Wikipedia – a reasonable proxy for popular opinion – describes democracy as “a form of government in which all eligible citizens participate equally.”
From that, I would say, the center of democracy is the citizen.
This seems reasonable. I certainly spend a lot of time thinking about what makes good citizens, how to support better citizens, or how to be a good citizen myself.
Disrobing the word “citizen” of its political baggage makes this model even more appealing. “Citizen” does not need to indicate legal status, but simply describes a person who belongs – literally, emotionally, or what have you – to a community.
So having “the citizen” at the center of society sounds like a promising way of having government of the people, by the people, for the people.
But wait. We just went from “the citizen” to the “the people.” Are those the same? Different? Does it matter?
Perhaps.
In her book “Avoiding Politics: How Americans produce apathy in everyday life,” sociologist Nina Eliasoph reflects on her days as a door-to-door survey interviewer, unable to interact with her subjects, required only to “repeat the questions exactly as written in the question booklet until the respondent succumbed to the interview format.”
This arguably “citizen-centered” approach is missing “the people.” As Eliasoph elaborates:
Democracy, for this approach, rest on beliefs and values; add up all the private opinions to get one big “public” opinion; if all individuals carry inside themselves democratic psychological dispositions, like little ships in a bottle, then (presuming citizens have rights like freedom of speech and assembly) we will have democracy.
The approach is individualistic. Resting on each person to have an individual opinion that can neatly be summed and totaled to reflect the whole. But that misses the ideal democracy is – or should be – going for.
“Public life happens between people, in relationships,” says Eliasoph.
Focusing too much on the individual overshadows those relationships. The value of public dialogue, of real debate and idea exchange, gets lost. Public conversations become about me trying to win for my view and you trying to win for yours – or perhaps worse, both of us refusing to open our mouths for fear of raising conflict.
Focusing on the relationships is more of a community organizing model. The individuals are still deeply important, but it’s relationships which allow people to work together, allow people to understand each other, and ultimately allow them to develop solutions together. Of the people, for the people, and by the people.
In a time when pop stars are most known for their silly haircuts, salacious outfits and fleeting half-lives, it is almost impossible to comprehend Pete Seeger, the legendary folk icon who died yesterday at age 94. Seeger was a giant of a human being, a man who insisted upon living humbly but with conviction and courage.
His commitment to the public good was aching to behold. When Congress asked him to name names in the 1950s, he refused and was blacklisted. Undeterred, he toured colleges and coffee houses around the country to make a living. When his beleaguered former singing partners the Weavers endorsed Lucky Strike cigarettes, presumably to pick up a few bucks, he refused. When he returned to network television in the late 1960s to sing on the “Smothers’ Brothers” variety show, he choose to sing a provocative song, “The Big Muddy,” lambasting the Vietnam War and LBJ – hardly the kind of song to revive his career.
And yet, Seeger was no dour nay-sayer or small-minded zealot. He was joyful, generous and optimistic. He lived his confidence in the power of song to bring people together, beyond politics. Through his person and the songs he wrote, Seeger’s music came to define the American experience during the civil rights era, the Vietnam War, the environmental movement, and beyond. It’s hard to imagine the past fifty years without If I Had a Hammer; Where Have All the Flowers Gone?; Turn, Turn, Turn; The Lion Sleeps Tonight; We Shall Overcome; and many other Seeger songs.
His determination to nurture wholesome action in the face of abusive power was also a wonder. From fighting fascism and the Klan to empowering ordinary people to become active citizens, Seeger did not let up. One of his great inspirations was the Hudson River Clearwater Sloop, which exposed thousands of people to the joys of that river – and the pollution that was endangering it. He showed up at protests and strikes and at community centers and schools. How many performers and activists keep at it for more than 70 years without stopping?
On the first day of the spring semester, I asked members of a small philosophy seminar to reflect on their own core moral ideas–meaning not only their abstract principles but also their concrete commitments and role models–and how those interconnect. They gave me their data (concealing any ideas that they wanted to keep private), and I mapped the results as one network for the class as a whole.
In general, the ideas cluster by student (each colored differently in this map); but when two or more people share an idea, the borders among individuals begin to break down.
I hope that over the course of the semester, the map will become more integrated and denser as the students add ideas and connections among ideas and begin to hold more ideas in common. Their thinking should be influenced, in part, by the readings and by me; therefore, ideas discussed in class should pop onto the map. Agreement is not the goal, but members of a discursive community should share reference points. One student actually predicted increased polarization as new ideas are thrown into the mix, and that is certainly possible.
Why did I ask them to give me networks? I could have asked for lists of ideas (perhaps ordered by importance); for structures (with fundamental ideas implying consequences); or for bodies of text that explained each students’ views.
A list seems problematic because one cannot tell whether each item belongs on it. For instance, if it is true that one should maximize the happiness of the greatest number, then that concept should appear on your list. But if not, it should not be there. How can one tell? In contrast, you can ask questions about your network independent of the content of each node. Is the network dense? Does it cover a wide range of ideas? Are the ideas that turn out to be central worthy of their importance? Is the network connected to other people’s networks?
For elaborate reasons, I am skeptical of ordered structures for moral reasoning. But a network is actually a flexible form that can encompass a hierarchical structure. A utilitarian could give me a network that centered around the utilitarian principle. A network model simply does not presume that a moral worldview must be highly centralized or ordered.
Finally, a body of text would be valuable–but it would have to be very long, and I would be inclined to analyze it by looking for the ideas and connections that it implied. Thus the network is an efficient representation of the text, albeit one that leaves unexplained the individual nodes and the reasons for their connections.
Participatory budgeting (“PB” for short) is an innovative form of empowered public engagement that has started proliferating in parts of Chicago, New York and California due to the leadership and hard work of one of our organizational members, the Participatory Budgeting Project.
PB is a process through which ordinary residents decide how to allocate government funds. Residents identify possible projects that could be funded, research them and develop them further, and then decide through a popular vote how to allocate the funds.
Initially developed in Brazil in the late ’80s, PB is finally picking up steam in the U.S. As part of its Second Open Government National Action Plan, the White House singled out PB as a promising practice in public participation, and has committed to work with key partners to increase awareness about PB and to support communities that are interested in launching PB processes.
PB has enjoyed a lot of success and recognition over the past few years, but the process has also faced some interesting challenges that those in our field should be aware of. A recent article in the Hyde Park Herald tells the story of how one Chicago ward’s PB process ran into such challenges, and unfortunately was discontinued.
