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Why Don't Students in Democratic Schools Do More?

An email exchange on the IDEC list-serve

From Luke Flegg, an ex-student from Sands School School, Ashburton, UK

GOD it pissed me off in Sands (and probably even more now that I've left and I can see it from outside) how the students just sit on their ASSES all the time! They have so much opportunity there and the power to change so much, I want to see them doing more community and active political stuff, outreach stuff. I just wish they put some effort and initiative into more things, maybe doing sponsored things to raise money for something, or doing a big project on something interesting going on in a 3rd world country. Hardly anything seems to extend outside of the school. The last thing I remember them organising was a composting and recycling system. which is great but I wish they just got a bit more involved.

I think it's basically the condition of youth, and is reflected at IDECs (International Democratic Education Conference) too . . . they all go to a school like that, and go to IDECs because they do care, but hardly any of them show it. It's also a major influence thing – you occasionally get a class of people (usually the oldest year) who are really on the ball and proactive and inspire the younger groups, showing them what a bit of effort can do.

Reply from Moe Zimmerberg, a staff member at the Tutorial School, New Mexico

Luke, I've also wondered about this phenomenon. Perhaps this is the similarity that our schools share in working primarily with older students. I have had several theories, none of which completely satisfy me:

1. Regardless of the harm being done to them, the students in the local government schools (we call them public schools here) that can adapt and deal with the system will usually stay in these schools because they don't cost money. We get the students that have been beaten down by the system and spend their years at our school healing and building their self-esteem.

2. Teenagers are working on developing a sense of self separate from their parents and this requires a certain amount of self-absorption.

3. Being active in the world is preceded by a period of inactivity, and we provide a place for that. Or you could say that first the students need to know themselves and what they want to do. This takes time and some internal focus. Periods of internal focus appear on the outside as "just sitting on the couch."

4. After years of being told what to do, people will be relatively inactive until they figure out that they need to tell themselves what to do.

5 The staff is not modelling self-motivated behaviour.

6. All of our focus on self and individualism is taking everyone's focus away from the outside world.

7 The school is too much fun.

8. They just don't realise (like really realise, not just with their minds) that they have the power and the opportunity to make huge changes in their lives and the world. Remember, we've been consciously disempowering people for the last several thousands of years.

These are the thoughts we've had over the years. Doing a school without dogma is to be always alternating between certainty and doubt.

 

 

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