Democratic education aligns with the large changes in the world right now towards democratic workplaces and co-operatives, says Alex Khost.
The education advocate visited 12-15 free schools before deciding to move to Brooklyn to send his young sons to The Brooklyn Free School, a democratically-run independent school.
He says his hope for the future of education is it becomes a place where children of all nationality, race and income levels have the opportunity to have more choice in their education.
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| Alex Khost |
“To take it to the extreme there’s an ageism, a prejudice against children in our culture that doesn’t really respect children’s opinions and decisions on their own lives,” says Alex.
“The most over arching, most important thing would be that children are respected and allowed to have more control over their own learning process.”
Alex says at free schools education is focused on the motivation behind it and making sure the children are there because they want to be there. Students decide what they want to learn about.
All students attend the democratic school meetings and have a vote on school policies.
If freedom in education was the norm, Alex says more people would be engaged in meaningful work, and be more confident and satisfied in their work.
“People would probably be intentionally doing things a little bit more and therefore probably would be a little more satisfied,” he says.
Children who grow up in a free school system are asked from the first day what they want to do, so they are aware of their strengths, weaknesses, interests and challenges, says Alex. They are also more experienced at negotiating with other people.
The history of free schools dates back to the 19th century anarchist movement in Spain, when Francisco Ferrer founded what were called modern schools. In 1921, A.S Neill's Summerhill School was founded in Germany, a democratic free school that moved to England in 1924 and continues to operate.
A.S. Neill authored Summerhill: A Radical Approach to Child Rearing, which was published in the U.S. in the 1960's and “took off,” says Alex.
There’s been resurgence in free schools, with about 200 worldwide, notes Alex.
If more schools were like free schools they might look like “unschooling homeschooling,” says Alex.
He points to a book by Matt Hern about changing the educational system so schools look more like a library, with a reference desk where you can ask questions and students float in and out as they need guidance and resources. This makes school a place to go when you need to congregate, but otherwise be out in the world, he adds.
Alex says one of the largest challenges people seem to have with the free schools model is thinking the system couldn’t work, yet there has been 70-100 years of this type of education where children have grown up, graduated and gone onto college.
“It does work. It’s not an experiment, it’s something that has proven itself time and time again,” he says.
Related Story:
Learning through Motivation: Life in Free Schools
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