Psst… Hey teachers… Let’s teach civics in our classrooms every single day.

As a nation celebrates the final electoral votes tallying a Biden win this morning, I can’t help but think about the role of public education and the way Americans fundamentally understand our most sacred right and responsibility: our right to choose our leaders through a process of free and fair elections. If we’ve learned anything in the past 4 years, perhaps it’s that democracy is fragile, and thrives when protected and deeply understood.

When we see that our students don’t understand something we have taught, we remediate. We course correct. Have you felt like me lately? Do Americans understand our form of representative democracy? Native born Americans are born with an extraordinary set of rights. Who properly educates American citizens and American children of the responsibilities of our populace? Guys, we do.

I’m not talking about facilitating student body elections or creating a school-wide senate, necessarily. I don’t mean asking kids to vote on which movie they want to watch on movie day. These are, of course, important ways to boost student voice. I’m talking about choices that are more engrained; daily management/environment/procedural choices; the messy sharing of control that instills the rights and responsibilities of American democracy.

What if you envisioned your classroom as a small democracy? What if our students practiced democracy in their classroom year after year? Further, what if they knew they deserved it? Wouldn’t they be infinitely better equipped to go out in the world to replicate it? What if living in a democratic society was second nature to our students because of the instinctual procedural practices inherent in a democratic classroom, from passing out, turning in, taking turns, making decisions, groupwork, and even attendance taking? What if democracy was confirmed by the day-to-day practices within normal classroom activities, or worse, what if democracy was denied in the classroom? What if we could properly identify the tenets of a respectful classroom, which could show our students how they could live together in a supportive democratic society? Could we make these principles concrete in our daily classroom practices? Would these principles translate into the attitudes and behaviors of democracy’s leaders, disruptors, and members? What if our students knew down to their cellular student level that all voices are valuable in a democracy? 13 years of public schooling equips our children to become citizens of the world we want.

It’s very doable. As long as we might humor ourselves to assign some rudimentary labels to our pursuits (like “environment” and “procedures,”) we might just see how they could snap together to make Democratic Schools a reality in a typical classroom, not just an option school, or some alternative model of instruction. It could even begin happening in a teacher’s first few years of teaching. The concepts aren’t for veteran teachers or phenoms; they’re replicable everywhere within limitations; and no special certification or training is necessary to run a democratic classroom.

Though it does not do justice to the book itself, there is a section in which the idea of a democratic school is defined by authors Apple and Beane. Though referred to as the principles of democratic schools, I see applicability in teachers creating and amending democratic school procedures within their own classroom. The procedures we employ become the actual environment.

7 Principles of Democratic Schools

1. The open flow of ideas, regardless of their popularity, that enable people to be as fully informed as possible.

2. Faith in the individual and collective capacity of people to create possibilities for resolving problems.

3. The use of critical reflection and analysis to evaluate ideas, problems, and policies.

4. Concern for the welfare of others and “the common good.”

5. Concern for the dignity and rights of individuals and minorities.

6. An understanding that democracy is not so much an “ideal” to be pursued as an “idealized” set of values that we must live and that must guide our life as a people.

7. The organization of social institutions to promote and extend the democratic way of life.

These are each possible on an individual classroom level, which is why I assumed the authors’ permission to interpret them as classroom management guidelines. I can show you the tip of the iceberg. As you enhance these suggestions, you will pass the work forward to uncertain colleagues who can’t believe what you’ve pulled off. As my last principal asked, “How the hell did you do that?”

Envisioning a democratic school and its opposite.

Imagine a school where kids are treated as though their voice matters. Community-wide decisions are made by committee, consensus, collaboration. Children’s ideas are put to the test. Mistakes are made, and from them, children receive feedback for improvement for the next time. Relationships are important. Trust among students is overseen, fostered by a supervising guide. Children’s trust in one another is important, just as their trust in the adults in the building. As children grow older, they choose the focus of project-based learning. In addition, as kids grow older and more mature, more of the control or ownership of the classroom is further imparted to them.

These kids would easily grow to be leaders in our democracy. The faith they would have in their ideas would inspire change. Innovation occurs when children are brought up thinking that schools are a place for creativity, collaboration, and feedback.

What about a school in which kids are controlled? Upwards feedback is stifled. Adults own all of the knowledge. Ideas are only good if they come from the person in charge. Kids’ failure terrifies the people in charge. Love isn’t lacking in this building. Rather, the adults here believe their highly structured practices are what the children need. Perhaps the staff lack other strategies to allow a more collaborative workspace, or perhaps the overall attitude of the school suggests that children like these need to “sit and get.” The pace and furious nature with which education is handled here speeds and becomes more rigid. Teachers worry for their underperforming students, and believe education is the way up for these children, which lies separate from constructivist, collaborative experiences. Kids only speak to their friends at recess because hallways are for silence, lessons are done independently after a lecture, and the only chance to interact with others is at break times, not as a mode of learning.

Earlier and more frequent exposure to democratic ideas will illuminate our classrooms as vibrant centers of meaning making, collaboration, and concern for the welfare of others. Attending a series of schools where a child is asked to “sit and get” his education might produce an 18 year old, who, finally allowed to participate in a democracy, is unaccustomed to the role expected of him. His voice has never yet mattered to an adult at an academic institution, so naturally he would be novice at the thought that his voice mattered to society. He might avoid speaking up regarding critical issues that affect his community, and the marginalization of his community might continue with the absence of his voice.