As a group committed to the growth of public engagement in meaningful decisions about our communities, we want to see PB and other public engagement processes continue to expand and thrive. But while it was disappointing news to hear, we believe Chicago’s 5th Ward provides a case study from which we can draw a few key lessons. One of the first challenges to the 5th Ward’s process is presented at the beginning of the article:
Hyde Parkers met Ald. Leslie Hairston’s decision not to continue the 5th Ward’s participatory budgeting (PB) program this year with a mixed reaction.
The 5th Ward’s experiment with PB — a political process born in Brazil in the late ’80s, in which constituents decide how their district’s money is spent — was the first on the South Side. A series of meetings took place beginning in 2012 and culminated with a public vote last May on how to spend $1 million of the 5th Ward’s discretionary funds.
Although Hairston said the program will be assessed next year, she said earlier this month that it was discontinued on the heels of a monthly ward meeting last October, where some participants described the process as cumbersome.
“They said it was very time consuming, a lot of meetings, and that they thought the neighborhood groups that they had were active enough to do it without having all of the expenses that were associated with it,” Hairston said.
We added the emphasis to the last sentence because this is an important idea for us to retain: like many engagement processes, PB is a lot of work for the sponsors, organizers, and citizens involved, and they can be more successful if they tap into already-existing community organizations to help get that work done.
Maybe it’s obvious to some of us, but PB needs buy-in from many parts of a given community, and a commitment to share the work load or the costs is one of the most genuine kinds of buy-in we can get.
The decisions about which existing community organizations to involve need to be made on a case-by-case basis, but in general, we should be looking to engage such groups as early as possible about actively contributing to a PB process, and even creating plans for outreach to these kinds of groups before we get started. Substantial participation from established groups will strengthen the process and signal its credibility to local residents.
The second insight we are taking away is similarly straightforward: low turnout can kill the PB process.
A news brief dated May 8, entitled “5th Ward Participatory Budgeting Process Wins High Marks,” framed voter turnout as historic despite the fact that just over 100 people voted… But last year’s process won’t be repeated this year, because of a low voter turnout and financial cost that led Hairston to question its effectiveness…
Hyde Parkers’ reactions to the program’s end ranged from understanding to disappointment — to both. “The turnout of approximately 100 was extremely disappointing,” said Roger Huff, a co-chair on the 5th Ward’s participatory budgeting leadership committee… “I don’t really blame Alderman Hairston for what she decided to do, because when it came time to vote, the community didn’t show up.”
Clearly, numbers matter in PB. In many public participation projects, turning out large numbers of people is important, and finding effective practices for doing that is a perennial issue in our field. But a key part of what we think is important here is that sustaining those numbers matters more.
Long-term community participation and buy-in is what makes PB work, and without a plan to cultivate and continue to engage a broad base of participants, the process can start to unravel. In addition to focusing on turnout from our communities, the 5th Ward’s case also highlights the fact that we may also need to pay attention to turnout in neighboring communities.
Chicago’s 5th Ward is not the only area of town where PB has caught on:
…the [5th] ward’s approximately 100 voters were dwarfed by more than 500 in the 46th Ward and around 1,400 in the 49th Ward, where PB was also available.
In some respects, this dynamic of the 5th Ward’s story suggests that it may be possible to become victims of our own success – if PB participants from one area of town see that the participation from their neighbors in other communities is dwarfing their own, it may impact the morale of the group and, ultimately, participation levels.
We aren’t pretending to know the solution to this issue, and maybe this wasn’t actually a factor in the 5th Ward’s situation. But it strikes us as a consideration that could end up bearing fruit if it is creatively accounted for. (If you have a creative suggestion on this front, please let us know in the comments section!) Another piece of the article brings us to one of our last takeaways from the 5th Ward’s experience: flexibility with the way money can be spent is key.
Although he applauds Hairston for her decision to open up the budgeting process to others, [Hyde Parker Alon Friedman] says certain changes could have been made — such as starting the process earlier — or using part of the $1.3 million in discretionary funding on related costs.
This is currently impossible, however, according to project coordinator [and NCDD member] Maria Hadden, of the New York City-based Participatory Budgeting Project, a nonprofit which has worked as a project lead for Chicago’s wards and similar processes nationwide.
She says Chicago wards’ discretionary funds can only be spent on fixed assets, not services. “The menu money is bond money, and it cannot be used for anything other than infrastructure,” Hadden said.
This kind of problem – older laws on the books undercutting newer attempts at public engagement – is hugely frustrating for our field in general, and it’s why NCDD supports the recommendations of the Making Public Participation Legal report around revising our legal statutes to remove barriers to effective public engagement processes. (Learn more about the report and our involvement here.)
It seems clear that the Chicago PB processes only being allowed to spend money on projects that are legally considered “infrastructure” limits the participants’ creativity and the possibilities for how PB money can be spent – something that can hurt morale and possibly thwart a community’s willingness to engage in such an involved process altogether. Altering the laws the govern such decisions may or may not be a simple thing to do, but as in many situations like this, it could unlock a lot of the potential for the kind of transformative change that real public engagement can bring.
The last thing we are taking away from this article – mentioned multiple times in the article – is advice that we all sometimes have trouble following: start early.
“We should reconsider and maybe try it again next year, much, much earlier,” he added, perhaps in the summer. “I think that if we do that we have a good chance to succeed and get many more people in voting for the projects.”
“The early bird gets the worm,” as they say, and though it’s an annoying cliche, it remains true: the more time we have to plan and generate buy-in, the more effective our engagement processes will be. Our project schedules are constantly pushed and pulled by funding limitations, busy schedules, and lots of variables we often can’t control, but as much as we can, we should always be trying to get working as early as possible.
So while it is disappointing to see the 5th Ward’s PB process discontinued, we think it is a good learning opportunity for the rest of us that could make our efforts stronger in the end. But we also remain optimistic that PB can make a comeback in the 5th Ward eventually, and that it could come back stronger than ever.
We wish everyone involved the best of luck, and we’ll definitely be keeping an eye on Chicago’s public engagement processes as it continues to pioneer new practices and provide new lessons.
We are excited to tell you about the inaugural Art of Hosting: Beyond the Basics retreat – a great opportunity coming up this April 4th – 6th to deepen your skills as a convener. This amazing retreat will be hosted in Ohio first, but will also be replicated three more times in Canada and Mexico, so you have multiple chances to participate.
The Art of Hosting team describes the event as:
…a 3-day immersion into advanced Art of Hosting and facilitation practice. In this intensive retreat, we will be learning advanced process design, hearing stories of iterative long term strategic interventions, and exploring our own limits as leaders and cutting edge change theory.
The retreat is geared toward helping engagement practitioners gain and hone skills that will help them tackle long-term, large-scale projects:
Art of Hosting Beyond the Basics builds on the lessons of years of applying the Art of Hosting to large scale systemic change initiatives in healthcare, indigenous child and family services, food systems, faith communities, poverty, homelessness, urban planning, corporate change, public engagement, civic governance, entrepreneurship and many more.
