Schools Are Not Democracies

Democracy in Our Schools


“Schools are not democracies.”

What a sad, cynical statement.

“Schools are not democracies.”

I have heard this belief proclaimed by teachers, administrators, board members, college professors, business leaders, parents and even students. I have also uncovered the harsh reality that the United States is not—and may never have been—a democracy. This does not change the fact that many Americans have latched onto the ideal of democracy; they believe democracy is not only possible but worth ‘fighting’ for (and I don’t mean the type of fighting our soldiers are doing, based on the misleading slogans that our Presidents have used to send our youth to war, such as: “to preserve democracy,” “to spread democracy,” “to defend democracy,” and “to establish democracy”). Thanks to the inspiring words of America’s Founding Fathers, the people who believe in democracy embody and nurture in themselves and in others life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

What Is ‘Democracy’?

In true democracies everybody has a voice, everybody’s opinion is deemed worthy, yea, is required. Unfortunately, true democracies cannot be found in his-tory books. Many republics and oligarchies have tried to lay claim to the ‘democracy’ designation. Alas, they are mere pretenders. The fact is that in ‘civilized’ man’s previous dabblings with ‘democracy’ some segment of society has always lain disenfranchised: be they slave, indentured servant, non-landowner, people of color or of differing language, women, and, of course, children. In 1789, the list of people intended to not be covered under the protections of the Bill of Rights and Constitution included all of the above. Some ‘democracy.’
Still, the spirit of democracy—the allure of democracy—has spurred countless individuals and groups to action. They educate, raise consciousness, organize, unionize, demonstrate, even bear arms. It is democratic spirit that brought us to this point in history in which slavery is outlawed (supposedly), women can vote, and the landless and naturalized citizens—even illegal aliens—have constitutional rights. (Had constitutional rights. See the PATRIOT Acts.) We have come a long way. But, there is still a long way to go.


‘Democracy’ Is an Intrinsic Desire

“Schools are not democracies.”

I can’t imagine saying this as if it’s okay—as if there’s nothing we can do about it! Like Seal said in his 1992 award winning song, “There’s a sky full of people but only some want to fly, isn’t that crazy? Crazy!” Yes, it’s crazy.
Democracy is a product of a human archetype; it is a life- and self-nurturing ideal we carry in our subconscious throughout our lives, a goal our unconscious mind is in the constant state of trying to realize. Democratic principles—coming out of Natural Law and Natural Rights—are the internally motivating force behind man’s search for freedom, his pursuit of happiness. They are the reason the oppressed yearn and fight for their freedom—why individuals seek independence and autonomy. Just ask any former slave or concentration camp survivor—or an immigrant or migrant worker: the drive and desire to create freedom, independence, and happiness is inextinguishable. Yet some humans grow so distracted by the constant barrage of external stimuli that the internal thrum of peace and contentment are drowned out, even forgotten. Their hypervigilance keeps them so outwardly focused, so stuck in the ‘fight or flight’ mode of functioning, that they forget the kind of joy and comfort that are available to them when they choose to be masters of their own lives. That choice is not an easy one; it is a choice that big businessmen and their politician lackeys would just as soon see you forget. Hence the true lesson of compulsory public schooling: “You will do as you’re told, you don’t have a choice, so shut up and step in line.”


American Hypocrisy

“Schools are not democracies.”

When schools are not democracies what does that say about our society? That we don’t want to practice what we preach? That we’re hypocrites, or, worse: outright liars? That we don’t want to be Americans: to live up to the responsibili-ties set upon us by our forefathers—that is: to uphold democracy?
We say we live in or want to live in a democracy, yet we won’t allow democracy to be taught to and experienced by our children in schools? Why? Shouldn’t our children be receiving exposure to and practice with the skills necessary to practice our hallowed democracy? Or is the real truth that none of us wants democracy—that we certainly don’t want it for our children? Are we happy, content, or apathetic being told what to do, submissively proffering blind obedience to our ‘leaders’ and ‘superiors?’ Why is it that we don’t want our children to have the chance to be equal with these ‘leaders’ and ‘superiors?’ And what exactly do you think those ‘leaders’ or ‘superiors’ did in order to earn their authority? How can one believe that the longer we play and the more we conform and ignore our hearts and souls that we will earn the opportunity to become a ‘leader,’ ‘superior’ or policy maker? What is it about conformity and complacency that you believe will earn you happiness and a fulfilling life?


