About Lena:
Having gone to a state school myself and doing a traditional teacher training afterwards, I wasn’t happy with what I experienced and started looking for alternatives. I got involved with Democratic Education in 2012, when I attended my first EUDEC conference. Since then, I have been to the conference every year, and was elected into the EUDEC Council in 2015.
My other great passion next to Democratic Education is kayaking. I do Slalom, White-Water and Marathon kayaking (and basically every other sport that allows me to be on the water).
I work as an outdoor guide and as a translator.
At this year’s IDEC in Mikkeli, Finland I held a workshop called How to Prevent Apathy in Democratic Schools... and whether we should.
This was the workshop
description:
I've noticed that there is a general atmosphere
of inactivity and apathy in some democratic school environments. To me, this
atmosphere seems counterproductive. I want to know if you feel the same, if you
can think of reasons and of ways to prevent it from happening, or if you think
it's a part of DemEd and we shouldn't try to change it.
There were 42
participants in my workshop, which shows that this is an important issue in Democratic
Education. Through a short show of hands, 28 participants said that they had
experienced this general sense of apathy, and 41 participants saw it as
something that should be changed.
I would like to stress
that I am not talking about phases of inactivity or periods of boredom (which
are essential elements of Democratic Education, and of life), but of a general
sense of apathy that is tangible in the whole school and can last for a very
long time. This will, for example, influence new students who come to the
school, but also staff members and visitors etc.
During the workshop,
we discussed the topic and came up with some possible reasons and solutions.
Participants who had observed the phenomenon in their schools (as students or
as staff members) said that first of all, if the child doesn’t see it as a
problem, then it is no problem. Also, a close contact between staff members and
students is essential, because only then will staff members know if it is a
problem for the student, or if it is boredom out of choice.
What was striking was
that some participants who had experienced apathy as staff members reported
that students saw it as a big issue afterwards. They did not realize what was
going on while it was happening, but said things like “I wasted a year” in
retrospect and were unhappy about it. This served as a reason to justify the
opinion that the school community should do their best to prevent it from
happening, and try and give the learning environment an inspiring, thriving
atmosphere.
***
A possible reason
mentioned were staff members who felt stressed and unmotivated themselves.
Democratic Schools strive to enable their students to live self directed, happy
lives, and it is potentially very demotivating to interact with adults every
day who are obviously not happy where they are and do not have enough control
over their lives in order to shape them so that they are not overwhelmed. It
might make the aim of living a life that is tailored to one’s interests and
abilities seem unrealistic, and thus stop the students from working towards it.
Some participants said
that it was mainly the middle-school age group who was affected by the problem,
and blamed this on exams the students felt they had to take in order to succeed
in life, but were not really motivated to.
School was also
described as a box that children are put in, among other reasons in order to
keep them safe. This becomes a problem when there are not enough connections to
the outside world, and children are lacking real life input. Democratic Schools
can only work as part of life, and not in isolation from it.
The image of
Democratic Education was also mentioned as a possible reason. One participant
noticed that DemEd was often portrayed as Doing
Nothing All Day or All Day a Break,
giving off an impression of inactivity, when actually, it should give children
the time and space to discover tools for shaping their lives according to their
own standards.
Thus, possible
solutions to the problem were working with the staff, creating spaces for them
to address how they feel within the school environment or what they really want
to do, and how they can support each other in achieving this. If old patterns
persist, a change in staff might be required.
A good connection
between students and staff members was repeatedly mentioned. Obviously, staff
should be chosen very carefully, not only on the basis of whether they agree
with the model of DemEd, but also on whether they are ready to take control
over their own life, and whether they are able to shape it according to their
standards.
Connections and
dialogue between staff and students can be achieved by having a mentoring
system in place, creating spaces for conversation about life at the school, the
community and the learning process. It was also suggested to have a meeting at
the beginning of each week in which students present what they want to learn or
do, and another meeting at the end of the week where they say if they achieved
their goals. A big challenge with this process is that it hugely depends on the
state of learning, because it excludes the learning through play, takes away
spontaneity and is unsuitable for monitoring the invisible learning that takes
place whatever you do.
It is also of the
utmost importance to create as many links to life outside the school as
possible. This could be by having visitors or going on excursions, for example,
by forming partnerships with companies, local businesses, other schools (of any
kind), nursery homes, zoos… The possibilities are almost endless.
The DemEd environment
could be portrayed as a place to “learn what really matters to you” instead of
a place where you can do “whatever you want”.
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