We will touch on
Designing for large scale, multi-year, multi-stakeholder engagements
Iterative design for multiple connected events
Transformative engagement over large systems and broad geography
Combining methodologies into cohesive, coherent and impactful designs
AoH: Beyond the Basics invites you to come and dive deep into those areas in your practice that are holding you back from working at scale, and to bring your real challenges of complexity and uncertainty to a collaborative lab where together we can crack new insights and design new ways forward…
This is a 3 day retreat for seasoned leaders and audacious change makers. The scope, complexity and scale of work we are being asked to engage with continues to grow. Now is the time to gather, take breath, and learn together.
Are you excited yet? If you are ready to get involved, you can learn more at www.AoHBtB.com or find the registration page by clicking here.
The Art of Hosting is coordinated in part by NCDD supporting member Tuesday Ryan-Hart, and we appreciate her letting us know about this wonderful opportunity for other NCDDers to take their skills and practice to the next level. Good luck to all the participants!
Our hero is one John Randolph of Roanoke, renown statesmen of the early 1800s. Born into a prominent Virginian family, Randolph contracted Tuberculosis at young age and spent much of his life in pain.
At the age of 26, Randolph was elected to the Sixth US Congress, where he remained in office for many years. A thoughtful orator, Randolph was also known as a “hotspur” – having fought duels with Henry Clay and others.
I tell his story today having read Richard M. Weaver’s article, “Two Types of American Individualism: The separate ways of John Randolph and Henry Thoreau.”
As Weaver describes, Randolph was “a defender of the dignity and autonomy of the smaller unit, he was constantly fighting the battle for local rights. But it was the essence of his position that the battle must be fought within the community and not through means that would in effect deny all political organization.”
Indeed, Randolph was a staunch defender of “the little guy,” looking out for those disenfranchised or oppressed by power.
He was a proponent of what Weaver calls “social bond individualism,” which “battles unremittingly for individual rights while recognizing that these have to be secured within the social context.”
At the center of this position is the dual belief that matters must be dealt with by those directly affected and that people have a responsibility to their fellow man. Individualism within the social context.
His support of individual freedom and protection of the minority lead him to oppose slavery. In his 1819 will, Randolph wrote:
I give my slaves their freedom, to which my conscious tells me they are justly entitled. It has a long time been a matter of the deepest regret to me that the circumstances under which I inherited them and the obstacles thrown in the way by the laws of the land, have prevented my emancipating them in my lifetime, which it is my full intention to do, in case I can accomplish it.
As his will was later hotly contested in court, I’ll take him at his word that he would have freed his slaves before his death if he had been able.
But there is a problem with this outlook. “Individualism in the social context” sounds compelling and positive. Protect individual rights, protect the minority, but do so while minding the health of the whole.
While this problem isn’t unique to Randolph, it appears in his story in the form of the Missouri Question: should Missouri be brought into the union as a slave state?
Debating the point in three and four hour speeches, Randolph argued that “Missouri had a right to be admitted as a slave state, and Congress did not have a right to pass on the constitutionality of its constitution.”
The voters of Missouri wanted to be a slave state. Therefore they had a right to be a slave state. Randolph wanted to free his slaves, and therefore he should have the right to free his slaves.
His conscious tells him his slaves are justly entitled to freedom, but what does his conscious tell him of the rights of slaves in Missouri?
This anti-slavery, pro-slaver view is certainly not unique to Randolph, but it raises important questions.
Weaver says Randolph is not inconsistent in these two actions, because his authenticity comes from his belief that “government, to be safe and free, must consist of representatives having common interest and a common feeling with the represented.”
That’s perhaps a more depressing resolution than saying Randolph was simply blind to his own inconsistency.
For now we see more fully – in Randolph’s world, democracy and diversity cannot coexist satisfactorily.
The New Yorker recently featured an interesting overview of the Maker movement – a welcome bit of exposure for a subculture that is nearly invisible to the mainsteam. It’s refreshing to see the hacker ethic given some due recognition and reportage – and more, serious political and economic analysis.
Alas, the analysis has its limits because it is served up by the ubiquitous scourge and skeptic of all things digital, Evgeny Morozov. Morozov has carved out a franchise for himself by providing well-written, reflexively negative critiques of the digital world. Morozov excels at penetrating analysis and he deserves credit for original reportage and historical research. But he tends to wallow in the “dark side” of the digital universe, conspicuously avoiding or discounting the positive, practical alternatives.
Almost every piece of his that I’ve read seems to conform to this narrative arc: “You are being so screwed by digital technologies in so many ways that you can’t even imagine. Let me expose your naivete.” Then we are left to splutter and stew in the dismal scenario that is sketched -- and then Morozov exits. He is rarely willing to explore alternative institutions or movement strategies that might overcome the problems that he limns.
Still, I must thank Morozov for pointing out some important truths in his survey of the Maker world. Besides suggesting the wide extent of the movement, he does a nice job exposing the sly propagandizing of Chris Anderson, Kevin Kelly and Stewart Brand. These are among the leading tech gurus who rhapsodize about the coming era of individual freedom and progressive social change that 3D printing, fablabs and hackerspaces are ushering in.
Morozov revisits the history of the Arts and Crafts movement of the early 1900s, which in its time touted amateur crafting as a force for personal autonomy and liberation. The idea was that do-it-yourself craft projects would help overcome the alienation of industrial production and provide a basis for political transformation. As some critics at the time pointed out, however, the real problems were economic inequality and corporate power – something that the craft ethic and individual projects could never overcome on their own.
Kei Kawashima-Ginsberg and I have published a new article in Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy entitled “Diversity in Classrooms: The Relationship between Deliberative and Associative Opportunities in School and Later Electoral Engagement.” Using a new survey conducted in 2012, we confirm previous findings that attending racially pluralistic high schools–i.e., schools that enroll substantial numbers of students from several different racial groups–seems to reduce the students’ electoral and civic engagement after they graduate. One explanation appears to be that discussion of current controversial issues boosts students’ interest in politics, but such discussion is less common in pluralistic high schools. We find that classroom discussion is especially important for students who do not participate in political conversations at home. We also find that joining issue-oriented groups encourages voting.
We say:
Considering that strong arguments can be made in favor of racial diversity in schools, it is important to compensate for the lessened electoral engagement in diverse schools by creating policies and teacher preparation resources that promote high-quality discussion of controversial issues in classrooms, and by encouraging students to participate in extracurricular groups that address political issues.