Alternately, if his teachers and schools were to have equipped him with a steady and powerful voice, certainty that his input mattered, and the moral obligation to step in to create meaning with his peers, his experience transitioning into democracy would be seamless.

Apple and Beane write: “… a democratic curriculum seeks to move beyond the ‘selective tradition’ of knowledge and meanings endorsed by the dominant culture, toward a wider range of views and voices (Williams 1961, Apple 1990). In a democratic society, no one individual or interest group can claim sole ownership of possible knowledge and meaning. Likewise, a democratic curriculum not only what adults think is important, but also the questions and concerns that young people have about themselves and their world. A democratic curriculum invites young people to shed the passive role of knowledge consumers and assume the active role of ‘meaning makers.’ It recognizes that people acquire knowledge by both studying external sources and engaging in complex activities that require them to construct their own knowledge.”

Who Deserves Democratic Schools?

What will the products, our children, be like at these learning sites and how will it be different than the previous school mentioned?

Have you seen either kind of school? What seems to be the socio-economic status of the children at each school you’ve seen?

Describe the environment you would choose for a child you dearly love, perhaps your own son or daughter, or the child of someone you know.

Who deserves each type of school? What determines what other people’s children deserve?

School to Prison Pipeline

Teachers can find themselves at one spot on a long continuum of shared control, or a sense of democracy, in the classroom. Different groups of children show you what sort of governance they “need.” One school type tends to produce a child who can innovate (is intelligent enough) and should innovate (needs to be heard.) Leaders often come from this sort of school. The graduates know their ideas to be of value to society. Children take this leadership with them when they leave the school campus to change the world.

American schools can find themselves perpetuating the mistaken idea that some voices are more important than others. These classrooms are staffed by teachers who feel compelled to produce fast and furious results — teachers who fear they don’t have time for Social Emotional Learning, teambuilding, community engagement, and authentic democratic experiences. They accidentally confirm that in a democratic society, only some voices deserve elevation. Some of our schools have become nothing short of a training grounds for prison. Think of everything you’ve learned about the School to Prison Pipeline, or learn more if you aren’t familiar with this phrase.

It’s like the yin and yang of a classroom’s environment and the teacher-chosen procedures overall. Did these children first show that a freer, more flexible environment isn’t easy for them yet? Did teachers assume that they didn’t deserve it in the first place and neglect teaching this independence? Of course a child learns less from a group project when working in groups is still difficult for a child and her peers. But maybe it’s difficult because she’s not yet had the chance. What came first? How is this cycle broken? Which children in our nation in our care for 13 years, each and every one of us should provide authentic opportunities to experience American democracy, and it’s easier than you might think.

During the No Child Left Behind years, these were the first schools to lose the arts, PE, and even recess minutes because of the brutal consequences the staff faced if the children underperformed on the test. Social, emotional, and behavioral learning time was often deemed unimportant, or perhaps important but time-consuming and messy. Teachers were encouraged to teach directly from the book in lockstep with colleagues across the district. Worst of all, the racial and socioeconomic implications reinforce stereotypes and perpetuate institutionalized racism. Deciding that more of an autocracy was appropriate, teachers may have inadvertently confirmed the racism of the institution.

How will a child see himself when he is told to raise his hand higher than that, to sit a certain way, who is forced to repeat what a teacher has said in choral fashion, who is forced to submit to uniform checks after walking through the campus on duct-taped lines, stopping and turning at the 90* angle while walking alone to the next class? He’s urged to assimilate to the majority cultural norms.

Does he feel that the people in power see a group of students looking like him as a dangerous sight? Will he see himself as just the right person to write to his congressman to affect change in his community? Will he see society as his to improve? Will he see this as his world? What power will he believe he is due? Does he feel inspired to innovate and lead? Where does he fit into a school system that only insists in his compliance, not his leadership? How can a school system better cultivate the extra time and teaching it takes to run a democratic classroom for all students? Certainly, we can’t believe it’s only for children of certain races and classes.

You must practice democracy in the classroom, just as you must practice music by using an instrument

Imagine a music class in which a child first studies the instrument. He measures it, he takes notes about it, he studies how it was created and by whom. He’s not allowed to touch the instrument, though. Touching it isn’t appropriate until much, much later, perhaps when he’s 18 and an adult, or at least 15 and getting his first job. Next, he studies the notes, reading music in books and via flash cards, but it’s crazy to think he might hold the instrument yet. The following year, he studies the fingerings, and pretends to play. After all, he can’t possibly touch the instrument yet because he’s just a child.

A better idea is to let the music get made as soon as possible. The first day of music class, we have kids learn about their instrument by doing: holding the instrument; learning to make the air go through; making noises to begin with; and receiving coaching to refine them. This is the work of making music. You learn as you go.

So goes the argument for allowing school to operate as democratic society, a tiny microcosm of American society. We can study the American system of government, but if we are not invited to live it, feel it, learn it authentically, we might not understand our rights as we age into the world and have obligations to its health and continuation. Schools should be allowed to prepare the kids in their steward for a future as a productive, meaningful life within the democracy. This work begins right in your classroom.

Democratic School Principles

If you have never read The Democratic Schools Reader, by Apple & Beane, let it be the next book on your list. The foundation of my Classroom Management course, with the ideals to learn, live and thrive in a democratic classroom, this book will give you new insights on each read through.

