Method: Participatory Education
Jun 25 '17
An educational model that gives students equal say in determining curriculum and activities.
Participatory Education
Reply
Monthly Archives: June 2017
The Frustration of Dialogue and Deliberation
It’s the third day of the Frontiers of Democracy conference, and the mood is different than I can recall. Last year during the conference we received news that Great Britain had voted to leave the European Union: this year the conference began with a preconference on authoritarianism. Many attendees answered an ice-breaking prompt from Caesar McDowell about what they don’t want to talk about here with some variation of “the election” or “Trump” or even “the party system.” Yet we also had a plenary session on US democracy’s vulnerabilities led by the Democracy Fund, where they delved into the crosstabs of their latest voter study group report.
Later today we’ll discuss Peter Levine’s framework for responding to the election of Donald Trump, 
which one plenary speaker described as reminiscent of “the John Birch Society” for its resolutely anti-administration approach. And I’ve also heard devoted deliberative democrats talking about refusing to “trust the system” and even “blowing up the system.” One panel was titled “How to start a revolution,” though I had to miss it because it conflicted with the panel I ran on Civic Games. (An attendee of the revolutionary conference reported to me that she walked out a lot less optimistic than she began.)
Yet my colleagues here are certainly not contemplating the violent overthrow of the current order: one of the most popular plenary speakers was the President of the International Center for Nonviolent Conflict. He presented on the work of Chenoweth and Stephan, who used a century of data to show that nonviolent resistance movements are twice as likely to succeed as violent ones–and that the results of such civil resistance are nine and a half times more likely to be democratic when they do succeed than violent movements.
I rather suspect that this is a minor aberration, but for a conference that began in 2009 after the election of Barack Obama titled, “No Better Time,” and spent many years afterwards bemoaning the lost civic engagement of that campaign season, it has been interesting to watch how attitudes change and methods evolve. Many many of the civic professionals I know are embracing Black Lives Matter and the implicit rejection of deliberative methods therein. Professional mediators and dialogue facilitators are talking about the importance of action, symbolic speech and protest, and resistance. They are–we are–frustrated. I can’t wait to see what we do together next.
The Micro-Commons of Amherst
When I walk my dog Jackson along a burbling brook, I always smile when I pass the Bunny House. It’s like greeting a familiar leprechaun in the forest. The “house” is a small wooden box with a shingled roof, sitting atop a four-foot pole. One side of it is open to passing hikers.
Peer in and you can see two tiny stuffed rabbit-dolls sitting on chairs in a living room enjoying a cup of tea. There is a table in the house, with a thick book on it, and a tiny mirror on the back wall bearing the inscription, “Home, the spot of earth supremely blest / A dearer, sweeter spot than all the rest….”
It’s a mystery who had the whimsy to build this fairy-tale jewel in the forest. I’ve always appreciated it as a puckish gift to pleasantly startled strangers. In the years I’ve been walking there, no one has ever vandalized the Bunny Room. It has become a kind of folk-art fixture and landmark.
I have come to realize that the Bunny Room is no aberration in and around my town of Amherst, Massachusetts. There are other monuments of homespun generosity and expressive beauty that some anonymous souls simply decided would enliven the community. I call them micro-commons because they slyly build a shared community of appreciation that is rooted in a particular, meaningful spot.
Another micro-commons that I love is an impressive pile of stones on a hiking trail in nearby Pelham. The four-foot work sits like a prehistoric alter in the dark, quiet woods known as Buffam Brook Community Forest. There is a verdant forest canopy some 30 or 40 feet overhead and the happy sounds of a cascading stream off to one side. The stone pile – a four-foot high cylinder that tapers to smaller circumferences at the top and bottom – is made from hundreds of stones, each carefully fit together.
I realized how much the landmark meant to me when, after several days of fierce storms, I was walking by and noticed that a tree branch had fallen on the structure, destroying much of it. Tragic! I was so dismayed. The mess made me realize how much I had come to love this living piece of folk art and the thoughtfulness behind it. The next spring, lo and behold, the same anonymous stone-worker had quietly re-built the pile of stones. It lives!