In my opinion, it’s understandable that teachers and students sometimes shy away from controversial topics when the student body is diverse. For example, they may not want to talk about the Middle East if some of the students are Arab-Americans, some are Jewish-Americans, and some are Christians of other backgrounds. Teachers may simply feel unprepared to deal with an issue that students know from personal experience–whether it is the Israeli occupation or racial profiling by police here in the United States. They may also worry about “micro-aggressions” in the form of comments that fundamentally challenge other students’ worldviews and identities. These concerns can arise with respect to most topics (both domestic and foreign), because racial and ethnic differences and conflicts are ubiquitous.
But it is a highly unfortunate result if we see less political discussion in classrooms that are more diverse. That is a waste of the asset of diversity, and it suppresses the political and civic engagement of students who attend integrated schools.
In the article, we call for “policies and teacher preparation resources” that support the discussion of controversial issues in pluralistic classrooms. I think an important policy is simply to affirm that freedom of speech is a positive good in schools. To be sure, a free discussion of a hot topic can lead to truly offensive remarks that cause psychic harm to participants, and that is something to pay attention to. But not talking about difficult issues is worse. It suppresses political engagement. It sends the message that a public space (of which the school is an example) should be a discussion-free zone. And it leaves any offensive private views unchallenged by other students. Better that a student should say something offensive and get a reply than not be allowed to say it at all.
Innovative democratic professionals are encouraging greater participation in some of our most fundamental institutions, yet what they are doing is rarely the focus of political theory, social science research, or what politicians talk about when they are talking about renewing American democracy. The conversations in this series aim to shed light on new democratic practices taking shape and to find out more about the dynamic people involved.
Photo by Michael Weizenegger
Donnan Stoicovy is the principal—or, in her words, the “lead learner”—of Park Forest Elementary School, a public K-5 school in Pennsylvania. Albert Dzur spoke with her recently about the participatory culture in her school.
Albert Dzur: Last year you held a series of Town Hall meetings that led to a Constitutional Convention at Park Forest school and you started with a pretty basic question: “How do we want our school to run?”
Donnan Stoicovy: Exactly! We started with discussions about “What kind of people do we want to be?” and “What is an ideal school?”—I encouraged the kids to do a little dreaming. And, of course, they know what’s realistic and what’s not–they know you can’t have chocolate covered hallways. But it was fun imagining with them. And then, “What do we value in our schools?” “What do we need to do so we can all get along in our space?” They were good discussions. Legwork for the discussions was done in their classrooms ahead of time and then students chose representatives for the Town Hall Meetings. We used a representative democracy to do all that.
AD: How did you decide to have the Town Hall meetings for the school?
DS: Well, I had been at the League of Democratic Schools meeting at the end of the school year and one of my colleagues there, Dianne Suiter, who at the time was a principal in Ohio, talked about doing something similar. She did questions like “What do we value in our school?” “What do we want to maintain in our schools?” So, as I started thinking about what she was doing, I thought this would be a great way to address what the Pennsylvania Department of Education is trying to do with what is called a “school-wide positive behavior plan.” Having been through many professional development experiences about classroom management and behavior, I wanted to approach the process of developing a plan with everyone’s voices being heard and developing something that we could all agree with as our school plan. Doing it democratically seemed to me to be the right way to engage everyone.
Two years ago, I had facilitated some conversations with parents about what kind of people they want their children to become. They didn’t talk about filling in the bubbles or doing some sort of standardized testing. They wanted their children to be people who could think critically, question authority, and make our world a better place. There was a whole list of things. I did the discussion twice and I had about 50-55 parents attend. So these conversations with our Park Forest Elementary school community members, plus hearing what Diane Suiter had done at her school inspired me. So I started thinking about it and talking with my colleagues here in our school.
AD: Did anything surprise you? Did you hear anything from the kids that you didn’t expect or that you hadn’t heard from teachers and parents?
DS: Nothing surprised me, but it did impress me that even kindergartners in my own “small school gathering” group had ideas of what kind of people they wanted to be. I remember thinking “Oh they get it!” My thoughts were, “Wow this is wonderful: they really do know what they want our world to be like and what they want their role to be in it.”
AD: So the kids really took it seriously.
DS: Oh yes, you could put your teeth into it. They talked about local environmental issues, for example, and wanted to solve some of those.
AD: Do you feel like it has had an impact on how the school was run last year and into this year?
DS: Definitely. Ultimately, we used all the information to create our school’s constitution. So this year we reviewed our Park Forest Elementary constitution on the federal U.S. Constitution Day. (PFE Constitution) Everybody got a printed copy to post in his or her classroom and we talked about what the different values meant.
So, going back to the Town Hall meetings at Park Forest, each of the small school gathering groups were assigned common areas to establish guidelines for: the ways we should be when we use the restroom, the ways we should be in the hall, the ways we should be when we’re on our buses, etc. Then they presented those at our All School Gathering in which everyone participates. Each of them was assigned a different week so they would present theirs with their small school group. Then everybody had a copy of those to review with kids over time.
AD: Was there any dispute over any of it? Did a group ever present a rule that other people disagreed with?
DS: No. They’re very realistic about things when you set the right tone. In the “Ideal School” part I wanted them to dream what would be fun. Every classroom came up with a poster about what an ideal school would have in it—so there’s chocolate covered slides and so on. But then they have values like “Respectful,” “Friendly.” One has “Helpful–the cafeteria is a helpful place,” “Caring everywhere,” “Kindness,” “We recycle,” “It’s an awesome place.” Another one did a little more of the big dreaming. They wanted a movie theater here and a computer café. And there are already computers everywhere here! They wanted a place where pets could be and a bug room. Another poster says: “No bullying,” “Helping others,” “Quiet areas for reading.”
This Town Hall information became the supporting evidence for our Constitutional Convention, which we convened several months later.
AD: You weren’t surprised by what came out of the Town Hall meetings, but I wonder if there were any ideas that came forward from the students that made you think: “Oh, they really do care about this.”
DS: Bullying was one thing that they talked a lot about in numerous conversations. What their definition of what bullying was. They felt like it isn’t here and they don’t want it to be here. They talked about how we head it off—each student doing his or her best to prevent it from happening here. Our fifth graders wrote a song and created a skit that they presented in every classroom.
AD: So they were taking some of the responsibility. It’s not just that they want the school to do something about bullying. They were saying “we’re going to be part of making sure we don’t have this at Park Forest.”
DS: Right. They demonstrated to me that they wanted to be proactive about it. Their song was really cute and they were very enthusiastic!