The book is an older text, but many of the notes I made on the sides haven’t changed in the 20 years since I read it the first time. Someone is always telling educators how to do what we know how to do best. We are punished for student failure, we are provided no further support or resource, we suffer yearly cuts to do our job, and it’s set to rhythm of a pendulum that overcorrects. What’s old becomes new again. The familiarity I feel each time I read, based on new legislation, curriculum, or best practices, is all at once heartbreaking and refreshing. Our goal is always to ready kids for American life and society.

My friend Dee, who has worked in education for nearly 40 years, doodles during staff meetings when he feels he’s heard it before. He draws out a carousel horse with careful detail, and he notes the training verbiage along the side of the page. His rationale to this drawing is simple. He says,

Every once in a while, we remove a horse from the carousel, give it a fancy new paint job, and advertise it like it’s brand new. Really, it’s the same old horse, but just looks a little different, and we can sell it like it’s brand new… Then we let it go round and round and round, until it needs a new paint job…

The lasting need in American life and society is to learn to live in a democracy, which is doable no matter our current education policy, curriculum mandates, and upcoming tests. Teachers next door might be bent on control, letting their students learn the intimacies of a dictatorship, but democracy is alive and strong in my classroom. I won’t allow a crop of kids to pass me by without knowing their value and power in society.

And it works. Visiting some old friends in the old neighborhood recently, one of my former students was asking for dad’s respirator, since she’d been recently gassed by her local police department while exercising her right to peaceably assemble. She had many teachers and an incredible family to make her as accepting of others as she is as a college freshman. While she was in my class for a few formative elementary school years, though, her voice mattered. I told her dad I’m just too tired and old to drive downtown to protest! What’s wrong with me?? He reassured me Are you kidding me? She’s this way because of you! She’s who she is because of teachers like you! She is, and always was, a kind, loving, empathetic child who loves humanity. In my care, she learned that the world had better take her seriously. She learned that this world is hers to improve.

What do you think is meant by a democratic approach? Does a round of student elections fit into this approach? Do you envision voting about every decision? If you’re envisioning a student council, are you already wondering how you’ll prevent it from becoming a popularity contest?

How do all the small things fit into this idea of democracy? Can attendance, lunch count, and small classroom policies confirm and/or deny the democracy your students experience?

Be honest: do you envision chaos? Conflict? Gridlock? How comfortable are you with your definition of democracy, absent our government’s current and past examples?

If students wanted not to have to do work in your class, is that their right in a classroom democracy? Does a classroom democracy necessarily assume that the teacher is equal to her students?

I have said nothing terribly unique. All teachers want our students to do well when they leave us. Being thanked for what we offered a child as she grew into an awesome adult feels amazing. None of us want to perpetuate any systemic racism. No one wants children in our care to feel unwelcome or unimportant. Summers are nice, but changing the world is way better. Following is an iceberg tip. Each of the 7 Democratic Schools (*and I argue Democratic Classroom,) principles are discussed below, and simple enough to implement today.

Principle 1: The open flow of ideas, regardless of their popularity, that enables people to be as fully informed as possible.

It can be challenging for our students to truly hear one another in a fast-paced world. Every person and every screen are competing for our children’s attention.

I think of young preschoolers who prefer “parallel play,” who enjoy being near one another, but are not yet entirely sure how to play together. Kindergartners and many younger students in the primary grades often tend to “parallel talk.” It must be the turn-taking that comes first, since I hear lots of young voices, one at a time, patiently taking turns during classroom conversations and collaboration. Each verbal offering usually winds up being another unique thought. Each one generally starts the same way: “I think…” and to mix it up, some kids say it with emphasis on the I: “Well, I think…”

The parallel nature to the verbal contributions usually improves as teachers provide the appropriate coaching. We have older groups who seem to never have actually learned to communicate interpersonally, often because of lack of practice or lack of coaching. We can also witness highly successful verbal collaboration among extremely young learners, who’ve had plenty of experience and coaching to interact with peers in verbal collaboration. That coaching is easier than we might think.

Give kids phrases to link their ideas. I like to provide my students with role cards for discussions. You can have question askers, summarizers, timekeepers, microphones (kids who ask the quieter kids what they think,) and topic captains (steer a tangential discussion back to the subject.) We can provide kids with different sentence starters like “I agree with… because…” or “I had a clarifying question for… when you said… can you talk more about…” Teachers can print out the rules for the speaker and the listener, pair them up with titles (salt and pepper, Chinook and Coho, factors and multiples, or even just 1s and 2s) and keep time for each child to speak and listen. Even simple things like declaring a “turn and talk” when we’re trying to elevate student voice during a lesson, thereby giving every child a chance to not just listen but to speak as well, can add practice of exchanging ideas. We can remove such supports when our students show they’re not needed anymore. At a certain point, we see our students can hear one another, create ideas together, and we can even take a step back. Any lesson can be amended to allow students to speak to one another, rather than harvest answers from one student at a time.

Another way we can foster an environment in which ideas can flow is to host meetings within our classroom. The Responsive Classroom has a very supportive framework to understanding the social and emotional curriculum within our classes. The authors teach us how to integrate the morning meeting into our classrooms.

