A few months I gathered together papers and scribbles and agendas and class meeting minutes from several years of teaching. Then I began the Journal, which was to be a running report of my work combined with thoughts and explanations of Club House Democracy in one Canadian state school. The problem with reading the Journal in its present format is that it's not finished, and won’t be for another year and a half. The broad outlines of Club House Democracy begin to emerge, but a lot remains to be said. For this newsletter, David has chosen a few brief excerpts from the Journal. If you’d like the rest, you can find it at:

DemocracyInPublicSchools@yahoogroups.com

One of the problems with being, if I may say so, an effective and compassionate teacher in a democratic situation is that the students are very likely to become complacent ... in general they don't find life all that troublesome and many simply become very comfortable in such a 'kind' state environment. It's almost as if they say, "Well, he's okay most of the time and this isn't that bad and besides to oppose him would just be more damn trouble than it's worth." This bothers me.

The only thing that some have complained about is that I am not giving them enough formal lessons and homework ... they are afraid that they will not be ready for highschool ... this depressed me somewhat. They have really been brainwashed about what education is ... and feel uncomfortable unless the teacher is being a curriculum administrator. In fact, I have been bringing the class along with creative work, problem solving, open ended assignments that are more than challenging and we are actually weeks ahead as far as being a working unit is concerned ... i.e. a community.

The 'doing' kids are having a great time in the workshop, and I have been able to nurture them along academically so that they are feeling quite confident and powerful. I am not concerned about the able readers and writers. They will be fine next year no matter what I do. So I have geared the first term to those who usually get lost in the academic dust.

I added Homework and Academic Work to the possible choices for the Management Committee to check off each week... with their permission. I was amused to see that no one in the class took the opportunity to talk about either. I have made it clear that I am quite willing to increase work and homework for those who want it.

I am, of course, intensely aware of what these kids will face in highschool and have every intention of giving them the opportunity to be ready for it. But I am more concerned with process ... the process of homework if you get a lot ... how to deal with it, how to practice that. The process of reading, making notes, studying and finding out how one's individual brain and memory works. To know how to analyze and critically judge a text book for one's own benefit and maximum understanding. To test out one's home environment for assistance.

The important thing, I said, was to practice 'science, or history or geography' text book and quiz skills ... for the sake of knowing how to get info from a text and to learn how to do a quiz. The content, I said, didn't matter. This makes especially good sense to the non-academic types. They understand that they are learning structural skills ... like how to cut wood, or how to hammer a nail ... and not how to cut particular wood for a certain bird house, or hammer a nail into any particular wall. They 'get it.' And this distancing from the mountain of content seems to give them added self-confidence. They actually learn the content better (i.e. pass the quiz) because they put the emphasis on the technical.

Of course I make sure I skip a whole lot of arbitrarily mandated content. Right now there is so much of it that children get little chance to understand themselves as individual, idiosyncratic actors on the world unless a teacher has the courage to become a snow plough in the 'expectations' blizzard and clear out creative spaces for them to have the time to know what it means to learn.

Mick and William, the kids who were terrors in previous classrooms, actually seem to be the most healthy learners ... they are constantly engaging the world around them...most often in the workshop and in democratic meetings and class management. They are forever moving out into the world. This is, of course, what gets them into so much trouble in a regular school ... the students who I call apathetic are the ones who do well in school, or if they don't do well, get along. M and W have a history of rebellion... but when you understand how pathetic the school system was in not providing for their needs, and see how open and creative they still are as learners I think M and W are heroes. Their rebellions were a successful defense against indoctrination and poor educational approaches ... they have succeeded in maintaining their mental health against huge bureaucratic odds.

M and W never have a moment when they are not doing something... they always have a project on the go. Sitting at their desks they have mounds of plasticine to shape into heaven knows what, or home made finger board parks, or paper for cartoons. They are presently trying very hard at academics because they know I approve of them as people and that I honour their desire to follow their learning impulses as much as I possibly can.

The other day W said, "I agree with what you said about the workshop in grade 8. It gives kids who have talent in that a chance to feel good about themselves. It also gives people like me somewhere to get energy out." Pretty insightful for a 13 year old. Too bad the middle aged educators at the Board Offices weren't as smart.

The book learners have, on the other hand, been properly beaten. Since they have found their learning aptitudes compatible with the school system or their personalities docile enough not to cause energetic trouble, they have spent years sponging up irrelevancies and have, like circus animals, been properly trained to follow rules, challenge nothing, and jump through the most preposterous learning hoops because an authority figure tells them to ... and not, god forbid, because they find it interesting or useful to their authentic persons.

No, the good kids, so called, are much more an indictment of the evils of the present education system than the troublemakers.