A school-wide Arab Spring is wishful thinking at best.
As a member of the student council, the author is at times disappointed with the exclusion of elected representatives of the student body in the governance of the school. While many schools claim to be preparing students for a flat classroom and real world experience, they often miss out on the biggest example of leadership that students are carefully quarantined from on a daily basis: the actual running of the school.
Enter democratic schools.
The concept of a democratic school dates back to the Summerhill School in England in the 1920s. Summerhill is a boarding school noted for its liberal way of thinking. All important school decisions are made by a town hall meeting of the entire school body, with faculty and students, on a weekly basis.
In a democratic school system, students have as much say in the direction of their education as faculty do. The system applies to disciplinary action too. A student is, instead of being called down to the headmaster’s office in your typical conservative educational affair, tried before a jury of his or her peers in a judiciary committee. Some democratic schools take the concept so far as to completely remove the concept of the classroom, with the school merely serving as the housing of the tools for learning.
Would such a system detract from the learning environment as a whole? Would we lament as a fine educational institution descends into a Lord of the Flies-esque situation? Actually, according to teachers who have taught at democratic schools, when students are given command of the judiciary branch of a school, the school rules “are taken much more seriously”.
While decentralizing classrooms and removing the concept of a class might startle some, teachers praise the mingling of students young and old. They point to the ubiquity of peer education as an example of one of the boons of a democratic schooling system.
So is such a system possible in international schools in Beijing?
Unfortunately, such wide-scale paradigm-shift in educational thinking does not occur overnight. To implement such changes requires a good amount of time for any rigid, conservative academic institution. As such, gradual changes are needed in order to give students more control of their learning environment. Schools can start by allowing children to be part of administrative and disciplinary hearings. Through a greater student body involvement in the decision-making of a school, students will gain a firm grasp in peer leadership and a greater sense of control over their education.
Education should be about children. Children should not be about education.
About UNIT-E
UNIT-E was founded in the spring of 2010 with the aim of establishing a non-profit, student-run magazine for international students in Beijing. Staffed by current students from a range of international schools, the magazine provides an amalgam of cultural tidbits, fragments of Beijing student life, and a broad spectrum of unique perspectives from a diverse group of young adults.
UNIT-E was founded in the spring of 2010 with the aim of establishing a non-profit, student-run magazine for international students in Beijing. Staffed by current students from a range of international schools, the magazine provides an amalgam of cultural tidbits, fragments of Beijing student life, and a broad spectrum of unique perspectives from a diverse group of young adults.
photo by UNIT-E