In addition to games, greetings, and teaching our students to communicate with one another, we can also host meetings to identify, discuss, and solve our community issues. In a 3rd, 4th, 5th grade multiage class I taught one year, we had a weekly class meeting to discuss the State of the Classroom. If anyone had a parking lot item throughout the week, it could be brought up during this once weekly meeting. To be considered for the agenda, a student must phrase the item in just a few words, frame it positively, and then facilitate the conversation. The idea was to lay out the situation, ask for others to add what concerns they had, and then ask for a brainstorming time to begin. This usually included a turn and talk, and then voluntary contributions. When the leader of the topic sensed that we could, we would then vote. Topics were sometimes quite serious, like “I don’t like when it’s loud in here and I can’t think during reading time,” and occasionally were just forward thinking plans, like “I would love to bring in cookies for our Valentine’s Day party, but I didn’t want to choose the recipe until I knew of any of our food allergies.”

These meetings, and the general idea of getting our students to do most of the day-to-day maintenance of running a classroom, will always reflect the maturity, age, and practice of your group of students. Age appropriate opportunities to practice democracy in the younger years allowed this to be possible in 3rd, 4th and 5th grades.

Your turn. How can you support your students in expressing their ideas? How can you protect the voices of the minority? How can you elevate student voice in your classroom? How can you introduce opposing viewpoints and ask your students to think critically about two sides of an argument? If you can help your students embrace many thoughts about the world around them, your students will recognize it in the world, and as well, your students will recognize when groups refuse to accept the ideas of others. You hold amazing power in helping your students learn this important part of a democratic society!

Principle 2: Faith in the individual and collective capacity of people to create possibilities for resolving problems.

Children can handle much of a classroom’s management. According to Phillip Jackson, who wrote Life in Classrooms,

“…elementary teachers have 200 to 300 exchanges with students every hour (between 1200–1500 a day), most of which are unplanned and unpredictable calling for teacher decisions, if not judgments.” (p 149)

In short, teaching because it is a “opportunistic” — neither teacher nor students can say with confidence what exactly will happen next — requires “spontaneity and immediacy” (p 166, 152)

If we could deflect just a small portion of those exchanges per hour, we could equip our students with dozens of problem solving opportunities per hour, producing a more independent and interdependent class.

I want a classroom that feels rich with Community, Growth, Support, Risks, Enjoyment, Collaboration, Work, Comfort, Calm, Peace, Joy, Partnership, and Success. So when I’m asked a question about what we’re doing, I can refer a child to a friend. When a child says, “Should last night’s homework go into turn in bin A or B?” I can let him choose, and I ask him to make that announcement to the class. If a group tells me they’ve finished up the project they were working on and wonders what they should do next, I can respond with a guess of how much time is left and invite them to find a meaningful way to spend those remaining minutes.

If you have ever seen a stressed-out teacher, has it also often been a teacher who is in charge of most classroom tasks? In the early days, I found the classroom calendar to be a joyful way I’d switch to a new month. I loved correcting papers. I spent hours making new bulletin boards. Newsletters were fun for me back then. In seeing how much of my time these tasks were taking up, I happily passed these jobs to students as I realized I could empower children to captain their own classroom. Admittedly, it was also a lazy maneuver in the beginning. I decided I’d let some of the keep-me-busy types busy with something that could get me home for dinner each evening. However, something downright magical began happening the more my students were given faith to collectively provide the solutions and plans for their own class. The older my students have become, the less they and I care about calendars, newsletters, and bulletin boards. The children are still deeply interested in autonomy, independence, and interdependence. But now my students’ interest is more meaningful, and often school-wide, than calendars.

It’s messy. That’s ok.

My son, famously, had a standing desk in kindergarten, and used to roll around on the floor for the sensory and motor input he needed. He’d then get back to work. Once, on a school tour, our PTA president was showing off the kindergarten to a curious family when he did this maneuver. The PTA president was bombarded with “what the heck?” by the parents visiting, and her response was perfectly accurate: The kindergarten teachers have taught the children to take their own biological breaks and then get back to work, knowing all kids need some freedom and flexibility to perform their best. She didn’t know it, but she was educating the visiting parents of the merits of a democratic classroom.

The visiting family had a quiet, meek daughter, who was compliant in every way. They may not have understood my son’s need to roll around before feeling he could get back to work. To them, it was a downright free for all: kids had freedom within their environment, trust to do work as they could, and children were provided flexible seating and standing. Children were taught to get their needs met and get their work done. Apparently, my son stood up, shook out his face and shoulders like Keanu Reeves in Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, and then returned to his assignment. The PTA president said to me, “thank goodness he got back to work,” because even though she trusted the staff completely, it was weird to her to see a kiddo rolling around, as well. When he got right back to work, she played it super smoothly, unknowingly advocating for a democratic classroom.

It is messy. It isn’t efficient. It can be chaotic. And as a teacher sees the necessity in the democratic classroom, one sees the mess, inefficiency, and chaos in democracy itself. It’s ok to resist the messy parts of a democratic classroom, and it’s ok to deny yourself the risks therein when you’re designing procedures that confirm a democratic classroom. Your tolerance for the mess will grow as you see how your tiny democracy brings out the best in your students and you.

Now, you. How will you tolerate a messier environment as you impart some of the decision making opportunities to the children in your care? What problems can you contrive to give children opportunities to solve problems? When you consider the day-to-day problems that arise in a typical classroom, how can you share the load with the children you teach? I couldn’t run a marathon tomorrow, but if you put me on a training regimen, I could be ready one day. How will children be more ready to solve society’s problems if they are offered the chances to solve the problems of the classroom? How much mess can you tolerate to deliver that important learning opportunity?

