DESCRIPTORS: joint school management; teacher-student cooperation; students’ self-development; personal freedom; consensus; pluralism; openness; publicity; volunteership; new criteria to examine schools’ activities; students’ democratic experience.

SYNOPSIS: The author presents a number of key elements which when taken together allow to create a true democratic school with a teacher-student cooperation. School co-management is introduced as a model of joint and public decision-making and implementation where all participants in the educational process are equal. Another issue that is analyzed in the article, is how to effectively shape students’ democratic experience within the school culture.

Student-Adult Joint Management
to Improve a School’s Spirit

Democratic Principles of Teacher-Student Cooperation

The education that takes place in a school is an integral part of its spirit, or ethos, and this spirit obeys its own intrinsic laws. In theory it is possible to distinguish different types, systems, or patterns which are based on the principles a researcher is employing. In reality, however, a school’s spirit is unique and cannot be categorized into general, theoretical types because it arises as a result of random circumstances.

When various models of school governance are studied a number of questions arise, for example, why is the open school seldom taken as a representative one to be used as a model? Further, even in those schools approved to use this model, why do students not carry it out in practice? This is strange because schools that follow this model fit the needs of students adequately but are not emulated widely in our system of education. Is the reason because teachers do not exist who have the requisite skills and abilities or that they are poorly motivated and administrators are reluctant to depart from rigid organizational guidelines?

There is something special in Russian and foreign representatives of cooperative “students’ friendly” pedagogy in outstanding figures such as Dewey, Freinet, Montessori, Korсzak, Neill, Shatsky, and Sukhomlinsky, as there is in the outstanding ideas of innovative teachers of the 1980-1990s and of Simon Soloveychik whose Parenting for Everyone took ten years to publish. This is also true of Amonashvili and yet mainstream schools have resisted innovation and remain essentially unchanged except for minor adjustments in their educational policies.

But genuine student-teacher interaction can only be realized outside of conventional teaching methods through cooperative problem solving and genuine communication with children based on the recognition by adults that children are entitled to self-determination in this type of education. This is the first distinguishing feature of humanistic pedagogy which is scarcely to be found in most schools today.

If interaction and cooperation between an adult and a student are to be turned into an act of education, then it must be focused on the individual students and tailored to their specific needs. This should be the central goal of a teacher, to employ various educational methods which meet the needs of each student’s self-development while utilizing his/her personal life experiences and cultural values. This is the second distinguishing feature of humanistic and “students’ friendly” education.

These two explain why open patterns of school management do not function within a system of orders from above by bureaucratic entities or within one that imposes standard class structure, dictates the type of extracurricular activities, a fixed syllabus, prescriptive class observations, and a complicated system of accounting and reporting. Innovative open schools are modified by the prevailing system of education so that, in the end, they lose their original meaning. As a result, a great number of creative teachers are doomed to be hampered in their innovations by a traditional system that forces them into a standard mold.

It has become increasingly popular to think that the ideas of open education lack any validity because, as a society, we are not mature enough to implement this kind of education which calls for a democratic ethos in a society which currently does not function in Russia, a very questionable assumption. Thus, teachers stress the differences between freedom and control, between democratic student-teacher relations and personal responsibility. What they obviously fail to realize is that freedom is the opposite of compulsion, not anarchy because freedom implies a sense of personal responsibility and self-control as well as a democratic system of decision-making and accountability. Thus, humanistic education is exactly the tool needed to create a harmonious and responsible community.

A free and democratically structured school where children and adults are treated as free-acting subjects — not objects — who have a right to self-determination brings about a different kind of atmosphere and interaction which is based on cooperation here and now. The main priority is to satisfy student needs which is our third distinguishing feature of humanistic and “students’ friendly” pedagogy which is only possible where there is open and free self-determination. In this atmosphere children grow and develop as their personal sense of freedom does. Successful teachers are distinguished by their ability to combine freedom and build a sense of student responsibility at the same time that they build character and engage in cooperative interaction with students.

The more restrictions are placed on the freedom of students and the more their individuality is suppressed, education tends to be more authoritative and education more coercive. Great teachers are those who have managed to implement the principles of humanistic education which allows freedom based on the ideas governing direct democracy. They have made it possible to create a place where self-development occurs in an atmosphere of democratically governed student-adult cooperation and where everyone contributes jointly to co-management and where no one is left out nor segregated into contributing and non-contributing groups.

Thus, the open school features the following democratic principles:

Personal Freedom: the school acknowledges that the personal freedom is the most valuable right of an individual and is fundamental to the development of the members of the community and of the school.

Consensus: there is joint decision-making and agreement among all groups involved in problem solving; a minority is respected and their opinion is taken into consideration in the decision-making process;

Pluralism: a diversity of opinions, views, interests, and communities is recognized as the basis for co-management.

Openness: here is transparency in all forms of child-adult interaction and in decision making and implementation;

Publicity, glasnost: there is an open discussion of all problems, an awareness regarding community concerns are, the availability of experts in child-adult matters, and, in general, accessibility to information in all areas of human activity.

Volunteership: children’s free and open participation in the activities of the community based on clear personal choice and initiative in implementing their decisions.

