Elementary school children in 75 schools in 63 U.S. cities have
set up their own classroom rules using what's called The Responsive
Classroom approach. Since they make the rules, the children seem
eager to stick to them -- and so discipline problems go down.
In each class, the children start each school year with a freewheeling
discussion of their hopes and dreams for the year ahead. Their
teacher asks them what rules would help these hopes come true.
Brainstorming produces a long list, which their teacher helps
boil down to three or four positively-framed rules. In schools
where the approach is being used school-wide (there are 17 now),
teachers together play-act as unruly students, for their assembled
youngsters -- who quickly point out the problems with the teachers'
behavior: running, not paying attention to safety, not lining
up properly. Watching from the outside what happens when their
agreements are broken, the children learn that these agreements
are significant and mean something. The results of the approach
are environments in which children are cooperative, responsible,
empathetic, and calmer and more supportive of one another, basically
enabled to manage themselves, freeing their teachers to teach
curriculum. Creating and practicing classroom rules is as much
a part of education for a democracy as science and social studies.
In her "consensus classrooms,"
teacher Linda Sartor went even further. All major classroom decisions
which she previously made, were made by consensus of all her students
and her. They even decided what to do for homework and what to
study to fulfill established curriculum requirements in the classroom
time mandated for each subject. Although some decisions have been
long and hard in the making, "once a decision is made that
everyone agrees to," says Sartor, "there is 100% participation
with no opposition draining energy from the activity."
COMMENTARY: One hallmark of a democratic culture is that people
don't take social rules and activities for granted. Democratic
citizens know that rules and much of public life arise from democratic
process and popular involvement -- or at least they know this
should be the case.
Since (from a co-intelligent perspective) people co-create their
shared social environment -- whether they know it or not -- it
helps to do this co-creation consciously. Democracy institutionalizes
the process. Children raised in Responsive (or consensus) Classrooms
would probably be less likely to accept arbitrary authority
-- while at the same time being more agreeable to legitimate
democratic authority. I find the fact that this is happening
in elementary grades very exciting. What would it be like if integrated
training in (not for) democratic citizenship
were part of all grades, with students taking increasing responsibility
for co-creating their educational communities as they mature?
What would it be like if they learned how to operate in councils
and conferences to wrestle with thorny school and educational
issues? What would these young people be like when the grew
up to be adult citizens? What would their communities be like?
How would they change the world?
The Responsive Classroom, Northeast Foundation for Children (413)
772-2066.