Principle 3: The use of critical reflection and analysis to evaluate ideas, problems, and policies.

I referenced a statistic that suggests 200–300 exchanges in the course of an hour. It explains how the older I get, the more tiring I find a day of school. I see it as my role not to answer the questions that I don’t need to answer. This is the “See three before you see me” policy many teachers employ. I even made a necklace so I could remove my verbal repetitions. It says, “Which two students did you already ask?” I hold it up when my frequent fliers approach.

Sometimes kids really do need me: May I visit the nurse? Do you know where the compost bin is? May I stay in during recess because I don’t have a coat today? But more often than not, I’m not the only one in the room that needs to be the gatekeeper. These questions have answers that can be found within the dictionary, the text in question, a peer, or even some written instructions on the wall.

The collaborative classroom meeting about this didn’t land so well for about 4 of my high performing, chatty boys that year. I assigned a token to each child, to promote the idea of approaching the teacher only meaningfully throughout the day. I issued a green marble to each child and told them that if they had just one chance to interact with the teacher for a day, how might they spend that token? Ethan asked me the date, I took his marble, and then he said, “oh shoot, can I get that back? It’s not even 9:00.” Later that day, Lucy came to me with a marble, dropped it into my hand, told me how much she loved being in my class and proceeded to tell me 3 specific reasons why. Considering all of the “what’s the date?” questions I am asked in a day, it was a true delight to be approached only a handful of times that day, and completely lovely to be given a compliment.

Is it democratic to use a marble? I’m not sure. But the principle is “to evaluate ideas, problems and policies,” through critical reflection and analysis. Stating the preference to be approached only meaningfully, and teaching the children the math associated with hundreds of approaches in just one hour, my students still didn’t create the environment I wanted. The marble acted as a procedure that could cultivate the environment I sought. The goal had a democratic element to it, as I pursued the children evaluating ideas, problems, and policies without bogging me down in minutiae. Lessons need support. It’s ok that the microcosm of democracy in our classroom isn’t yet a true democracy. Children learn lots of lessons in increments. I suppose I acted as the autocrat when I issued the marbles. I analyzed a problem in our room and put a carefully placed obstacle in the kids’ way. Formerly, the children behaved as if I was there to serve and solve, and it was problematic to our community because I was exhausted and cringing when students came near me. I constantly had a line near me of kids with questions that didn’t have to be answered by me. They also saw me as the only person in the room who could possibly solve a problem.

What a mistake. In society, we practice interdependence with one another. You deliver the mail; I’ll teach the kids; she’ll protect our health; he’ll watch the health of the planet; and together we need each other. We’re better together. Interdependence in the classroom is no different. You’re great at math; I’ll help you check your spelling; she’ll represent us at ASB; he’ll help you when you were absent; and together we benefit from one anothers’ expertise. The platform is available right there, every single day in American classroom life. Are we leveraging it?

Ethan, ever a good sport, still forgot when it was a question for me and when I should be spared. We developed a fun non-verbal game of sorts. He would come my way, make eye contact, and jokingly, I’d hold out my “give me that marble” hand, and he’d act like he was coming over to sharpen his pencil. “Oh, I’d never ask you how many paragraphs we’re doing right now… no… I’d probably just look on the board where, yup, right there, it says this is 3 paragraphs… I was just coming over here to sharpen this pencil right here…” His course correction was slower than his peers, but still his own doing over time.

In addition to analysis of the problem and realignment of the procedures, I had overwhelming faith in my class’ ability to design solutions and new paradigms to reinvent our classroom culture. The marble, representative of a procedure I invented as an obstacle to force problem solving, was a scaffold for our community to better achieve the environment we pursued, since citing the expectation wasn’t enough. A procedure created the environment, just as the environmental goal defined the gap we experienced.

About your class: Can you provide opportunities for your students to reflect on their educational atmosphere? Are you able to share the control of your environment with your students? Can reflection be used as a tool to foster metacognition in your environment? If our students can think about the day-to-day operations in a classroom, isn’t it logical that they would then be able to be change agents in society at large? I promise you, if you learn to drop a problem in their hands, their ingenuity will leave you craving future instances of student leadership and problem solving.

Principle 4: Concern for the welfare of others and “the common good.”

Lots of ideas come to mind here. Rather than share one anecdote, let me share with you how I’ve seen teachers do this in all of the buildings I’ve worked.

Lisa teaches her children to care for our community’s homeless. She writes grants to get her students fabric to make hats and scarves for one another and homeless adults around town. She also collects socks and undies and everything the shelter asks for, teaching her students and our school community that when we realize we’re lucky, we help those in need.

Cassy hosts fundraisers throughout the whole grade and sets money aside for children to have help going to camp.

Schools can offer creative payment options for extras. At one school where I worked, after school classes were charged with a sliding scale. We suggest you pay this amount but you can choose a different amount (higher or lower) if you want to ask for help or provide help. This is how all field trips were funded, as well.

Steve build a collaboration with a nearby senior center. He established a program called GrandPals, in which students read aloud to a GrandPal, a senior at a nearby retirement home. It was good for the elderly to have visitors, and it was good for the children to have a private reading audience. They practiced listening with cotton in their ears and read through glasses that were smeared in vasoline to see what it was like for the GrandPal to see and hear them.

Juli’s students enjoy their general education time during sing along. Juli runs a Special Needs classroom that visits the other children during sing along times, and favorites of her physically and cognitively disabled students are preferred favorites of the other children, who delight in seeing Juli’s students so happy.