I call these anonymous gifts to the world micro-commons because countless people have come to depend on them as welcoming landmarks and symbols of this place. They subtly convey a sense of care and appreciation for our favorite spots, and their own spirit. The anonymity of their creation makes them radiate a special feeling, as if to say, “Here is my expression of gratitude for this wonderful place.”
The micro-commons remind me of the cover image on the original edition of Lewis Hyde’s classic book The Gift, which featured a painting, “Basket of Apples,” by unknown members of the 19th Century Shaker Community in Hancock, Massachusetts. “The Shakers believed that they received their arts as gifts from the spiritual world,” writes Hyde. “Persons who strove to become receptive of songs, dances, paintings, and so forth were said to be ‘laboring for a gift,’ and that the works that they created circulated as gifts within the community.”
Perhaps I’m making too much of some simple folk art, but these micro-commons always make me feel good about the world. Since encountering the first two, I have run across others. In a nearby neighborhood, someone erected a “little library” – a weather-sheltered box with a window in front, which contains a few dozen books. Anyone can contribute to the collection, or borrow and share books: a lovely gesture of neighborliness.
A few weeks ago, I took Jackson to a forested trail in the town of Leverett. At a certain point in the hike, we encountered a bench looking out on a gorgeous meadow. Next to the bench was a wooden box containing a notebook, carefully wrapped in plastic to protect it from the rain. The notebook was filled with homegrown poetry! Hikers pausing for a rest were invited to contribute their own spontaneous poems in response to the beauty all around them.
The notebook didn’t contain great poetry, as I recall. But the sublime landscape was surely the kind of scenery that had once inspired Emily Dickinson – a local icon – to contribute her own unabashed “letters to the world.” That may be all that it takes to create an invisible community of affection – an open notebook or a pile of stones, and an attitude of gratitude.
Women’s Radio Listening Groups in Kenya
Jun 23 '17
Case: Women Radio Listening Groups in Kenya Mariam Zia PURPOSE/PROBLEM Women radio listening groups in Kenya are a democratic innovation in citizen participation as seen through the case of the Ford Foundation, that had considerable influence in funding a group in Malindi. Through various radio programs, marginalized women gain more...
Women’s Radio Listening Groups in Kenya
Jun 23 '17
Problems and Purpose Women radio listening groups in Kenya are a democratic innovation in citizen participation as seen through the case of the Ford Foundation, that had considerable influence in funding a group in Malindi. Through various radio programs, marginalized women gain more knowledge and become empowered by learning about...
Ten-Years of Lisbon Participatory Budgeting, Portugal
Jun 22 '17
Portugal is one of the first European countries to introduce Participatory Budgeting (PB). The Lisboa City Council (here in after, CML) – adopted the “Charter of Principles” on July 9th, 2008. From 2008 to 2016 – 5,570 proposals were submitted, 1829 of them were selected and finally 31, 205,688.00 Euro...
Fórum dos Cidadãos in Portugal
Jun 22 '17
The Fórum dos Cidadãos, here in after the Fórum, is a non-profit organization based in Lisbon. It is a civil society project, non-partisan and without political or ideological orientation that aims to establish itself as a new institution in Portuguese civil society. Fórum dos Cidadãos held its first forum called...
Frontiers of Democracy starts today
About 140 thinkers and activists for democracy gather today at Frontiers of Democracy. If you’re not among us, you can watch the live-streams of the plenary sessions. The #DemFront hashtag is also being used already for substantive conversations.
In past years, the title of the conference has invoked the idea of expanding the frontiers of democracy, whether geographically (by supporting people who are trying to make their countries into democracies) or by realizing democratic ideals more fully in countries like the US.
