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Concept
Democratic education
Summary
Democratic education is a type of formal education that is organized democratically, so that students can manage their own learning and participate in the governance of their school. Democratic education is often specifically emancipatory, with the students' voices being equal to the teacher's.
The history of democratic education spans from at least the 17th century. While it is associated with a number of individuals, there has been no central figure, establishment, or nation that advocated democratic education.
In 1693, John Locke published Some Thoughts Concerning Education. In describing the teaching of children, he declares,
None of the things they are to learn, should ever be made a burthen to them, or impos'd on them as a task. Whatever is so propos'd, presently becomes irksome; the mind takes an aversion to it, though before it were a thing of delight or indifferency. Let a child but be order'd to whip his top at a certain time every day, whether he has or has not a mind to it; let this be but requir'd of him as a duty, wherein he must spend so many hours morning and afternoon, and see whether he will not soon be weary of any play at this rate.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau's book of advice on education, Émile, was first published in 1762. Émile, the imaginary pupil he uses for illustration, was only to learn what he could appreciate as useful. He was to enjoy his lessons, and learn to rely on his own judgement and experience. "The tutor must not lay down precepts, he must let them be discovered," wrote Rousseau, and urged him not make Émile learn science, but let him discover it. He also said that we should not substitute books for personal experience because this does not teach us to reason; it teaches us to use other people's reasoning; it teaches us to believe a great deal but never to know anything.
While Locke and Rousseau were concerned only with the education of the children of the wealthy, in the 19th century Leo Tolstoy set up a school for peasant children. This was on his own estate at Yasnaya Polyana, Russia, in the late 19th century.
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