Every time I mention democratic education, the first thing people ask me is whether this kind of education works at all.21 This is because many people believe that students need rules and restrictions – since most people have gone through a traditional school system and are therefore not used to anything else. Further, people often believe that if students do not have to take classes, they will never learn anything, since they do not want to learn except when they are told to. These people imagine democratic methods or schools as chaotic. This is because people seem to misunderstand the idea of democratic education and confuse it with an approach where students are allowed to do everything they want without any rules or responsibilities – commonly known as the laissez-faire approach. However, the previous chapters showed that democratic schools are far from being chaotic or similar to the laissez-faire approach. There are indeed rules and restrictions at democratic schools or in the discussed method, the difference to traditional public schools, however, is that students at democratic schools usually understand and respect rules, since they were made by the students themselves. Moreover, all staff members or teachers I have talked to are convinced that children do want to learn themselves and that they actually do all the time. In other words, traditional public schools are based on the position that people do not want to learn and therefore have to be forced to do so (Gabbert, 2005). In contrast to that, democratic schools approach education in being convinced that people actually want to learn since students do not want to be lost in life for they realize themselves that they have to have certain knowledge to become what they aim for (Gabbert, 2005; Suchak & Root, 2006).
Beyond the fact that people want to learn, they also want to decide themselves what is worth learning and how to learn. And last but not least, the schools, but also the KMDDs I have witnessed, are anything but chaotic. Rather, democratic education evokes involvement, enthusiasm, excitement or interest. Therefore, I would claim that democratic education is indeed possible and that it achieves the aim of education discussed earlier on. That is, democratic education supports students to become autonomous, self-reflecting and critical individuals but also happy, pleased and eventually ready to take their next step in life.
Also, personally I have never experienced so much freedom, openness, tolerance, individuality, self-confidence and contentment at any other school as I have experienced at the Sudbury and the democratic free schools. Nevertheless, there are still some points to discuss as, for instance, whether there are informal or unwanted hierarchies. Even though democratic schools are democratic and everyone has the same rights, there are always people who are more dominant or more noticeable. The same applies to teachers or staff members. Although they try
21 Hereupon the question can be raised whether the traditional public school system works at all, for which, however, there is no room in this paper.
not to be more dominant than the students, it may happen – maybe even without being noticed or wanted by neither students nor staff – that the staff members are still more powerful than the students for being more experienced in life or being better in expressing themselves. Beyond that, even though the schools fulfill their ideals as best as possible, they are still part of a society which is less democratic than the schools. This problem can have positive and negative effects.
The negative part is that these dependencies on the society may cause a hierarchy in the democratic schools even though they are democratic. For example, some democratic schools do not have enough money to realize all their ideals perfectly, since some schools rely on an environment which does not belong to them or where they are limited in certain aspects as hiring enough staff or paying the staff enough money so that they do not have to have several jobs at the same time, which is the case for some staff members at democratic schools. Also, as mentioned before, some schools have to fulfill certain state requirements to be recognized as a school, which then is handled democratically in the schools, but it is not democratic at the same time since the schools are forced to deal with this issue in the first place. In other words, democratic schools always depend on non-democratic issues put upon them by the society.
Therefore, these requirements from outside make the schools less democratic, since the schools are obliged to follow certain procedures to achieve their own aims. In other words, being able to act democratically is a useful skill, however, the society is not organized democratically which leads to limits, democratic schools have to face. Here, the question is raised what these limits can mean for the students if they are not reflected in the schools.
Even anti-authoritarian schools have to prepare children for a hierarchical, often brutal achievement-oriented society and at the same time, they need to live up to their standard to educate people “who are able to stand the contradictions in this society without suffering neurotic and character-deformations and change them collectively in active resistance” (Dermitzel, 1969, p. 180; Schroedter, 2007, p.
151).22
Consequently, if these contradictions between a democratic approach to education and the society itself are not reflected at schools, students may get in conflict with society, since they are not used to a system, in which they do not have any power or a say. Therefore, students may not be able to become a part of the society because of this conflict, or they may not know how to compete with others. On the other hand, students may somehow resign and accept the society
22 My own translation: „Auch antiautoritäre Erziehungseinrichtungen müssen die Kinder auf eine hierarchisierte, oft brutale Leistungsgesellschaft vorbereiten und gleichzeitig ihrem Anspruch gerecht werden, Menschen zu erziehen, „die fähig sind, die Widersprüche dieser Gesellschaft ohne neurotische und Charakterdeformationen auszuhalten und kollektiv die Verhältnisse im aktiven Widerstand zu verändern“ (Dermitzel, 1969, S. 180; Schroedter, 2007, p. 151).
the way it is, with having a choice in some aspects, but being unable to vote in other parts of the society. However, a positive result this conflict could have is that students may become aware of the fact that they only live in a democratic community rather than in a democratic society, which may empower them to question and oppose inequalities, hierarchies and undemocratic structures in society, assuming it is reflected in the schools first.