Is there a way to democratize a school? Here are some thoughts:

I will try to propose ways towards the democratization of a school, trying to avoid a general theoretical discussion. Feedback is more than welcome.

First of all, it must be cleared that democratization is not a panacea for solving all internal or external problems of a school. Democratization is another way of dealing with problems; a way that is based on justice, respect, freedom and autonomy. Solving the problems is up to the people that are implicated on dealing with them.

Another important fact is that if a school that decides to aspire democratic culture should acknowledge that every person on that school has his share. Democratization connotes participation as a person in a profound way. As Woods says (2005, p.118), "it requires an authentic involvement, in the sense of commitment and direction that are guided be deeply embedded navigational feelings".  

Proposes are going to be split in two parts. The first has to do with the school as an organization trying to adopt democratic leadership, and the other has to do with students, as the school tries to adopt a more democratic pedagogy.

Part A: 

A school should try to disperse responsibilities to as many of the stakeholders. Teachers must play a more dynamic role in leadership and the administration should hear them and take what they have to say under serious consideration.

In order to implicate teachers as mush possible, they have to be educated on educational leadership matters. This developmental procedure must be a permanent one, and all teachers should take part despite the years they have in education and in school. Professional development is a great way to create real professionals.

Ministry of Education or School’s Board, decides who is going to be the director and the synthesis of the administration, which is something unchangeable. But there are also the heads of departments, meaning the head of the sciences, the head of mathematics and others. These heads of departments could be elected by the teachers (or everyone should take his turn on a rotation basis) of the departments every two or three years. In that way everyone would be implicated with the common, with the "κοινά" as the ancient Greeks said.

                

Something very important is the creation of clear evaluation procedures. These procedures must be addressed to everyone and implicate everyone. The school must decide which are its performance indicators and try to measure them as objective possible. Finally, the results should be communicated and discussed with all stakeholders that were implicated.

                

Staying at the same spirit, the school should find ways of taking feedback from all stakeholders (teachers, technicians and others) and elaborate this feedback in a scientific way in order to make changes if possible or, at least, discuss things with them. The heads of departments could give this feedback.

                

Finally, there must be a "conscious participation in microgenesis" (Woods, 2005, p.128-129). That means that everyone, by his position, should make short creative actions which must be repeated, in order to succeed small structural changes that, hopefully, will lead to an overall structural change towards democratic leadership. These actions are possible to be decided at the departments and be advocated by the heads of the departments.  

    

Part B:

                

The first thing that must change is the administrations' and teachers' attitude against the students. No one claims that anomy is the solution. There must be a very firm and strict structure that will define and determine the relations between teachers and students. This structure must be known in details to everyone implicated and first of all to the students. It is obvious that everyone should be responsible for keeping this structure and I mean that all teachers must be the keepers of the rules (and not only the “bad” ones). On the other hand students should be given, in the everyday interaction with them: "respect, time and attention" as a head teacher said (cited in Woods, 2005, p.124-125). The key word is respect. Students must like coming to school. They must feel that the school is their second, and sometimes first, family. The national curricula, as everybody agrees, is boring and very pressing. The school must balance things and make education attractive to students. After they leave school they must remember it with a smile and the belief that they gained a lot as personalities. Shouting and punishment is not the solution. They just remind students that there is an autocratic hierarchy that does not care about them as children and future citizen of democratic societies. As Woods (2005, p.125) argues, pupils and teachers are not just subjects for the school but they are also "school builders", through their everyday actions and interplays. Children must be respected as everybody should, beside their characteristics. Maybe an organized feedback from pupils can help the school to find its weakness and change ways of attitudes.

                

Students should be more implicated in procedures that are of interest to them. They could take part in discussions (decision making is something that should be discussed further) having to do with discipline, pedagogy, activities like excursions and others and finally the evaluation of the school. This kind of students’ implication is very advanced for Greek teachers, thus needs a lot of discussion.

All the above are interdependent. In order to achieve them there must be a lot of sincere and conscious discussions and acceptance that things must change. Structures cannot change in one night. Small steps must be made by all, in an individual level and an aggregate level as well. 

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