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The Educator's Role
The Student's Role

The main role of the student in a democratic classroom is to participate; this includes: “rais[ing] important questions…participat[ing] in decision making… tak[ing] responsibility for the decisions they take and… participat[ing] in the evaluation of the whole process” (Ekholm, 2004, p.108). Examples of how this role unfolds vary; it could be as small as having a class vote to go outside or not, to providing students with academic freedom.

       The teacher’s role in a democratic classroom is to create an environment that promotes democratic education.  They pay particular attention to the promotion of student participation through developing students’ “progressive development of competence [in]…pupil oriented methods” (Jorgeensen, 2004, p.114). In other words, a teacher encourages student contributions and acts as a facilitator in the development of a student community and the development of student learning.  Jorgeensen outlines a “Participation Ladder” that starts at level one where “[a]dults control: adults take all the decisions and children are informed” to level to where “[c]hildren decide: children make decisions and adults are only involved in children ask for help” (Jorgensen, 2004, p.119).  The level of a democratic classroom lies in the role of the adult where the more adult participation leads to a less democratic classroom and vice versa.

       Similar to Jorgeensen’s “Participation Ladder” that outlines the varying degrees of teacher involvement, Macbeth outlines “Six Stages” where stage one is the least democratic and stage six is the highest form:

  • “Stage 1: delivering the curriculum. Fitting with the traditional role of the teacher as passing on curricular content from one who knows to those who don’t.

  • Stage 2: beginning to discuss with pupils the purposes and objectives of what they are learning. What is the objective of your learning?

  • Stage 3: involving pupils in considering and writing down indicators but which to measure their achievement. How will you know when you have learned something?

  • Stage 4: involving pupils in assessing their own and others’ work. How good is this piece of work? What criteria can be used to judge it?

  • Stage 5: pupils become determiners of learning. They make decisions about the when, how and what of classroom learning. What is the best way to do this?

  • Stage 6: collaborating with pupils as learning partners. What shall we do together to improve the conditions, processes and evaluation of our learning” (MacBeath, 2004, p.43-44)

Roles of Those Involved in Democratic Education

 

 

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