Essay On Democratic Classroom

1418 Words3 Pages

Democratic Classrooms Are Beneficial To Learning It is time for education to turn from conventional-authoritarian to modern-democratic approach inside classrooms. As authors John Holt and Kristan A. Morrison argue, traditional classrooms are restrictive, authoritarian, coercive, and manipulative and leave no opportunity for students to express and involve in their own education and learning experience. On the other hand, democratic classrooms arguments stand for students having the freedom of choice in what, when, how and where to study. Classrooms need to become more democratic, open and inclusive to participation because students’ engagement in class leads them to learn in a more meaningful, active and beneficial way. Conventional …show more content…

Compared to traditional classrooms, Morrison argues that democratic classrooms “have no infantilizing effect; instead, they place great trust in students” by giving them the freedom to choose, to express and to participate in the classroom (80). Democratic classrooms promote important qualities in students that traditional classrooms do not. Morrison argues that students become more “mature, self-disciplined, and intrinsically motivated, seeing the value of learning above and beyond its usefulness to getting a ‘good job’ done.“ (as cited in Bhave, 1996;Labaree 1997). Therefore, democratic education does not only foster maturity, self-confidence and independence but also “promises much more meaningful learning”(Morrison 80) and “better quality of work” (as cited in Watson, 1970) by letting students have the choice and freedom to study what is interesting for them hence becoming active participants in the learning …show more content…

Schools should become our motor of driving our society to democracy and it starts in the teaching methods inside our classrooms. As Morrison writes in one of her first sentences in her essay: “Schools and societies are reflections of one another” (79), if we wish to see a change in our society it should all start by how people are educated. By students engaging in their process of learning, our schools would be creating autonomous, independent, self-confident students and future adults and leaders with a strong sense of direction, critical thinking and respect for the opinions of others, and that openness and inclusiveness is what our society is needing in this day and

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