Co-management is a model of joint and public decision-making and implementation where all participants in the educational process are equal. Co-management implies principles of partnership and cooperation. Co-governing bodies are created in order to:

• Implement the most efficient school activity run by a community of equal participants which improves the quality of school life.
• Secure the rights of each individual child, parent, and teacher in this educational process.
• Increase motivation in active participation.
• Develop an open child-adult community by utilizing already existing mechanisms and which a school has the right to exercise.
• Increase motivation by involving as many as possible in active participation.

The task of involving more parents in a school’s activities may be solved by offering them real participation in the co-management and self-management of the school as is stipulated in the regulations of existing school charters. This can be done by involving the major co-management body on a school’s site, the School Council, and ensuring equal representation of students, teachers, and parents.

The School Council is to be elected on a proportional basis; thus, the number of students should exceed the number of adults. This means that the policies of the Council will be more understandable to the students and meet their interests better. Students will become more active when they are not intimidated by a preponderance of adults which inhibits their voicing of their opinions. If the School Council is vested with real authority the students will see that their participation is indeed meaningful. If the School Council practices the principles of direct democracy, the young people will gain experience in legislative and organizational matters as well as in democratic principles.

The School Council has the authority to raise and solve any financial or management issues that fall within the school’s policy of co-management, such as controlling the quality of education, the school’s academic profile and program development. Both students and adults are empowered to suggest relevant questions for discussion at the Council and to make collective decisions, a process which will be of vital importance in consolidating the cooperative atmosphere in the joint student-adult community.

To increase the quality of education and the schools’ spirit means that it is necessary to strengthen consistently democratic principles of school life, such as:

• Extending opportunities for students, teachers, and parents to exercise their rights in the school;
• Ensuring wider and regular involvement of students in co-management;
• Getting rid of bureaucratic barriers in school management (a source of many frustrations in education);
• Overcoming governmental ownership (etatism) of the school system.
• Protecting schools from meaningless external control which reduces possibilities for innovative social and cultural activities for children.
• Strengthening a school’s sovereignty to ensure the right of each school to select its own educational policies and co-management.

The main idea in co-management is cooperative and independent designing of a school’s program along with the opportunity for parents to exercise fully their rights stipulated by the Russian Federal Law “On Education” and by local self-government regulations. These ensure the rights of students and parents to play a significant role in the contractual relations with a school and which specify the forms the interaction with teachers and administrators should take. These relations imply the following:

• The development of a model of cooperation between students, school, and parents mutually agreed upon.
• The implementation of various activities and projects in mixed-age groups.
• The provision for active participation of parents and students in all school events and cultural projects.

The committees of parents, conferences, and meetings of various levels which, when functioning not in a formal way but as forums where open dialogue takes place, could provide recommendations for future application in the school and improve its school spirit as well.

While productive dialogue among representatives of schools and local and national government is feasible, the goal of reforming school management is nevertheless not to have them make detailed prescriptions and to demarcate areas of control and responsibility, but rather to make it possible for each school to integrate in a practical way the desires and interests of students and adults in the process of developing public education.

            From governmental-nongovernmental management              towards a nongovernmental-governmental type

The management of public education now exists in two interacting forms, one by the government and the other by local, public agencies. These determine educational policy and school management as well. The difference between lies in which is the predominant one. The problem of democratic management is how to ensure at atmosphere where productive dialogue can take place which combines the efforts of the school, the public, and government in solving vital problems. The pattern of co-management and of interaction should be independently determined by the school. This change can be brought about not by governmental permission though regulations, but by meaningful material and financial support of those schools where co-management is most developed.

Non-governmental-governmental management is active management carried out by non-governmental bodies, that is, voluntarily created groups, associations, organizations, and civic entities which carry out educational policy based on the democratic principles of co-management. This type of management means that a school gains cultural and educational autonomy characterized by the following underlying principles:

• A wide range of rights and freedoms for students and adults in the educational sphere.
• Involvement of students and adults in various school co-management and local self-government bodies.
• Recognition of the right of students and adults to discuss issues, to raise problems for discussion, and to make decisions within the co-management structure.
• Opinions are freely expressed and taken into consideration.
• Regular rotation and installation of representatives in the self-management and co-management bodies.

If these prevail in the co-management schools, there will be positive results as follows:

• Active and interested participation by members of the community.
• Self-organization in the community.
• Creation of procedures leading to direct and election-based representative democracy.

Therefore, parents, students, teachers, administrative management, and public entities have equal rights to participate in the decision-making process at the entry level of educational management in ways that ensure freedom of choice.

In reality, current interaction between parents and teachers rarely reaches a level of cooperation and partnership best exemplified in an expert board with public, student, and adult representation. A multipurpose board of this kind is useful for analyzing and deciding on school management proposals, the content of academic programs and projects, defining a school’s ethos and the nature of its student-adult membership. Their expert advice is useful for the development of student-adult cooperation, the planning of guidelines, the design of the forms of cooperation, goal setting for project teams, and consideration of any legal aspects that could arise in implementing plans.