Kids know Kristin misses them when they’re gone. Kristin does attendance each day, wondering aloud, “I wonder where he is? I hope everything is ok!” and “oh no, it’ll be a boring day around here without her!” And “Has anyone seen our friend, Emily, yet today?”

Karyn teaches environmental stewardship. She and her team started a marker recycling program with her 2nd grade class, following their passion about landfill reduction and potential steps kids can take.

The sky is the limit. Kids need to know how to respect one another and seek solutions for the common good. How will it translate to empathy and leadership in society at large, when our students are shown that they have a responsibility to their fellow human beings?

The hard work for teachers is to remember to make time for these ideas. We will never satisfy each curricular department. Department heads for each curricular area have clearly not discussed the length of the school day with other department heads. We can create the time necessary to help our students create the community in which they learn. We foster opportunities to practice the idea of the common good. It’s at least as important as lesson 4.3 out of the math curriculum or investigation 6 out of the science unit. You can do it all.

Psst… if you have a tricky administrator, who isn’t into these ideas, try literacy integration. Teaching children to be stewards of their community through lively literature and soul-searching writing projects fits nicely into the current learning standards. The last standards also supported literacy integration. The next ones will, as well. Plus, it’s your classroom. Shut the door and do right by your students.

Principle 5: Concern for the dignity and rights of individuals and minorities.

I once worked at an extremely wealthy school, and one of my dear friends asked me if it felt as important as working at a place that served homeless kids and kids living in poverty. Its diversity was of different racial makeup. It lacked much socio-economic diversity.

I actually found that work to be very thrilling, in that I saw myself as a disruptor of the status quo. White kids have asked me questions like, “How do I deal with the fact that I have ancestors who owned slaves?” All kids need teachers who aren’t afraid to host difficult, age-appropriate conversations about race, but working in a predominantly white school, I found myself working with perhaps our biggest group in need of frank conversations about privilege. I think that because it can be tricky to talk about race, sometimes teachers punt the conversation to the next educator. Maybe they can talk about this when they’re older. Maybe the next teacher will know how to talk about this. As an unapologetic disruptor, I found myself drawn to the conversations with kids who haven’t yet lived much of a crisis of oppression, either due to youth, affluence, or protection from mature topics. These students are highly likely to have a voice that is heard in our public discourse, and these kids are susceptible to not understanding the obstacles of people who don’t look like them. To my friend, I explained all of this, mentioning that it felt at least as important to encourage majority, affluent children to see it as their role to care for society’s individuals, especially those who belong to historically marginalized and/or oppressed groups.

“I won’t complain about this anymore.”

I taught a Pacific Northwest Coast Native American unit of study to 3 groups of 4th graders. I taught it in 3 rotations: life and culture of the PNW Indian prior to first contact; contact and after contact; and then a StoryPath on the Since Time Immemorial website called “Life at Celilo.”

In the summative project, children were to capture a change of heart after learning about the Native American experience on the PNW coast. One child wrote the most exquisite turning point. I should’ve photocopied his work, but unfortunately, I didn’t think to. I recall the sentiment. It was something like:

My family and I like to go crabbing when the season begins. Usually the Duwamish tribe members get to go crabbing first, which I used to think was terrible and unfair. I thought we were all supposed to be equal, so why should some people get special rights? Now I think I understand the pain that Native Americans felt then and still feel. Allowing the tribe first access to crabs seems not only very reasonable, but also maybe not even enough. I won’t complain about this anymore.

Many of his classmates drew lovely pictures of children holding hands across races, citing that we should just all love one another. Those changes of heart were lovely (and truthfully, a way that they were already living.) But this change, presented by Finley, was more mature and powerful than I was seeking.

What’s Fair?

Kids in our care will often be looking for us to be equal in our policies and procedures. It isn’t fair that she gets stickers on her card and I don’t have a card. I don’t know why he gets to do less homework. Why does she get the special wiggle cushion and I don’t? Anyone who has spent their time in the presence of children has heard every iteration.

Explanations that work for older kids and adults often hold no water with children. Small children don’t care that life’s not fair. They don’t care that sometimes the answer is no. In my experience, there is one explanation that works very well for nearly all children:

Fair isn’t everyone getting the same thing. Fair is when everyone gets what they need to be successful.

Anyone with a sibling could tell you that parents inherently parent each child in the family differently, and most will tell you that it wasn’t fair, usually skewed against the one telling the anecdotes. Frequently, parents are trying to parent to the needs of each child. Teachers know this. A child who feels cheated can’t necessarily see that while one child gets more help, both children ultimately reach their goals. If the teacher is the professional obstacle lifter to access a child’s best work, it follows that each child’s obstacles are different. The volume and type of help are different, but the outcome is the success of each sibling and each student.

Works for me: must be equality.

The difference between equality and equity is the key to helping students understand why things seem unfair. I see equality as a blanket of sameness. Equality is what we believe we have with one another in a society when that society is currently working for us. When we see our face in the leaders who lead us and the actors and artists who entertain us, we might think that everyone should agree with the equality we perceive we have been granted.

Children can frequently call out adults for being unfair, which I recommend we rephrase as “unequal.” As often as needed, I make changes to each child’s educational menu. The expectations for each student changes based on a complex run of data to get the child to the Zone of Proximal Development without sending him or her into despair. This means that some kids get to do Khan Academy rather than this hard puzzle. Some kids get to play that fun math game rather than this packet. Some kids get to work with the parent volunteer all the time, and not everyone gets to share in her time and talents.

