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What Is Democratic
Education?
by Ron Miller
Author, What Are Schools For?
and Free Schools, Free People
Nearly everyone in the Western world believes in
democracy, right? So why would anyone question
the need for schools to be “democratic”? Indeed,
why are most schools in our culture manifestly
nondemocratic? The alternative educators
represented in this volume, who pointedly call
their schools “democratic,” often portray their
model as based on simple common sense, or at
least as a simple extension of America’s
founding principles—but in many ways their ideas
are thoroughly radical, and run counter to
certain beliefs and traditions in modern
society. One reason for this confusion is that
there are different ways to understand the
meaning of democracy.
The democratic schools considered here are based
upon a notion of genuine participatory
democracy, practiced everywhere throughout
society, with all ages of people. The term
“participatory democracy” was used by the New
Left in the 1960s (e.g. the Port Huron Statement
of 1962) as a way of reclaiming the essence of
democratic idealism in a society they believed
had grown over-organized, hierarchical and
authoritarian. It is the antidote to technocracy
(rule by experts, bureaucrats and
administrators) and represents a renewed faith
in the intelligence and moral judgment of common
citizens pursuing their daily lives and
interests. John Dewey, the premier philosopher
of democracy and progressive education, argued
that “all those who are affected by social
institutions must have a share in producing and
managing them.” 1
According to the proponents of democratic
education, young people ought to have this same
power (and responsibility) in the schools where
they spend so much of their lives. When
individuals are bound by limitations,
expectations or rules they had no part in
establishing, then they cannot be said to live
in a democratic environment; therefore, in this
view, schools that are entirely managed by
adults (teachers, administrators, school boards,
and ultimately state and federal government
officials) do not teach democracy, and do not
enable young people to experience or practice
meaningful participation in the social
institution with which they are most intimately
involved.
This version of democratic education reflects a
radical educational critique that blossomed in
the mid-1960s in the wake of the New Left’s
rebellion on college campuses and the civil
rights movement.2 Thousands of students and many
young educators began to explore the relevance
of “freedom” and “democracy” to education; they
discovered A.S. Neill’s fiery manifesto of
educational liberation, Summerhill: A Radical
Approach to Childrearing, which had been
published in 1960, and soon became inspired as
well by the educational writings of John Holt,
Paul Goodman, George Dennison, Jonathan Kozol,
Herbert Kohl and others. The dissidents fled the
public school system and established as many as
1000 “free schools” across the U.S.
Free school ideology, like the broader protest
movements to which it was related, sought to
liberate the individual from the restraints of a
society viewed as oppressive and technocratic.
Learning was viewed as a natural part of growing
up, not requiring adult interference. These
educators expressed a deep trust in the human
organism and a great deal of mistrust in the
institutions of society. This identified them as
radicals, even as countercultural activists like
the anti-war protesters and hippies. However,
one school established during this time, Sudbury
Valley in Massachusetts, began publishing a
series of writings arguing that their
educational approach actually embodied the
American principles of democracy more
authentically than did the established school
system. Democratic schools were needed because
public schooling had betrayed the ideals of the
American Revolution. In the minds of many
dissident educators, free schools were as
American as apple pie.
Although most of the free schools disappeared by
the mid-1970s, when the political and
educational establishment launched a
conservative counterattack, their ideas
continued to circulate among the remaining
alternative schools and the emerging
homeschooling movement. Then, a resurgence
began. The first annual International Democratic
Education Conference was held in 1993, and over
thirty “Sudbury schools” have been established
in the past several years. Thousands of parents
are “unschooling” their children. New books are
being published on freedom in learning, and the
old classics are being revived (see
www.educationrevolution.org/democratic.html).
Nevertheless, the vast majority of educators,
policymakers, and even parents do not accept
this educational philosophy. They see the
ideology of participatory democracy, especially
when practiced in schools, as dangerously
radical. At the risk of oversimplifying the
matter, let’s say that there are two basic
orientations, each claiming to speak on behalf
of freedom and democracy, that oppose the core
ideals of “democratic education,” for very
different reasons. One is republican
(conservative); the other is the social
democratic (progressive) ideology.
A defining feature of conservative political and
social thought is its mistrust of pure
democracy. Most of the American founding
fathers—certainly those who wrote the
Constitution—were not democrats, they were
republicans. This means that they saw government
as acting in the public interest, not because
the masses could demand whatever they wanted,
but because society’s more established, more
enlightened members would rationally deliberate
on public affairs on their behalf. There are
economic, political, and deeply rooted religious
reasons why modern society is essentially
conservative and elitist. Untamed human impulses
are not trusted. If children are not schooled in
the rules of capitalism, republican citizenship,
and morality, there would be anarchy, leveling
(an attack on private property), and social
upheaval. According to this view, there can be
no real freedom amid such chaos. An orderly,
stable system guarantees legal rights, property
rights, and public morality, thereby allowing
democratic processes (i.e. voting) to take
place.