Kim Overton and Concord Academy

Kim Overton is the co-founder of an award-winning charter school named Concord Academy. Kim is a believer in democracy. She is a believer in the equality of human beings of all races, colors, creeds, nationalities, sexes and even ages. The school she and her husband founded in Northern Michigan was created with democratic beliefs and values in mind. They sought to nurture creativity, critical thinking, and diversity. They provided an environment for learning and growth through cooperation and collaboration. With K-12 under one roof, they sought to create a ‘family’ or perhaps ‘one-room schoolhouse’ effect. They preferred to try to celebrate the differences between individuals. They promoted collaborative program and curriculum design. They gave teachers and children a voice and showed them that their input was truly valued—that it, in fact, helped steer the course of the school.
Corporations and the business/corporate world function without democ-ratic principles in place. Likewise, the public school system, following the business model, functions without democratic principles at work. Concord Academy is not a public school, or rather, it was not founded upon the public school model. Concord Academy was created to be different, to offer something different.


The Struggle to Revive Democracy in Our Schools

Though I hear and feel the numbness and apathy toward the anti-democratic changes imposed upon our schools by No Child Left Behind, the Michigan Department of Education, and more business-minded school board and school administrations, I see and hear the commitment and energy of a few who still wish to hold out, who dare to hope, to even speak up for, democracy. These courageous, principled, and passionate people are engaged in a crusade—a crusade for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; a battle for the very possession of their souls and the souls of their children. Will they succumb to the pressures of conformity and the daunting litany of rules and regulations imposed from ‘above’ and ‘without’ or will they succeed in keeping alive that spirit which caused Kim Overton to create a school—the same spirit that caused our American forefathers to put their lives and possessions on the line in order to shake off tyranny and oppression?
These are the people who believe, as Kim does, that the educational experience offered and gained in our schools be one that nurtures within each community member the flame of democracy—the desire and palpable need to achieve individual identity and confidence, to experiment with and learn mutually supportive, inclusive, collaborative skills, to explore and gain confidence in creative and critical thinking, to walk out into the world with skills that enable them to be self-sufficient adults.
Schools have a choice. They can be vehicles for the growth and develop-ment of human beings or they can be vehicles for the control and molding of little factory/corporate robots. Many schools, Concord Academy included, contain in their mission statements wording purporting the belief that education is a bring-ing out, not a pouring in—that is, that education implies the use of a nurturing, nature-supporting environment, not a coercive, prescribed program. However, this is not the truth—this is not the fact—of our schools’ practices. Schools are not nurturing the natural, God-given talents of each and every one of the individuals in their communities. Schools are guilty of quite openly trying to force community members into prescribed, ‘poured in’ behaviors, skills, and information packages.
I believe schools have been moving even closer toward this latter scenario since the creation of the No Child Left Behind laws. The end result of this movement—and one could argue that it is also the desired result of this legislation—is the production of a uniform line of programmed automatons. The adverse effect of this result—from a humanist perspective—is that these assembly-line produced consumer robots—worker bees—may require the remainder of their lives to recover from and unlearn the conditioning and indoctrination from their school years in order to be able to relearn how to breathe, think, speak, and act for themselves. It is my opinion that people who know that they are free to breathe, think, speak and act for themselves and who are able to take conscious advantage of this knowledge are higher functioning human beings. They are more trustworthy; they act from higher, more altruistic motives. They are more creative and more desirous of seeking information—of being active lifelong learners. They are more capable of self-governance, and more effective and successful collaborators.
We are doing such a disservice to today’s children (and adults) by bom-barding them with prescribed learning expectations, by forcing them to qualify their personal self-esteem according to how well they memorize the dates of Charlemagne’s eldest son’s birthday, or the Binomial Theorem, or the definitions of ‘clauses’ and ‘gerunds.’ We should be exposing them to the real skills and mental issues they are likely to encounter daily in ‘the real world.’ We should be giving them ‘real’ things to do, ‘real world’ problems to tackle. We should be exposing them to experiences that will develop their ability to meet, analyze, and come up with creative solutions to problems they will encounter in their lifetime, including morals, values, ethics, philosophy and religion, debate and forensics skills, opinion writing, how to maintain and manage personal property (including personal, household and business budgeting), the intertwined biology, chemistry, and physics of living working systems (e.g. growing, storing, and preparing one’s own food), environmental awareness and activism, community service and social responsibility, democracy in theory and in action, effective physical and psychological self-care tools, and the list goes on.
In order for democracy to ascend and prevail, children must be exposed to and experience for themselves what democracy looks, sounds, and feels like. In order to do this, students need to be given some voice in their curriculum—a say in the experiences and lessons their education can provide for them. It is, after all, their education we are talking about. “Each generation may find it necessary to reinvent their world,” Thomas Jefferson said. This may well turn out to be especially true for this up-and-coming generation. So, let’s try to give them the op-portunity to pick up the tools they’ll need for this daunting task.
If your knee-jerk response to this proposal is oppositional—because “they’re just children,” or because “they don’t know any better”—then we have already condemned the next generation to failure, we have given up hope, we have already dispassionately sentenced them to our own sanitized and scientific compartments of inferiority and dependency. Unfortunately, we have been conditioned into thinking that all young humans are incapable, unformed, ‘wild’ and, if truth be known, ‘dangerous’. “Innocence” we call it. We have been taught to be unwitting accomplices in the business of prolonging the mythical and fairy-tale period of growth known as ‘childhood’ for as long as possible.
Before the 1840s the period of partial or limited involvement in the basic activities of life—called “childhood”—was extended to about the age of seven. At seven, young humans were fully engaged, fully functional within the immediate community. With the industrial capitalists’ growing need for large, localized, ro-botized labor forces, that period was elongated to 12 years (sixth grade). (Schools became the instrument of robotization.) Then to eighth grade. Now it is at 16 years when a ‘child’ is eligible for freedom—considered capable enough to attempt adult life. But, should you want entry into the corporate and/or professional world, ‘high’ school and college degrees are necessary to pass out of childhood and into ‘adulthood.’