I find it imperative to explain the obvious differences that will bring on the onslaught of “that’s not fair!”s. If I give a child a special energy accommodation (access to a wiggle cushion, a run-around-the-portable break, a bean bag to use during independent times,) I usually announce it with something like, “You’re right that Layla has access to something that looks awesome and she’s the only one. If you’re worried you don’t have what you need to be successful, please come see me right away! I can help you get what you need to be successful as well.” This is always done with Layla’s permission, as it’s only Layla’s business. However, Layla and any student know that all of the other kids will see and perhaps complain out of jealousy. Depending on the group, I might throw in a “Layla and I are the only ones in the room that need to worry about the accommodations Layla has, so please don’t worry about it. We got it.” This doesn’t have to happen but a few times before kids don’t even flinch when they see classroom life isn’t equal. It becomes no big deal.

When students do complain, “That’s not fair!” I usually ask, “You mean it’s not equal? You’re right.” With kindness, compassion, and trust that a child can easily understand the rationale, I’ve never once encountered a child who remains stuck in the “that’s not fair” cry after hearing about the accommodations I make for kids who ask for help: Fair isn’t everyone getting the same thing. Fair is when everyone gets what they need to be successful. I help children know that accommodations and alterations are available for all kids but are granted on a needs basis. I always offer the affronted child, “is there something standing in the way of your success in this work?” to which students usually report no, explain that they get it now, and get back to work.

I also find it useful to explicitly, directly teach about equality and equity throughout the year. I have a little poster that shows two scenarios: each has 3 boys, but in equity, the shortest boy has the tall boy’s box to stand on in addition to his own, and that’s the only way all 3 boys can see over the fence. In equality, the tall boy gets taller, and the shortest boy can’t see even with his box. A new version of the poster shows institutional struggles removed as the fence becomes transparent and everyone can see without a boost. Until then, though, equity works, and “equality” has only worked for the child who could already do it without help.

A terrific classroom activity is to have each child assigned an injury (perhaps index cards, or perhaps you ask kids to recall the last injury they had at school,) and then issue each child a band-aid. Kids will find it absurd, and you can explain that that’s why some kids will get a different school experience than others. Some of us go to language teachers, some of us go to the nurse frequently because of our health, some of us need less help than others in reading, while others need less help than peers in math. Bringing a sense of humanity to the needs we each have in academics can be a tangible way of normalizing the more mature needs that the kids will discover along the way that different marginalized groups have within American society.

How will you teach your students to stand up for the rights of others? It’s a great start to celebrate Dr. King’s life and legacy when we return from the weeks we take off for the New Year, but you can and should roll that right into a month-long study of Black history in February and a month of studying the struggle and accomplishments of women for March. But I challenge you: what are you doing the rest of the year? When you present the white man’s history articulated by your state, have you also presented the historically oppressed perspective, as well?

Principle 6: An understanding that democracy is not so much an “ideal” to be pursued as an “idealized” set of values that we must live and that must guide our life as a people.

This is the tenet that tells me, “relax… there’s no right way to do a democratic classroom.” I don’t have to be an alternative teacher at an alternative school within an urban district to pull it off. If I put on my classroom management lens, I will find many democratic principles within highly structured classroom management paradigms. No humanities endorsement required.

I can be a democratic teacher even if my colleagues are not. The kids they send my way might not be used to having a teacher like me, but when the colleagues see my successes, they can open up their practice with me and we can learn from one another. There’s no better coach than the teacher next door who makes you feel at home. My best learning has been from the fabulous teachers with whom I’ve been fortunate enough to observe and mimic.

I can be a highly democratic teacher even in a building that finds my ways to be foreign. At our very core, great educators are seeking the same results. We want successful students; we want a thrilling work environment for ourselves; we are looking for ways to improve at our craft; we want what is best for our students. How we approach that end doesn’t have to be the same. Just as democracy itself is meant to hold a place for everyone, we might run a class that others don’t quite understand. A kindergarten teacher I know often likes to coach me on how to get my class to walk more quietly. They’re 12 years old. They walk and talk respectfully. We don’t have a problem. A literacy coach I know liked to tell me how to do a job wheel so each child did every job every 25 days. I favor a 10 minute period to allow everyone to focus on our classroom’s area or perimeter, depending on which one needs more TLC. I like learning from my peers, but I don’t think when I’m micromanaging students is the key to letting them head to middle school or high school managing themselves and soon, managing society.

I must provide a healthy environment for my most at-risk students. Children with ACES (adverse childhood experiences) need this approach the most. Children who are hurting will do anything to find control in their lives. That can harm the classroom community. I find that the more democratic in nature my methods, the better environment it provides at-risk kids who tend to bring chaos to the classroom. The rest of the students are simply the boats that rise with the tide of the children who can tank the class when they’re unhappy.

I don’t need permission to run a democratic classroom. “Will my principal mind?” Nope. “Do I need to tell the families I’m trying to run a democratic classroom?” Sure, but no. Your environment goals are realized by your procedures, and your democratic procedures won’t be micromanaged by a principal unless your outcomes suggest you need help. Embedded into your classroom management style, you owe an explanation to no one.

