Democratic Education

(Talk for the staff of the education department at the University of East Anglia, Norwich 2005)
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As soon as I retired in 1992 at the age of 60, I began to hear of other democratic schools in other parts of the world, and I discovered that most of them believed themselves to be almost unique. If I didn't know about them, and they didn't know about each other, I don't think it is unreasonable to suppose that many of them will be new to most of you as well. I shall therefore spout a list of some the places I have actually visited, with their most striking characteristics, to give you an idea of the extent of the development of the idea of democratic education worldwide.

After Dartington and Sands I thought I was way out on the extremes of liberal ideas in education, but soon found out how wrong I was.

At Sudbury Valley School in the USA, for instance, it is not just that there are no compulsory lessons – there are no lessons at all. If you are a pupil there and you want to learn something you have either to study it on your own or find an adult who is willing to help you. Alongside this extreme freedom as regards learning, there is an elaborate system of rules, devised by the school community, and punishments are dealt out by the so-called Justice Committee of pupils and staff, which meets as often as necessary – sometimes several times a week.

Hadera Democratic School is in Israel; surprisingly enough there is a big movement towards the democratisation of education in Israeli schools, and Hadera is the leading example. It has a less conspicuous but similar justice system to Sudbury Valley, but it offers rich range of classes and activities which children attend if they wish to.

Tamariki, in New Zealand, only takes children up to the age of 13, when they have to go on to conventional high schools. The first head teacher, June Higginbottom, refused to deal with children's disagreements and complaints about each other's behaviour; she said they must handle them themselves. What emerged was a system of small meetings, which are called whenever there is a problem. If someone knocks over your sand-castle and continues to spoil your play even after you have said, formally, "I request you not to knock over my sandcastles", or whatever it may be, you call a meeting of children who are nearby. The meeting will probably involve four or five children, one of whom will take the chair, and a decision is taken as to how the problem can be solved.

The Kleingruppe Lufingen in Switzerland was run by Jürg Jegge, whose books are virtually unknown in this country, in spite of the fact that his first book, "Dummheit ist lernbar" sold over a hundred thousand copies in German. The Kleingruppe consisted of six children who no other school would take. Dummheit ist lernbar means Stupidity is learnable. Jegge found child after child who had been as it were trained to be a problem. Children became stupid because they were told they were stupid, they told lies because they were categorised as liars, they were insolent because someone had taught them that that was what they were. If they were able to stay long enough with Jegge, they usually recovered.

Tokyo Shure in Japan represents an extreme in a different direction: it is for school refusers, of which there a great many, because of the savage pressure in conventional Japanese education. Pupils who are enrolled at Tokyo Shure therefore have no obligation to attend. The school is just open from half past nine or so in the morning until seven o'clock in the evening; it offers a rich programme of activities and lessons requested by the children, and they find they want to be there. Some go back into conventional schools, some go on to university, some leave to go into the world of work.

Butterflies, in Delhi, is even more extreme. It is an organisation for street and working children, and it has no school buildings. The street educators have big trunks of teaching materials – some attractive games, posters and work cards but also slates and chalk – which they bring to agreed places at agreed times, and any children who want to come may attend. They have to want to come very badly, because any time spent with the street educators is earning time lost, and the street children generally earn only just enough to survive. The working children, who sleep at home in the shanty-towns with their parents, may get beaten for not having earned enough money during the day. When I visited Butterflies in 2001 there were 800 children who attended.