Teaching Democracy By Being Democratic

The best way to teach democracy has been the subject of an ongoing debate for 2,500 years. Unlike most books about teaching democracy, this one spends more time on how to teach democracy than the what and why of teaching democracy. It punctures the irony of teaching democracy by lectures and superior teachers.

In its place, this book provides a variety of illustrations for the teaching of democracy in an experiential and egalitarian fashion. The introduction presents a theoretical and analytical framework of democracy and democratic pedagogy. The six chapters cover topics such as structuring a democratic classroom; democratic practices that empower students; problem solving and community service that make the classroom a laboratory for democracy; and university-based programs of democratic alternatives that serve the community.

The volume's treatment of community organization, students as collaborators, personal empowerment, the community of need and response, and the democratic organization expresses its preference for direct democratic participation. Review: This volume...links...theory to practice. Teachers and other readers will learn much about tested techniques in teaching democracy by being democratic in the classroom.

The authors do not sentimentalize or idealize--they are tough-minded about what works and fails to work. And in calling for imagination in the classroom they are creative themselves. -from the foreword by James MacGregor Burns