So, getting back to our school’s constitution. In the constitution, the kids wrote: “In order to form a better school, create a place where people want to be, establish fairness and kindness.” The kids wrote all this. We helped guide the process—we let them narrow down the words and that’s all. “To ensure the safety and well-being of all and promote learning and citizenship, we hereby create this constitution for Park Forest.” And their rights: “Feel safe in our school; Speak what we believe and not be judged for it.” That one’s pretty sophisticated. “Be appreciated and recognized and celebrate our success; Experience creative, engaging, and fun learning; Learn and help others learn; Have a safe learning environment both inside and out; Be respected; Help the community both inside and outside; Be treated fairly; and Have opportunities to serve our school.”
AD: It seems like you really got to some core issues.
DS: Yes. And then their responsibilities were really cool too: “Learn and teach others what we’ve learned; Work hard and do our personal best; Respect our school and those in it; Use our manners; Care for others and our environment; Actively engage in learning; Work with others and cooperate.” This one’s cool: “Share appreciation of others, take notice of their needs and show faith in them.”
AD: This took a lot of time and effort. Not something you would do every year.
DS: It was a much longer process than have a committee of teachers create the rules and tell the students what they were as many schools do in their school-wide positive behavior plans. Plus it was more effective in connecting our school’s community by creating a constitution. We’ll renew it in a few years since it did take some time. We’re going to keep it the way it is right now unless there’s an issue with something. After three or four years quite a few of the kids will have moved on from our school to the middle school. We can start from the frame of what we have and see: Is this what we really want or do we need to revise it? I realize our country doesn’t do that every year! But you know if we just hang it on the wall, it doesn’t live.
The other part of the process that was really powerful was how homerooms selected their representatives.
AD: How did that work?
Well our fifth grade used the Electoral College process. Because they were trying to teach what the Electoral College was.
AD: Those smart fifth graders!
DS: Yes. So the teachers did that with the kids and it was great. Kids who thought they would get to be a representative sometimes didn’t get chosen because by Electoral College it worked differently. There was a video clip on the CBS Sunday Morning Show that explained it. So the teachers used that video clip as a good model for the kids and then they experienced it.
Some of the other classrooms had elections. The kids did speeches as to why they thought they should be selected. Each classroom had a representative and an alternate for the convention so we let both students come. We had 44 kids total who were at our constitutional convention.
We met twice. After the first meeting, they went back to their classmates, and shared what had happened. One fourth grader set up a Google doc and put all of the information that we had shared with them in it and asked her classmates to add to that Google doc. And they were just learning how to use Google docs so she put that up and the teacher was blown away. The student took it really seriously: she asked the other students things like “Okay, so what do you think about these? I have to narrow this down…” and her classmates gave her input.
AD: Let’s talk now about some of the barriers you’ve encountered in moving your school in a more democratic direction. You’ve mentioned a problem of pedagogical philosophy, which is the conventional mindset of teaching subjects rather than people. I wonder if you have encountered other barriers to this work?
DS: It takes time. That’s probably the biggest barrier for some people. “Like why don’t you just tell us what to do?” Obviously, I want it to be a shared situation, so I say to people: “It’s really important that we construct this together. It doesn’t have to be the way anybody else’s school is but it has to be what fits us.”
When we changed our lunchroom, one of the teachers said to another teacher: “Why doesn’t she just tell us what the rules are?” “You know,” he said, “it would be a whole lot easier and take less time.” And the other teacher took the opportunity to teach him what I was doing and why I was doing it that way. Yes, it would be easier and take less time, but it would be my rules for our place. The more ownership into something, the more people will come together to do the hard work we need to sustain this place.
Some surprises have sometimes emerged as we work with everybody. The teachers and I came to realize that our students really do think about things like to be mannerly, to be kind to each other, for example. They are important to them. Some teachers reacted: “Oh wow, I didn’t even know that they really got this, that they came to school with all of this.” I have found that our belief in students gets higher and more established when we allow students to have voice and when we provide the platform for them to share it.
AD: As you were talking, I was trying to think of why somebody would say: “Why doesn’t Donnan just tell us what to do?” It could be that they’re worried about making a mistake. They feel like they don’t have enough experience. They don’t want to take on the responsibility. Do you think that is what’s going on?
DS: Sometimes people are just used to having somebody telling them what to do: “Here’s the rules and that’s the way it is and let’s do this as a school.” The only rules we have provided are through our effort to develop citizens; we’ve said to everybody that these rules include characteristics of citizenship like Trustworthiness, Active Listening, No Put Downs, Personal Best. We could develop our own school rules and have everyone participate in that, but we just felt using those ideals fit what we think of as citizenship so nobody here had any issues with having those be our rules.
But, yes, I think you’re right that a person can think it would be just easier if the principal told us what to do and we did it. Then they don’t have to have that responsibility or ownership if things fail.
AD: I think what you’re asking your colleagues and students is, “I want you to be co-owners of this school,” and maybe that’s a lot to ask somebody who is not quite sure whether that’s what they want to do with the rest of their life.
DS: Exactly. That’s what’s going on. Hopefully the kids are getting that it is really important for them to be involved. That’s the most important message for me to be giving them. We can change things, but everyone has to be involved in it.
There are mechanisms out in the world for everybody to be involved. But fewer people are getting involved in their community unless it’s an issue that really upsets them. But there are other issues where we need to be aware of what’s going on. So hopefully they’re learning some lessons here. If those lessons continue through the later years of their schooling and later in life, they should encourage involvement and citizenship.
AD: This raises the issue of buy-in from other schools. I can well imagine you have colleagues at other schools who think: “We’re doing OK. Maybe we’re not excellent. But we’re very good and we don’t feel the need to do anything different. And surely we couldn’t possibly take the time to have a constitutional convention, Town Halls or All School meetings or any of this stuff. We’re doing OK as we are.”
DS: Actually, some of my principal colleagues do have some sort of meeting each month in their schools. They do some sort of assembly. But it is often connected to their school-wide positive behavior plan where they’re rewarding kids. And it isn’t like at Park Forest where we have a concerted effort to have children run the meetings.
AD: What sorts of arguments or rhetoric have you found useful in talking with colleagues at other schools who think “we’re OK with where we are?”
DS: I think that they are following the plan that was outlined for them through the Pennsylvania Department of Education workshops that they attended. Some schools are having difficulties with students. They have school-wide positive behavior plans, but they are putting the principal and teachers into the role of “police officers” handing out reward tickets. The kind of student involvement we have at Park Forest offers a different approach. We have a more intrinsic model of doing the right thing because it is the right thing not because there is a reward for doing it.
AD: So there may be problems that emerge in other schools and you can start talking with other principals about more democratic practices—but you don’t use those terms. You don’t wave a big Democratic Schools flag in their face.
DS: No. That’s the quickest way to turn somebody off. But I’ll say, “Have you thought about this?”
