Democratic Education is a worldwide movement towards greater decision-making power for students in the running of their own schools. There is no generally agreed definition of the term, but at the IDEC (International Democratic Education Conference) in 2005 the participants agreed on the following statement:
“We believe that, in any educational setting, young people have the right:
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- to decide individually how, when, what, where and with whom they learn
- to have an equal share in the decision-making as to how their organisations – in particular their schools – are run, and which rules and sanctions, if any, are necessary.”
The International Democratic Education Network (IDEN), is open to any school that upholds such ideals as these:
- respect and trust for children
- equality of status of children and adults
- shared responsibility
- freedom of choice of activity
- democratic governance by children and staff together, without reference to any supposedly superior guide or system
The European Democratic Education Community offers a briefer statement:
"There are two pillars of democratic education:
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- self-determined learning
- a learning community based on equality and mutual respect."
Read more about Democratic Education: History, Variety, Theory, Scholars
Famous quotes containing the words democratic and/or education:
“People think they have taken quite an extraordinarily bold step forward when they have rid themselves of belief in hereditary monarchy and swear by the democratic republic. In reality, however, the state is nothing but a machine for the oppression of one class by another, and indeed in the democratic republic no less than in the monarchy.”
—Friedrich Engels (1820–1895)
“... education fails in so far as it does not stir in students a sharp awareness of their obligations to society and furnish at least a few guideposts pointing toward the implementation of these obligations.”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)