Democracy?

Integrating the term democracy into education recognises that providing learning for all engages democratic ideology and principles.

But can we simply use the term democracy, or does it require further contextualisation in the school context? Afterall, we see many versions of democracy play out in today’s political world where a leader ‘of and for the people’ can be interpreted differently.

Therefore, to centralise democracy in schools demands that we acquire a school-based version of democracy.

There is one key educational theorist we can turn to that provides a deliberate school-based version of democracy, the founder of democratic education, John Dewey. Rather than guessing, we can turn to Dewey deliberately for a clear understanding of what he meant by democracy as a framework for schools.

Dewey recognises that all humans desire to live lives of meaning and value. Dewey considers that finding and acting upon this meaning and value is the aim of the civic and therefore democratic life.

This understanding makes us, as human beings, responsible for creating, implementing, and criticising the meaning of life. Democracy becomes the name for a culture that takes on this responsibility seriously.

This style of democracy is a world that is open to and explores possible meanings. This level of civilisation becomes a culture rich in experience; it is a culture of experience.

Through this, democracy aims to explore what could be the best life possible.

It is a political position that strives for wisdom, how one might live in a shared world.

This style of democracy becomes an artful and hopeful way of living. If democracy is to be a place of hope, it must lie in encouraging people to hear others and to enjoy the creative silence necessary that opens them up to the fullness of the world, as well as encouraging the active search to find cooperative ways to develop this richness and share it with others.

Listening to other people’s stories is the beginning of our ability to understand and communicate with them, and so is this the first step toward social intelligence.

Democracy “supply organs of vision ….. [and] organs of hearing.” (MW, 9: 238)

At the core of Dewey’s concept of democracy are the interrelated ideas of community and creative individuality. The first step is to engage one’s capacity to imagine and feel.

Dewey’s democratic vision celebrates the collective as a plurality of voices.

To engage democratically is no easy road.

The humanities thus are central to the Deweyan ideal of democratic education. The aim, in short, of democratic education must be to provide a rich, imaginative, and above all aesthetic vision of the worlds —the creative quest to experience the world with a funded sense of meaning and value.

One of the most significant aspects of a democratic society for Dewey is its ability to question practices and beliefs as well as formulate new ideals whereby action may be directed to consummatory ends.

The two are related, for one cannot criticise experience without using an ideal of some sort.

Every political and educational theory reflects fundamental commitments about human nature and what constitutes a well-lived or meaningful life.

Ideals cannot be unquestioningly inherited.

Is this what we are essentially grappling with today?

Maybe aligning with democratic understanding supports such aims within spaces and places that look to educate themselves and others.

Until next time,

Mon x