Democratic Education

 

My Interest in Democratic Education

When a student first enters a classroom they are entering into a collection of individuals whose only observable commonality is that they share a relationship to their teacher; they are all students. Is the fact that they are students being educated by a teacher enough to ensure that they will have a positive and productive learning experience?  I feel strongly that no, it is not. So the question becomes, how does a teacher create a positive and productive learning experience?  I believe that by creating a strong community that fosters positive interaction between students, their teacher and learning will help to create more meaningful and impactful experience. 

Community to me refers to a situation in which a person feels a sense of belonging and purpose to a greater whole.  In order for a person to feel a sense of belonging and purpose they must be able to trust and feel appreciation from the greater whole.  In order for a person to trust and feel a sense of appreciation, they will need to participate with the whole.  In order for them to participate they must feel comfortable. A person would feel comfortable if they belonged to that community.  To me, building community is a cyclical process where each experience can strengthen, or potentially hinder, the strength of the community.  The role of a teacher is not only to educate the students but to foster a sense of community in order to build a more comfortable learning environment that encourages participation and active learning.

Community building has been a main professional focal point of my life for the last decade through my work at community centres.  My work experience has helped further my understanding of the importance of belonging and the benefits that occur for individuals who feel connected to a community; communities work as a giant support system that helps foster social, emotional, and social growth.  Coming into the education program, I wanted to ensure that I continued to foster a sense of community in my career through building community in the classroom. I wanted to do this because I believe that the overall benefits of community can have a strong impact on the learning process for several reasons:

• It is a proactive approach to preventing exclusion through fostering relationships between peers.

• Comfort levels are higher and help increase the likelihood of participation.

• Increased participation leads to more engaging and meaningful experiences.

My inquiry question therefore became: how can educators foster a sense of community within their classroom?

       I started searching for resources on community building in classrooms and found the term “democratic education” was frequently being used.  I found this term intriguing and began to try to familiarize myself with what it meant.  The more research I began to do, the more I realized that democratic education reflects what I want to capture and accomplish in a classroom through community building. 

       This inquiry project will examine democratic education further, paying particular attention to definitions of democratic education, the role of the student and teacher, the benefits in implanting democratic education as well as the challenges that are associated in doing so.  Lastly, I will be ending with questions this topic as left me with and how I will be taking what I have learned from this inquiry question and implementing it in a classroom.