Posted in on Dec 11, 2010 - 07:12 PM
Editor's Note: Kirsten Olson is the co-chair of the IDEA Board of Directors and a guest blogger for IDEA. She also writes at the group blog Cooperative Catalyst.It was an amazing meeting. Ten committed activists, educators, school founders, and school re-starters gathered for an IDEA Board Retreat in San Francisco last month. Fired up by Pedro Noguera's keynote speech to the Coalition of Essential Schools the day before, we framed up IDEA's commitments and strategy: how we move this baby out so we're actually doing something, making sure we're talking about what matters, and ensuring we're providing tools for change. Because we aim to be the organization in this country connecting people who are transforming and revolutionizing education, we had a lot to talk about.
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What have you done, as a classroom teacher, a student, a parent, an administrator, to make your school more equitable, less hierarchical, more welcoming to everyone, and more like a place where real thinking happens?
50 WAYS (or more!) MAKE YOUR SCHOOL MORE DEMOCRATIC
1. Invite 5 students to a faculty meeting
2. Eliminate staff and student bathrooms
3. Ask students to facilitate important school wide meetings
4. Start each day with a morning meeting and check in, and listen to each other. (How are you?
How are you feeling today?)
5. Ask students to develop rubrics for judging "excellent" work
6. End courses/units with a culminating projects designed by students, about something that really
matters to them
7. Have students read each other's papers and comment on them, directly to each other
8. Get students to determine the homework policy (even in the early grades)
9. Charge students with deciding what goes up on the walls at school
10. Pass a "talking stick" during intense discussions so that everyone gets a chance to speak
11. Eat lunch with kids (or teachers) you rarely talk to
12. Ask students to attend parent/teacher conferences
13. Ask students to evaluate themselves prior to parent/teacher conferences
14. Ask students to run parent/teacher conferences
15. Have everyone practice "yes/and" more than "no/but" (because success is available to everyone!)
We want to go for 50 (or hundreds) more suggestions, and then use them in our promotional
literature. Please let us know how you are making your school more democratic, or ways you wish your school were more democratic. Leave a comment!
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Comments
Dec 14, 2010 - 03:59 PM
Here is what we came up with…
34. Have small group multi-age group discussions about the challenges faced at each school.
35. All school clean-up, like what is done in Japan. Not as a punishment, but to foster community involvement.
Dec 25, 2010 - 01:55 AM
I think we left off with 38…
39. Have courses in which teachers and students learn together and peer review each other’s progress. Can be done with open courseware, teachers teaching classes with teachers *and* students as pupils, or simply the teacher offering revealing their own advancement of learning in a course. (In step with 28 & 29)
40. Have courses that allow students and teachers to involve themselves in their communities (organizing, speaking, aiding in community projects). Being an engaged citizen is a valuable component of democracy. Also, this creates a diversion from the norm of “community service” as a chore or punishment.
41. “Free dress” for everyone!
42. Co-teaching: Teachers and students cooperate to (as often as they see fit) mix grade levels covering the same topics, or even drop in on other subjects to have conversation about parallels and connections. This helps relieve age segregation and subject compartmentalization, which in larger society is not as extreme as it is in school.
43. Encourage students and teachers to use free media such as pod-casting, to examine school issues and promote ideas.
I also love the promotion of play time! I always feel sad when looking at the progression of people going through school, playing less and less in favor or more “age-appropriate” “maturity.” I’ve seen for sure that 12 to even 19 year olds (junior high, high school, young adults) like jungle gyms, trampolines, and other places to let out playful energy!
Scott Nine
Dec 13, 2010 - 02:41 PM
21. Replace standardized textbooks with student co-created ones using wiki technology and incorporating multimedia.
22. Take some time to just sit still, play, hike, sing, and laugh with students and across age groups.
23. Have everyone (teachers, principals, coaches, parents, school board members, administrators, and community leaders) take the standardized tests and report their scores right alongside the students and openly discuss everyone’s results together.
I’d rephrase number 11 to: Eat lunch with kids you rarely talk to and then listen generously.
Only one on the list I don’t jive with is the elimination of student and staff bathrooms. It isn’t a high priority to me and there are lots of compelling reasons to have them stay separate - despite the distance it does create.