Democracy and Hierarchical Structures

Many school administrators and school boards are out of touch with Nature’s intrinsic motivator. This is evidenced in their repeated decisions to clamp down on democratic freedoms and move more toward a corporate/military model of hierarchical structure. Hierarchies do not support democracy. Hierarchies flow toward control, toward the limitation of freedoms, toward social stratification (‘castes’), and are naturally supportive of dictatorships and tyrannies (the ‘top’ of the pyramid). Democracy supports a “man is inherently good and should be trusted” foundation of beliefs; hierarchies support a “man is basically evil and cannot be trusted” attitude. Hierarchies foster “me against you” and “us versus them” mentalities, which, in turn, create discord, disharmony, disparagement, disregard, disdain, dispute, distance, and disease. Hierarchies nurture isolation, distrust, hypervigilance, and fear. Democracy nurtures cooperation, collaboration, trust, mutual respect and appreciation, and love.
Don’t get me wrong: It is not my wish to eradicate all contraries. After all, it is only through contrasts and comparisons that we can really get to know our world. What would the yin be without the yang? How could we know goodness without knowing wrongness, joy without pain and suffering? But there comes a time when everyone learns to step back from the game of dualities, when one realizes that one has a choice—in every moment. We have the freedom to choose between optimism or pessimism, love or fear, joy or suffering, the perspective of ‘me’ or that of ‘us,’ between democratic principles or conformity to oppressive structures.
Which do you choose? Are you for democracy or not? Real democracy? Do you wish your children to learn what democracy is—what it feels like, how to practice it? Or do you want only the theory to be memorized for test regurgitation? If you’re at all like Kim Overton and me, you believe democracy is not only an attractive ideal but also an achievable practice.
Take notice of some of the issues challenging the world today. Then ask yourself, “If I were trying to prepare my child(ren) for the world out there, for the likely future, is this what I’d be teaching them/wanting them to learn? Is my child’s school truly preparing my child for the real world in which s/he will have to live?” Is it?