Some groups are ready for more autonomy than others. In the first few moments of your first day, you’ll see how things need to go with this group. If it’s a bit chaotic, you might settle on a more teacher-directed beginning to your year. You might be in charge of absolutely everything, because autonomy is still new to this group, and without the tight hug of teacher-directed procedures, they might act out in ways you can’t yet tolerate. Just like you do with academics, you’ll figure out what they’re good at, and you’ll grow them from there. They might be fully autonomous first graders, or 6th graders who seem to lack collaboration and self-control. Your ultimate goal is a 21st century populace, and the 21st century has so far shown us some targeted needs: compassion, empathy, teamwork, tolerance, and progress.

Only you can build in the suitable procedures of a classroom to get this group practicing democracy more. Your principal’s expectations (or school-wide expectations) should be clear to you, and it’s ok if the school seems to lack that democratic environment you pursue. Your classroom procedures will create the environment you seek. You’re the one with the creativity and knowledge to build up the schedule, expectations, lessons, and customs within the classroom to confirm a democratic environment in the classroom. It’s not a curriculum; there aren’t blueprints; and you might not see many of these democratic ideals in action. That’s ok. Do you want to amplify the voice of your marginalized students? Would you like to disrupt the oppression your students face in life and society? Simple, day-to-day procedures will create the environment you value.

They’re not good at a democratic environment until we teach it. When they come to your room on day one, you’ve got a lot to teach them. You’ll set out materials and they’ll rush to serve themselves first, unless you teach a procedure for picking up materials. That’s ok. It’s perhaps too free to think they’ll care for one another when they come for the base ten blocks for your math lesson. Perhaps a good procedure is asking, in each pair, that the younger child to get the materials, and ask the older student to say thanks. You can narrate how well that works, and one day you won’t need to tell which partner gets the materials. The children will decide. This is a step in the right direction, even if it requires some help from you that might feel undemocratic. Accept their starting point; design incremental objectives, and watch them learn to manage themselves independently and interdependently. People will enter your classroom and ask, “how the hell did you do this?”

Principle 7: The organization of social institutions is to promote and extend the democratic way of life.

It’s the circular reference. Maybe we have democratic social institutions, funded by democratic governing institutions, in order to fully experience and appreciate all democratic institutions. But maybe, and I’ve been wondering this a lot lately, we need to experience and appreciate democratic institutions in order to recognize a healthy democracy and notice when its health is in jeopardy. The vital word in this principle is extend. Though the principle was articulated decades ago by authors Apple and Beane, modern day American society suggests we must continue practicing democracy, especially while considering how to extend it for marginalized groups. Thinking of democracy as a fragile privilege, how would we deny our students the chance to practice it, every day, with our careful coaching and care?

Who Deserves Democracy?

My grad students are always so curious about democratic classrooms. Here have been some of my favorite questions — ones you will have to stew on and arrive at your own conclusions. Don’t forget — there aren’t wrong ways to do a democratic classroom! But all Americans deserve a crack at understanding democracy on a deep, cellular level, just as musicians deserve to blast a few squeaks on that clarinet while they’re learning to make music.

Is it safe to say that some kids just can’t have practice in a democratic classroom because what they need is control?

Is it fair to let the kids have this awesome, constructivist year, and then go back to another teacher who will deny them the chance to have a voice in the classroom society?

How will I balance between letting the kids have it all and me being in charge of everything? Do I start with the control or do I start with shared control?

What would an administrator think of these ideas? Are there reasons an administrator would discourage these principles?

What if I’m the only one in the building who teaches this way? Will I be lonely, or will I upset some systems in my school?

How would you respond to each of these? Most importantly, consider the resistance I once encountered by one of my graduate students:

My host teacher thinks your ideas are crazy. She says you must be talking only about kids who have self-control, because the kids we see at our school are out of control, and they’d never be able to do the stuff you say your students can do. There’s one thing that works for them, and that’s running a very tight ship. Too much freedom and they lose their minds.

I found oppression in this refusal. It was incredibly racist, as well. The white teacher speaking to me, another white teacher, about what her mentor teacher, another white teacher, said about a classroom full of black children, bothered me deeply. I was teaching an economically diverse mix of racially homogenous students at this time, sad to be presenting something that easily worked for my students in a way that a pair of white teachers was mocking and openly denying to African American children. They weren’t yet capable of the collaborative, flexible, free classroom I described, so white educators decided not to try it at all. Worse, they didn’t even think their logic was flawed.

I wish I had heard about this host teacher’s curiosity to implement democratic opportunities for a population like hers, who had not yet had much exposure. Perhaps upon hearing about my course curriculum, they could have discussed the obstacles to implement student-led management procedures to begin an environment transformation, even just a little change. Hearing white teachers deny democratic classroom experiences to black students feels nothing short of a Civil Rights violation. I fear it shows up years later with incarceration rates, institutionalized racism, and systemic oppression. Equally terrible, I fear American students who don’t practice democracy graduate with an incomplete understanding of it; then they accept authoritarian tendencies to satisfy their immediate wants; they see an enemy in those who disagree with them; and finally they are willing to compromise their rights, never having completely understood or appreciated them to begin with.

Start today. Start small. Just start. Let your classroom be a microcosm of American life and society, not just through the diversity of the children who make up your class, but also in the way your class is run. Value every child and her voice. Teach civics and allow your students to live it daily in your care. Be a great teacher and give us a citizenry that understands our unique form of governance. Every child; every day; every one of us.