AD: It is not an ideology you’re communicating but a set of practices that might be useful to other people.
DS: Right. Just showing people step by step how to do it. Some of my colleagues say, “Oh you think a little differently over at Park Forest.” And I quickly come back and say, “No. If you involve students in this, there is power.” So helping them to see that. Some of them don’t want to do it and that’s fine. But it would be great if they did.
If schools are having difficulties then it is very possible some of their students are not feeling their voices coming out. I am thinking of my visits to Rwanda. There is no student voice there in a classroom at least in a verbal way. The student voice that comes out there is in the carving they put on the desk where they’re writing the bad words—the nice American words that have managed to come there. Or writing all over the walls. And that’s what the students do. So their voice is coming out in a different way. And somebody has to paint it every now and then. And paint is very expensive in Africa. And so is making wood products. So there’s no voice as our students experience it there.
And consider, too, how the Rwandan government is working to save the gorillas. And the gorilla population is now coming back because they offered the people who were the poachers the opportunity to make a living wage by protecting the gorillas.
AD: So schools with difficulties would have fewer problems if they gave young people more voice.
DS: Yes, that’s my belief. Lots of my colleagues and a number of researchers I’ve read, such as Dana Mitra, Adam Fletcher, Stephanie Serriere and others stress engaging student voice is important. And not just the voice of the top academic kids. Student council in a high school is always the most popular kids. If I’m going to pull together a student group I want the kids who don’t care. They’re the ones where I’m going to find out more information about what I need to be doing.
If I have an issue here about something I want to hear from the kid who’s disconnected, who’s writing in the restroom. We rarely have writing in the restroom issues. Sometimes it’s an experiment. Somebody does it and then they realize: “oh…” Because other kids catch them. “Hey, stop doing that!” I don’t have to do that. They don’t want their school to look like awful.
AD: Let’s move on to the question of resources. You’ve talked about time. That’s a major resource. Are there other sorts of resources that you wish you had or had more of?
DS: Time is the biggest thing. And I think the other is opportunity to collaborate with other people across the country—similar people who are thinking about this.
AD: Could universities be helpful resources? Another principal of a democratic school once told me he wished universities would identify teachers who would be good at this work and direct them toward schools like his.
DS: I would want everybody to know about democratic schools. I would want universities to be teaching more about democratic schools, in general. I would like more of the work at universities to be helping open students’ minds to thinking about having a responsive classroom, eliciting student voice and engaging students in their school. Not just “here’s what discipline is.” And oftentimes they don’t even teach that until they end up in school and it is modeled for them by whoever their mentor is. Universities need to go back to essential questions like “What is the purpose of public education?”
Universities could also model a more democratic approach. Some of them are getting better at having more engagement work, but without modeling it is hard to open peoples’ minds.
AD: Last question. Fifty years from now when you’re off in the mountains canoeing and only thinking of the school once and a while and there’s a new principal, is Park Forest going to continue to be a democratic school?
DS: I hope so! I am trying to put the structures in place and have the things so that people value what we do. I don’t know if that will ensure it. When one of my colleagues retired they had promised her that her school would stay committed to democracy, student voice and participation, but it has quickly eroded.
A new principal can always walk in and say, “We’re not doing that anymore.” So I don’t think there is any way you can totally ensure that it continues other than if you’ve nurtured somebody who understands the importance of this culture and can then take over. Sometimes school boards let that happen and sometimes they don’t. Sometimes it’s dependent on who the superintendent is and what their goals are.
My community is very committed to what we do—I’m talking about the parent population. Some people move here so that their children can participate in the ways we have been talking about. I hope the things we’re doing—the All Schools, the small schools, Town Halls, etc.—all of those things become so institutionalized as simply “ the way we do things here.”
Everyone has the opportunity to learn and live within our school’s democratic practices and hopefully those will be carried into life as they become thoughtful, engaged citizens. At least that is my hope!
Work on this project was done in partnership with the Kettering Foundation.
Images provided by Donnan Stoicovy.
More of this interview can be found at the Boston Review.
Innovative democratic professionals are encouraging greater participation in some of our most fundamental institutions, yet what they are doing is rarely the focus of political theory, social science research, or what politicians talk about when they are talking about renewing American democracy. The conversations in this series aim to shed light on new democratic practices taking shape and to find out more about the dynamic people involved.
Photo by Michael Weizenegger
Donnan Stoicovy is the principal—or, in her words, the “lead learner”—of Park Forest Elementary School, a public K-5 school in Pennsylvania. Albert Dzur spoke with her recently about the participatory culture in her school.
Albert Dzur: Last year you held a series of Town Hall meetings that led to a Constitutional Convention at Park Forest school and you started with a pretty basic question: “How do we want our school to run?”
Donnan Stoicovy: Exactly! We started with discussions about “What kind of people do we want to be?” and “What is an ideal school?”—I encouraged the kids to do a little dreaming. And, of course, they know what’s realistic and what’s not–they know you can’t have chocolate covered hallways. But it was fun imagining with them. And then, “What do we value in our schools?” “What do we need to do so we can all get along in our space?” They were good discussions. Legwork for the discussions was done in their classrooms ahead of time and then students chose representatives for the Town Hall Meetings. We used a representative democracy to do all that.
AD: How did you decide to have the Town Hall meetings for the school?
DS: Well, I had been at the League of Democratic Schools meeting at the end of the school year and one of my colleagues there, Dianne Suiter, who at the time was a principal in Ohio, talked about doing something similar. She did questions like “What do we value in our school?” “What do we want to maintain in our schools?” So, as I started thinking about what she was doing, I thought this would be a great way to address what the Pennsylvania Department of Education is trying to do with what is called a “school-wide positive behavior plan.” Having been through many professional development experiences about classroom management and behavior, I wanted to approach the process of developing a plan with everyone’s voices being heard and developing something that we could all agree with as our school plan. Doing it democratically seemed to me to be the right way to engage everyone.
Two years ago, I had facilitated some conversations with parents about what kind of people they want their children to become. They didn’t talk about filling in the bubbles or doing some sort of standardized testing. They wanted their children to be people who could think critically, question authority, and make our world a better place. There was a whole list of things. I did the discussion twice and I had about 50-55 parents attend. So these conversations with our Park Forest Elementary school community members, plus hearing what Diane Suiter had done at her school inspired me. So I started thinking about it and talking with my colleagues here in our school.
AD: Did anything surprise you? Did you hear anything from the kids that you didn’t expect or that you hadn’t heard from teachers and parents?
DS: Nothing surprised me, but it did impress me that even kindergartners in my own “small school gathering” group had ideas of what kind of people they wanted to be. I remember thinking “Oh they get it!” My thoughts were, “Wow this is wonderful: they really do know what they want our world to be like and what they want their role to be in it.”
