of
Non-Coercive Education (SANE), Canada
2007 Institute for Democratic Education
in Brazil (IDEB), Brazil (Brazil,
Mexico, Canada, US, Spain, France, Italy,
Germany, Portugal, Ukraine, Israel and Japan.
2006 Australasian Association for
Progressive and Alternative Education (AAPAE),
Australia (Australia, Burma/Myanmar,
Canada, Germany, India, Israel, Japan, Korea,
Nepal, New Zealand, Spain, Switzerland,
Thailand, UK, U.S.A).
2005 KinderRÄchTsZÄnker, Germany
(Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada,
Denmark, Germany, Finland, France, Hungary,
India, Netherlands, Korea, Nepal, New Zealand,
Norway, Poland, Russia, Switzerland, Serbia,
Spain, Thailand, Ukraine, United Kingdom,
U.S.A.)
2004 Schoolscape & UNICEF, India
(Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada,
Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Israel,
Japan, Korea, Nepal, New Zealand, Norway,
Poland, Russia, Serbia, South Africa, Spain,
Switzerland, Thailand, Netherlands, Ukraine,
United Kingdom, U.S.A.)
2003 The Free School & Alternative
Education Resource Organization, U.S.A.
(Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France,
Germany, Guatemala, Hungary, India, Israel,
Japan, Nepal, New Zealand, Palestine, Poland,
Russia, South Africa, Switzerland, Taiwan,
Thailand, Netherlands, United Kingdom, Ukraine )
2002 Tamariki School, New Zealand
(Australia, Germany, India, Israel, Japan,
Korea, Nepal, New Zealand, Thailand, United
Kingdom, U.S.A.)
2001 Institute of Democratic Education,
Israel* (Germany, Israel, Russia,
United Kingdom, Ukraine)
2000 Tokyo Shure, Japan
(Australia, China, Germany, Guatemala, Hungary,
India, Israel, Korea, New Zealand, Palestine,
the Philippines, Poland, Russia, Thailand,
United Kingdom, Ukraine, U.S.A.)
1999 Summerhill School, England
(Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Gemany,
Greece, Japan, Israel, Netherlands, New Zealand,
Palestine, United Kingdom, U.S.A. )
1998 The Stork Family School, Vinnitsa, Ukraine
(Germany, Israel, Japan, New Zealand, Poland,
Russia, United Kingdom, Ukraine, U.S.A.)
1997 Sands School, England
(Austria, France, Germany, Israel, Japan,
Palestine, Turkey, New Zealand, Ukraine, Uunited
Kingdom, U.S.A.)
1996 The Democratic School of Hadera,
Israel (Australia, Austria, Canada,
Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Israel,
Palestine, Ukraine, United Kingdom, U.S.A. )
1995 The WUK, Vienna, Austria
(Germany, Hungary, Israel, Norway, United
Kingdom, U.S.A.)
1994 Sands School, England
(Austria, Israel, United Kingdom)
1993 The Democratic School of Hadera,
Israel (Austria, Israel, United
Kingdom, U.S.A.)
* The 2001 IDEC was to be co-hosted by the
Institute of Democratic Education in Israel and
the Hope Flowers School in Palestine. Due to the
political situation, the attendees could not
travel to Palestine, and it was decided to call
this conference the “Israeli Democratic
Education Conference.”
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