The role of the expert board is not limited to cursory inspection or control. Rather, it is a joint activity of students and adults which involves research into current practice, wide discussion of problems and points of growth, open formulation of the expert board’s conclusions and decisions, and their implementation through the organization of new patters of interaction An example of this kind of activity can be found in Alexander Tubelsky’s  Innovative School of Self-Determination.

Criteria to be used in examining a school board’s activity

• Democratic parameters:
• The opportunity and freedom to express one’s opinions
• The presence of co-management
• The opportunity to self-determine its functions
• Procedures and forms decided by voting.
• Election parameters that guarantee every member’s right to run for election, regardless of his/her status:
• The right to nominate oneself
• Above-board planning
• Voting by secret ballot
• Equal access to mass media
• Planning parameters:
• Open planning
• Projecting
• Wide discussion of plans
• Consideration of individual programs
• Opportunity to express opinions openly
• Students’ interest in planning
• Problems:
• The absence of open opposition
• Projects are not fully completed
• The problem of continuity.

Cases of dissent and private opinions expressed during group discussion are to be recorded in some way. Instances of this could be topics like “the borderline between rights and permissiveness is not clear,” or “students demonstrate bad manners,” or “everything is fine, there are no problems,” or “council attendance must be obligatory.”

Shaping students’ democratic experience

The democratic schools movement has not become popular in Russia, though some progress is evident. There are several reasons that explain the poor development of democratic norms in education. Among them are the widespread, rigid forms of school management and limited understanding of the nature of democratic forms of education among researches and college faculties. As a result, teachers as a whole are characterized by holding to authoritarian views and students and teachers by a traditional lack of experience in democratic behavior.

Students will begin to experience how democracy works in class and in various school bodies if they are able to listen to, and to accept the opinions of other students and adults. A significant way for them to experience and internalize democratic practice is to expose them to the opinions of other groups in the school community and to let them participate in collective decision-making and implementation. This manner of communication between teachers and students will strengthen the school and community spirit and, while they participate in democratic behavior, democratic values will be enhanced. Direct democracy is the guarantee of open school development.
To achieve this, the following principles and conditions must be established and met:

• Show ability for independent organizing not reliant on complicated school policies.
• Collective decision-making which may be bothersome for the school administration but necessary to enhance the influence of education.
• Shared responsibility for decisions arrived at which defines whether carrying them out seems forced and formal, or whether they are attractive to everyone.
• If leaders emerge, that is fine, if not, better yet. This seeming paradox can be explained by stating that the school’s mission is not to raise leaders—future functionaries and bosses. Instead, the aim of the school is to form active students who find joy in doing significant and motivating work!
• Co-government is more efficient than self-government. With co-government students and adults assume a natural position as equal partners and colleagues who possess equal rights. Since self-government implies the existence of different levels and entities, such as those of students, parents, and teachers, cooperation between students and adults becomes more complicated.
• Interchangeability and rotation should involve everyone. The advantage direct democracy has, is that everyone is involved in self-organization and co-government. The involvement of all students and teachers in building school spirit results not from the amount and extent of self-governing bodies, but rather from the transparency of the activities taking place and the constant turnover rate which makes it possible for practically everyone to acquire experience in self-government.
• Transparency and openness enable everyone to participate in discussions and activities at any point. This requires neither specific division of responsibilities and control function, nor the creation of specific school governmental bodies.
• A minority is not suppressed by a majority since all disputes and controversies are to be settled by negotiation and agreement in a school community which lives in an atmosphere of tolerance, trust, empathy, and mutual assistance. The respect for another person’s opinion teaches students to settle conflict situations before they turn into uncontrollable battles.
• The importance of unrestricted choice in developing educational potential must be stressed. By discussing problems of choice and reflecting on personal ones made, students come to a better understanding of their own abilities. And so, in schools which intentionally create many opportunities for students to develop in this way, there is greater opportunity for students to grow. In their turn, while teachers provide students with opportunities to make choices, they have to take into consideration how free they are in the choices they are making. Principals too must ask themselves this question, because if a teacher has the right to make choices, then the entire school should have this right as well.

Democracy becomes a mere game when  half-hearted self-government reforms are instituted from above and controlled by the administration, for example, having a “self-government day.” This will surely lead to distorted ideas of how to build a student community and of its real power. Democratic co-management might turn into a parody of the real thing. This is a thoughtless and common style of governmental management of schools. This kind of mimicry appears when schools copy the self-government characteristic of an existing government, e.g., the school patterns itself after governmental designs complete with ministers, etc. This is exactly the way to build a “democracy” controlled from above. Such half-hearted democracies result in limited democracy with students turning into little bureaucrats and clerks playing the power game instead of gaining the essential knowledge and experience of participating in a genuinely democratic system.

The standards of school life and activities of a democratically organized school  are different from the ones just described. Under the conditions of direct democracy students get used to hearing different opinions expressed, of sharing responsibility instead of abusing it as frequently happens when students have responsibility and its corresponding “rewards” thrust upon them. Instead, by becoming involved in co-management with its opportunities for self-determination, self-realization, and self-development, students create an open community which contributes to every student’s successful educational, social, and cultural progress.