Some may feel that the objective of expanding democracy’s frontiers remains exactly appropriate and timely in 2017, just as it was last year. I salute that view. But others may feel that our primary cause this year is to defend the frontiers of democracy, to stand guard against the many people and movements that seek to undermine it, to say that they must stop here, with people like us. ¡No Pasarán!
That’s just one dimension of disagreement. Participants may disagree about the central and defining values and highest ideals of democracy–for example, should it be more deliberative, or more competitive and full of contention? They may disagree about institutions, such as representative bodies and political parties. They may disagree about how deep a transformation we must seek in order to make societies into better democracies.
These and other disagreements are, of course, desirable. In fact, the greatest danger in a gathering like this is homogeneity of views or politeness about differences, and so I am going to encourage disagreement; and if agreement comes too quickly, I hope people will broaden the conversation by introducing alternative views.
Jornadas de junho de 2013 no Brasil (June Days of Protest in 2013 in Brasil)
Jun 22 '17
“Jornadas de Junho” de 2013 no Brasil Problemas e propósito A expressão Jornadas de Junho foi usada para referir-se a todas as manifestações ocorridas em diferentes locais do Brasil no mês de Junho de 2013. Naquela ocasião, centenas de milhares de pessoas foram às ruas em várias capitais do país...
Stories and Reflections from Elevate Engagement
Last month, I had the great pleasure of attending Elevate Engagement, a conference hosted by the Agora Journalism Center at the University of Oregon and organized in partnership with NCDD member organization Journalism That Matters.
Over 130 participants took part in this conference, including many journalists, some engagement practitioners (NCDD member orgs the Jefferson Center and Healthy Democracy among them), activists, and others. Organizers used Open Space, World Cafe, Pro-Action Cafe, and other engagement techniques to discuss the question, “How do we elevate engagement for communities to thrive?”
Over the course of the four days, I heard a whole host of stories of journalists making efforts and succeeding in creating more quality engagement with the communities they serve. A couple examples I recommend checking out include:
- The Evergrey organized a trip and conversation between King County, WA voters (who voted 74% for Clinton in 2016) and Sherman County, OR voters (who voted 74% for Trump).
- Spaceship Media and the Alabama Media Group brought together women who voted for Trump in Alabama with women who voted for Clinton in California for an online dialogue on a variety of political issues.
- KPCC, Southern California Public Radio, launched “Unheard LA – the stories of where you live,” a community-driven storytelling series that featured community members sharing their experiences in various formats (music, poetry, etc.). They also went a step further and shared what they learned when they stopped talking and started listening.
These are just a couple stories, out of many inspiring ones I heard in my time attending the conference. I found it noteworthy that some of these efforts incorporated good dialogue and facilitation practices, whether or not the journalists were knowledgable of these practices (some were, some were not). I also noted that for others, there was a strong desire to do more, but a sense of struggle or an uphill battle to achieve this kind of level of engagement.
Some of the challenges I heard were that this kind of quality engagement can take time, which does not always fit the realities of the newsroom. Others noted the need for additional resources, in terms of staff, time, and money to carry out more quality engagement. And for others, it really boiled down to finding good models and good partners to be able to engage communities which have traditionally been hurt and/or unheard by journalists and media outlets. The desire to be able to reconcile with communities who have been shut out, misrepresented, or harmed by media was a strong theme throughout the conference.
My own biggest takeaway was that journalists have a strong desire and sense of mission to build better engagement, but that many also think they need to take it on alone. I was joined by other NCDDers in sharing the message that our network has a wealth of skills, models, and experience for engagement, and that many (if not all!) of us are willing partners for journalists in these efforts. NCDD intends to continue our conversation with Journalism That Matters about this and to find further opportunities to connect journalists and engagement practitioners. Working together can help both of our fields achieve our goals and, more importantly, raise the voices of the people across our country.
For more information, check out the Elevate Engagement website where you can learn more about the conference and check out session notes. You may also want to take a look through #PDXengage17 on Twitter to catch videos, quotes, and other participant thoughts.