CHAPTER 1: SECTION 2

In a democratic school, all children are the sole drivers of their own educational bus. Learning is completely child directed without any sort of authoritarian figure dictating how the children spend their time, what they learn or when they choose to learn it. The children also decide how they are going to be evaluated since grades are not given in a democratic school. Whether it is a teacher at the front of a room, a principal at the head of the school, an administrative board somewhere far away from the actual school, or even the state and federal government, proponents of democratic education believe no one, in a true democracy, should take the responsibility or the right away from anyone wanting to learn what ever subject impassions them at whatever age it may present itself, no matter if that learner is 4 years old or 89. Honk Honk.

Democratic educators believe that if a child is driven of their own accord to something that interests them or to something they are excited about that they learn it much more joyfully and more quickly. After all, our first three years of life were spent learning the daunting tasks of walking with a very large head, making sense of a completely foreign language and learning to emulate it. Why possibly would children after four years of age be any different? They state that older children are in fact no different and it is the current public system that takes away their spark of discovery, their passion for exploration which is in turn replaced with resentment and loathing as their freedoms, their interests, and their time are squashed like a summer fruit fly in juice sucking bliss.

If this is the first time you have heard of this type of educational model, you are not alone. I was completely clueless that an entire spectrum of democratic schools, or Sudbury inspired as they are sometimes called, existed and have existed for some time. There are 200 democratic schools and programs in 29 countries providing a open space for learning for some 15,000 children. 85 of these schools are here in America.

As you read this you may feel that you have stumbled upon your own personal education ark or perhaps this may not be your cup of tea right off the bat, but just wait, lets get a little dirty. The reasoning behind this educational model is much deeper than it may appear on the surface. Ok, so what does this mean? Democracy this, democracy that. Roll up your sleeves were are going to try to make sense of this currently tarnished word “democracy.”

The early pioneers of democratic education began to ask why schools in our supposed democracy are decidedly undemocratic. Does this make any sense? The rights laid out for common citizens were not seen in the day to day life of students within school walls. Did the founding fathers lay out historical goals for a totally new society of free thinking, free moving citizens with a “P.S.” at the bottom stating, “Scratch the entire document above if you are between 4 and 18”?
Daniel Greenberg, co founder of the Sudbury School in Framingham Massachusetts, writes an amusing commentary on the Declaration of Independence in his article Toward an Ideal School: The Founding of Sudbury.


... what is the meaning of education in America?... The founding fathers, when they wrote the Declaration of Independence, included a sentence that Americans are all familiar with: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. Nobody ever said that before. No country had ever been founded on those principles. The real giveaway that nobody had ever done it before is the phrase we hold these truths to be self evident.... The last thing on earth that was “self-evident” in 1776 was the idea that all men are created equal! Where in the world was this belief prevalent? Anywhere? And rights? Who had rights? Life? Life was all but worthless in those days, and all too close to worthless today in much of the world. Liberty? How many people enjoyed liberty back then?
And what did they mean by the Pursuit of Happiness? That’s an 18th century phrase that doesn’t mean what we take it to mean today. Happiness didn’t mean: “I’m having a good time,” or “let’s go out and party.” Happiness meant finding meaning in life. What they are saying was that every individual has a right to live his life, to be free, and to pursue a meaningful life....
To be sure, we have a way to go in order to fully realize these ideals in our everyday lives here in America. But these are the ideals for which this country was founded. And they imply, quite directly, that when we say that education is about realizing a person’s individual potential, what we are really saying is that every person has the right to live as the founding document of our nation intended. Anything called “education” should be furthering that goal of self-realization rather than some externally imposed goal.


These questions being asked in the 1960’s lead to the formation of group that called themselves The New Left. Again, this can not be mistaken for the term “Left” for the Democratic Party as it’s used to today. The New Left of the 1960‘s is a far cry from what “Left Wing” means today. They believed the founding fathers envisioned a participatory democracy as the goal for the governing of the new nation. This vision was believed to have been lost along the way and that we Americans, in effect, do not have a participatory democracy anymore. In a participatory democracy the citizens are intricately involved in the participation of governing in a communal and collaborative effort to run their towns and states. The concept of the New England town hall meeting is a perfect example of participatory democracy, which to their eyes, did not occur in modern times as it did in early founding years. The New Left saw our society becoming more authoritarian and less ruled by the people for the people. They state that since the early 1800’s we have turned into what they call a technocratic democracy where yes, we may elect those that lead us every 2 to 4 years, but that is the whole point. We elect people to rule us, a small elite group at that, in a very far off, institutionalized place distant from where we the people actually call home; where we live, work and raise our kids.

“When individuals are bound by limitations, expectations or rules they have no part in establishing, then they cannot be said to live in a democratic society,” states Ron Miller in his article What is Democratic Education. What we have now is a hierarchy within our government that we have all gotten so used to that we in essence have accepted it as inevitable. He goes on to say that we’ve accepted this way of governing so unquestioningly that we have organized our schools based on this type of hierarchy. (Toward Participatory Democracy - Free Voices #2.) They believed while we can still call our society a democracy, sort of, that’s a whole other topic, we can not call it the founding fathers’ democracy. The New Left decided to be an instrument in the reestablishment of participatory democracy.
Democratic schools are born where this commitment to participatory democracy and freedom was actualized and brought into the classroom. Congratulations you have a new baby philosophy!

These were the basic tenements of the democratic schools. First, as previously stated, the children are free in their day to pursue any interest, at any time, for any length of time, and in any depth they choose. A second dynamic is that the children also take a equal role in running the school. The rules that govern the school as well as the business of operation are all discussed and decided at a weekly school meeting where all staff and all students have one vote. The rules could be as simple as a littering rule and as complicated as approving budget requests. It is imperative in democracy that everyone, even the youngest of children, be included in decisions and be a witness to the process of their education. And here I was to see how this revolutionary and radical idea was enacted.

For some of you, this may be alluring enough to further investigate and so the question is, how do I get my hands on a little democracy? Most of these schools still fall under the “private” umbrella, but Israel can boast of 25 public democratic schools up and running, which is highly encouraging for the possibilities in our own shattered to bits system. When enrollment in the public school system has dipped from 80 percent to 73 percent in a short 14 years, alarm bells, sirens and vicious dogs barking should go off in our heads. And none of these warning sounds can be silenced by more money being thrown at them. Even jerky scented money at those dogs won’t help us now. I was intrigued enough. So off I went. For some reason, this all made me sweat.