Democratic Education

The human race does indeed have a virtually limitless degree of potential to continue developing some truly amazing technologies, philosophies and practices. But this potential can only go so far as the educational opportunities that we have. While we already have some massive shoulders of giants from which to stand upon, we will be severely limiting ourselves if we do not continue to research, develop and actually apply some improved educational standards and practices. Fortunately, the main points of democratic education have been proving to provide a very sound foundation from which to build off of.

While there are indeed a wide variety of very important components of democratic education that are in play, an overall view of this specific type of democratic based education holds that learning and school governance should feature a free and equal participation by both the students and the staff. This means that in a democratic school, both the students and the teachers would share in the decision making process in regards to living, working, and learning together. This is, of course, not to say that the students would be autonomous from the teachers nor would they be the ones actually giving the lessons, but it does indeed mean that the students would have a much greater degree of influence and would have a stronger presence in the classroom. A democratic education holds that there is great degree more that we can learn from students than that which is often given credence.

This also brings up the important issue of democratic supervision in education. While a democratic based education maintains that there is no set compulsory uniform curricula, the supervision factor would be set in place to help insure that the democratic principles do indeed continue to be seamlessly infused within the educational platform of democratic schools.

Furthermore, globalisation and democratic education also continues to be yet another very important element that we should all make sure we give very careful consideration to. A recurring issue for American students is the dominance of an egocentric view of the world. But top democratic educators hope to open the eyes of our students to foster a much more worldly and interconnected view.

In addition, the democratic principles in education would also nurture a much stronger emphasis on learning as a natural product of all human activity. This includes the integration of a free market of ideas, free conversation, and the interplay of students and staff.

And all of these issues definitely tie into the democratic view on foreign policy, where diplomacy would rule over strong-arm tactics.