AD: So the kids really took it seriously.
DS: Oh yes, you could put your teeth into it. They talked about local environmental issues, for example, and wanted to solve some of those.
AD: Do you feel like it has had an impact on how the school was run last year and into this year?
DS: Definitely. Ultimately, we used all the information to create our school’s constitution. So this year we reviewed our Park Forest Elementary constitution on the federal U.S. Constitution Day. (PFE Constitution) Everybody got a printed copy to post in his or her classroom and we talked about what the different values meant.
So, going back to the Town Hall meetings at Park Forest, each of the small school gathering groups were assigned common areas to establish guidelines for: the ways we should be when we use the restroom, the ways we should be in the hall, the ways we should be when we’re on our buses, etc. Then they presented those at our All School Gathering in which everyone participates. Each of them was assigned a different week so they would present theirs with their small school group. Then everybody had a copy of those to review with kids over time.
AD: Was there any dispute over any of it? Did a group ever present a rule that other people disagreed with?
DS: No. They’re very realistic about things when you set the right tone. In the “Ideal School” part I wanted them to dream what would be fun. Every classroom came up with a poster about what an ideal school would have in it—so there’s chocolate covered slides and so on. But then they have values like “Respectful,” “Friendly.” One has “Helpful–the cafeteria is a helpful place,” “Caring everywhere,” “Kindness,” “We recycle,” “It’s an awesome place.” Another one did a little more of the big dreaming. They wanted a movie theater here and a computer café. And there are already computers everywhere here! They wanted a place where pets could be and a bug room. Another poster says: “No bullying,” “Helping others,” “Quiet areas for reading.”
This Town Hall information became the supporting evidence for our Constitutional Convention, which we convened several months later.
AD: You weren’t surprised by what came out of the Town Hall meetings, but I wonder if there were any ideas that came forward from the students that made you think: “Oh, they really do care about this.”
DS: Bullying was one thing that they talked a lot about in numerous conversations. What their definition of what bullying was. They felt like it isn’t here and they don’t want it to be here. They talked about how we head it off—each student doing his or her best to prevent it from happening here. Our fifth graders wrote a song and created a skit that they presented in every classroom.
AD: So they were taking some of the responsibility. It’s not just that they want the school to do something about bullying. They were saying “we’re going to be part of making sure we don’t have this at Park Forest.”
DS: Right. They demonstrated to me that they wanted to be proactive about it. Their song was really cute and they were very enthusiastic!
So, getting back to our school’s constitution. In the constitution, the kids wrote: “In order to form a better school, create a place where people want to be, establish fairness and kindness.” The kids wrote all this. We helped guide the process—we let them narrow down the words and that’s all. “To ensure the safety and well-being of all and promote learning and citizenship, we hereby create this constitution for Park Forest.” And their rights: “Feel safe in our school; Speak what we believe and not be judged for it.” That one’s pretty sophisticated. “Be appreciated and recognized and celebrate our success; Experience creative, engaging, and fun learning; Learn and help others learn; Have a safe learning environment both inside and out; Be respected; Help the community both inside and outside; Be treated fairly; and Have opportunities to serve our school.”
AD: It seems like you really got to some core issues.
DS: Yes. And then their responsibilities were really cool too: “Learn and teach others what we’ve learned; Work hard and do our personal best; Respect our school and those in it; Use our manners; Care for others and our environment; Actively engage in learning; Work with others and cooperate.” This one’s cool: “Share appreciation of others, take notice of their needs and show faith in them.”
AD: This took a lot of time and effort. Not something you would do every year.
DS: It was a much longer process than have a committee of teachers create the rules and tell the students what they were as many schools do in their school-wide positive behavior plans. Plus it was more effective in connecting our school’s community by creating a constitution. We’ll renew it in a few years since it did take some time. We’re going to keep it the way it is right now unless there’s an issue with something. After three or four years quite a few of the kids will have moved on from our school to the middle school. We can start from the frame of what we have and see: Is this what we really want or do we need to revise it? I realize our country doesn’t do that every year! But you know if we just hang it on the wall, it doesn’t live.
The other part of the process that was really powerful was how homerooms selected their representatives.
AD: How did that work?
Well our fifth grade used the Electoral College process. Because they were trying to teach what the Electoral College was.
AD: Those smart fifth graders!
DS: Yes. So the teachers did that with the kids and it was great. Kids who thought they would get to be a representative sometimes didn’t get chosen because by Electoral College it worked differently. There was a video clip on the CBS Sunday Morning Show that explained it. So the teachers used that video clip as a good model for the kids and then they experienced it.
Some of the other classrooms had elections. The kids did speeches as to why they thought they should be selected. Each classroom had a representative and an alternate for the convention so we let both students come. We had 44 kids total who were at our constitutional convention.
We met twice. After the first meeting, they went back to their classmates, and shared what had happened. One fourth grader set up a Google doc and put all of the information that we had shared with them in it and asked her classmates to add to that Google doc. And they were just learning how to use Google docs so she put that up and the teacher was blown away. The student took it really seriously: she asked the other students things like “Okay, so what do you think about these? I have to narrow this down…” and her classmates gave her input.
AD: Let’s talk now about some of the barriers you’ve encountered in moving your school in a more democratic direction. You’ve mentioned a problem of pedagogical philosophy, which is the conventional mindset of teaching subjects rather than people. I wonder if you have encountered other barriers to this work?
DS: It takes time. That’s probably the biggest barrier for some people. “Like why don’t you just tell us what to do?” Obviously, I want it to be a shared situation, so I say to people: “It’s really important that we construct this together. It doesn’t have to be the way anybody else’s school is but it has to be what fits us.”
When we changed our lunchroom, one of the teachers said to another teacher: “Why doesn’t she just tell us what the rules are?” “You know,” he said, “it would be a whole lot easier and take less time.” And the other teacher took the opportunity to teach him what I was doing and why I was doing it that way. Yes, it would be easier and take less time, but it would be my rules for our place. The more ownership into something, the more people will come together to do the hard work we need to sustain this place.
Some surprises have sometimes emerged as we work with everybody. The teachers and I came to realize that our students really do think about things like to be mannerly, to be kind to each other, for example. They are important to them. Some teachers reacted: “Oh wow, I didn’t even know that they really got this, that they came to school with all of this.” I have found that our belief in students gets higher and more established when we allow students to have voice and when we provide the platform for them to share it.
AD: As you were talking, I was trying to think of why somebody would say: “Why doesn’t Donnan just tell us what to do?” It could be that they’re worried about making a mistake. They feel like they don’t have enough experience. They don’t want to take on the responsibility. Do you think that is what’s going on?