In mainstream politics, conservatism is opposed
by a progressive or “liberal” agenda that is
substantially more democratic. But progressives
are strong supporters of public education and
will probably not be rallying around “democratic
schools” any time soon. Why not? Because they
are social democrats. Ironically, the social
democratic position is closely aligned with
Dewey’s philosophy, and here’s the catch:
although Dewey certainly valued individuality
and personal freedom, he argued forcefully that
the problems of modern capitalism grow out of an
excessive individualism which fails to
appreciate the collaborative aspects of
democracy, the importance of a sense of social
responsibility. Dewey criticized the
“child-centered” educators of the 1920s who
called themselves “progressive” and considered
themselves his followers, and he joined with the
“social reconstructionist” progressives who
organized at Teachers College after the
Depression revealed to them the ugly shadow of
competitive individualism. Repeating this
pattern at the height of the free school
movement, some radicals—particularly Kozol and
Kohl—began to question the Neillian
child-centered faith and demanded that
democratic schools join a more collaborative and
engaged political movement to address the
injustices and inequalities of society.
Progressives point to several reasons why they
believe that a personalized model of
participatory democracy is not adequate for
maintaining a democratic culture. David Sehr,
Robert Westbrook and other Deweyan scholars
argue that under individualistic capitalism,
democracy has come to mean the right to be left
alone, and this diminishes participation in
public affairs. People consider themselves
consumers rather than citizens, and
participation in politics is limited to voting
for candidates. This is a “privatized”
democracy, and we see its fruits in the policies
of Reagan and Bush. Amy Gutmann (currently the
president of the University of Pennsylvania),
wrote an important book during the Reagan
administration, titled Democratic Education, in
which she argued that privatized schooling does
not give citizens with different points of view
the opportunity to negotiate about what common
societal goals they seek to achieve through
education. Progressives are concerned that the
absence of public dialogue, common goals, and
social responsibility leads to a fragmented,
selfish society administered by self-appointed
elites—pretty much what we have now.
Another argument, expressed by the influential
progressive political scientist Benjamin Barber,
is that democracy is not a naturally occurring
form of society but requires training and hard
work to attain. Specifically, in this view, a
“democratic school” is not one that treats
children as if they were already responsible
adults, but one that deliberately teaches them
important things they do not know about the
world, so that they can more intelligently
engage in collaborative problem solving and be
prepared to exercise a mature sense of social
responsibility. As Dewey himself put it in
Experience and Education (his critique of
child-centered education), “Guidance given by
the teacher to the exercise of the pupils’
intelligence is an aid to freedom, not a
restriction upon it.”3
The reason I bring up these objections is not to
criticize the idealism of participatory
democracy, but to place the democratic school
movement in historical and cultural context.
Society as a whole is not yet prepared for so
much democracy. But perhaps, if the movement
continues to expand, it will demonstrate on an
ever wider scale that young people can be
trusted with more freedom and more
responsibility than they are allowed in the vast
majority of schools, and that the result of such
freedom is neither social and moral chaos (as
conservatives fear) nor isolated self-interest
(as progressives claim). The people in
democratic schools report that children are
capable of remarkable intelligence, compassion,
maturity, collaborative problem solving, and
social responsibility when given a chance. What
kind of adults do these children become? Do they
tend to be engaged citizens or unquestioning
consumers? Do they need wiser people to govern
and instruct them, or are they more resourceful
than our cultural prejudices imagine it possible
for them to be?
Freedom is ultimately the opportunity to
experiment, and democracy is ultimately the
cultural flexibility to admit when experiments
turn out successfully. It can be reasonably
argued that the system of mass public schooling,
standardized and administered from high above,
is an unsuccessful experiment in many ways. Why
not try another?
1. Joseph Ratner, ed., Intelligence in the Modern
World: John Dewey’s Philosophy. New York: Modern
Library, 1939, pp. 400-401. Tom Hayden, the
primary author of the Port Huron Statement,
acknowledged the influence of Dewey’s democratic
vision.
2. I describe the historical context of this movement
in my book Free Schools, Free People: Education
and Democracy After the 1960s (Albany: SUNY
press, 2002).
3. John Dewey, Experience and Education (1938) New
York: Collier/Macmillan, 1963, p. 71.
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