DS: Sometimes people are just used to having somebody telling them what to do: “Here’s the rules and that’s the way it is and let’s do this as a school.” The only rules we have provided are through our effort to develop citizens; we’ve said to everybody that these rules include characteristics of citizenship like Trustworthiness, Active Listening, No Put Downs, Personal Best. We could develop our own school rules and have everyone participate in that, but we just felt using those ideals fit what we think of as citizenship so nobody here had any issues with having those be our rules.
But, yes, I think you’re right that a person can think it would be just easier if the principal told us what to do and we did it. Then they don’t have to have that responsibility or ownership if things fail.
AD: I think what you’re asking your colleagues and students is, “I want you to be co-owners of this school,” and maybe that’s a lot to ask somebody who is not quite sure whether that’s what they want to do with the rest of their life.
DS: Exactly. That’s what’s going on. Hopefully the kids are getting that it is really important for them to be involved. That’s the most important message for me to be giving them. We can change things, but everyone has to be involved in it.
There are mechanisms out in the world for everybody to be involved. But fewer people are getting involved in their community unless it’s an issue that really upsets them. But there are other issues where we need to be aware of what’s going on. So hopefully they’re learning some lessons here. If those lessons continue through the later years of their schooling and later in life, they should encourage involvement and citizenship.
AD: This raises the issue of buy-in from other schools. I can well imagine you have colleagues at other schools who think: “We’re doing OK. Maybe we’re not excellent. But we’re very good and we don’t feel the need to do anything different. And surely we couldn’t possibly take the time to have a constitutional convention, Town Halls or All School meetings or any of this stuff. We’re doing OK as we are.”
DS: Actually, some of my principal colleagues do have some sort of meeting each month in their schools. They do some sort of assembly. But it is often connected to their school-wide positive behavior plan where they’re rewarding kids. And it isn’t like at Park Forest where we have a concerted effort to have children run the meetings.
AD: What sorts of arguments or rhetoric have you found useful in talking with colleagues at other schools who think “we’re OK with where we are?”
DS: I think that they are following the plan that was outlined for them through the Pennsylvania Department of Education workshops that they attended. Some schools are having difficulties with students. They have school-wide positive behavior plans, but they are putting the principal and teachers into the role of “police officers” handing out reward tickets. The kind of student involvement we have at Park Forest offers a different approach. We have a more intrinsic model of doing the right thing because it is the right thing not because there is a reward for doing it.
AD: So there may be problems that emerge in other schools and you can start talking with other principals about more democratic practices—but you don’t use those terms. You don’t wave a big Democratic Schools flag in their face.
DS: No. That’s the quickest way to turn somebody off. But I’ll say, “Have you thought about this?”
AD: It is not an ideology you’re communicating but a set of practices that might be useful to other people.
DS: Right. Just showing people step by step how to do it. Some of my colleagues say, “Oh you think a little differently over at Park Forest.” And I quickly come back and say, “No. If you involve students in this, there is power.” So helping them to see that. Some of them don’t want to do it and that’s fine. But it would be great if they did.
If schools are having difficulties then it is very possible some of their students are not feeling their voices coming out. I am thinking of my visits to Rwanda. There is no student voice there in a classroom at least in a verbal way. The student voice that comes out there is in the carving they put on the desk where they’re writing the bad words—the nice American words that have managed to come there. Or writing all over the walls. And that’s what the students do. So their voice is coming out in a different way. And somebody has to paint it every now and then. And paint is very expensive in Africa. And so is making wood products. So there’s no voice as our students experience it there.
And consider, too, how the Rwandan government is working to save the gorillas. And the gorilla population is now coming back because they offered the people who were the poachers the opportunity to make a living wage by protecting the gorillas.
AD: So schools with difficulties would have fewer problems if they gave young people more voice.
DS: Yes, that’s my belief. Lots of my colleagues and a number of researchers I’ve read, such as Dana Mitra, Adam Fletcher, Stephanie Serriere and others stress engaging student voice is important. And not just the voice of the top academic kids. Student council in a high school is always the most popular kids. If I’m going to pull together a student group I want the kids who don’t care. They’re the ones where I’m going to find out more information about what I need to be doing.
If I have an issue here about something I want to hear from the kid who’s disconnected, who’s writing in the restroom. We rarely have writing in the restroom issues. Sometimes it’s an experiment. Somebody does it and then they realize: “oh…” Because other kids catch them. “Hey, stop doing that!” I don’t have to do that. They don’t want their school to look like awful.
AD: Let’s move on to the question of resources. You’ve talked about time. That’s a major resource. Are there other sorts of resources that you wish you had or had more of?
DS: Time is the biggest thing. And I think the other is opportunity to collaborate with other people across the country—similar people who are thinking about this.
AD: Could universities be helpful resources? Another principal of a democratic school once told me he wished universities would identify teachers who would be good at this work and direct them toward schools like his.
DS: I would want everybody to know about democratic schools. I would want universities to be teaching more about democratic schools, in general. I would like more of the work at universities to be helping open students’ minds to thinking about having a responsive classroom, eliciting student voice and engaging students in their school. Not just “here’s what discipline is.” And oftentimes they don’t even teach that until they end up in school and it is modeled for them by whoever their mentor is. Universities need to go back to essential questions like “What is the purpose of public education?”
Universities could also model a more democratic approach. Some of them are getting better at having more engagement work, but without modeling it is hard to open peoples’ minds.
AD: Last question. Fifty years from now when you’re off in the mountains canoeing and only thinking of the school once and a while and there’s a new principal, is Park Forest going to continue to be a democratic school?
DS: I hope so! I am trying to put the structures in place and have the things so that people value what we do. I don’t know if that will ensure it. When one of my colleagues retired they had promised her that her school would stay committed to democracy, student voice and participation, but it has quickly eroded.
A new principal can always walk in and say, “We’re not doing that anymore.” So I don’t think there is any way you can totally ensure that it continues other than if you’ve nurtured somebody who understands the importance of this culture and can then take over. Sometimes school boards let that happen and sometimes they don’t. Sometimes it’s dependent on who the superintendent is and what their goals are.
My community is very committed to what we do—I’m talking about the parent population. Some people move here so that their children can participate in the ways we have been talking about. I hope the things we’re doing—the All Schools, the small schools, Town Halls, etc.—all of those things become so institutionalized as simply “ the way we do things here.”
Everyone has the opportunity to learn and live within our school’s democratic practices and hopefully those will be carried into life as they become thoughtful, engaged citizens. At least that is my hope!
Work on this project was done in partnership with the Kettering Foundation.
Images provided by Donnan Stoicovy.
More of this interview can be found at the Boston Review.
