Abstract
<p><em>With Digitisation, each of “democracy”, “education” and, consequently, and conclusively, “Education and Democracy” enters an exciting new dimension. Current considerations of how “government by the people” should be addressed, encouraged and embodied in schools are outdated, unless the realisation that nothing can ever be the same again becomes the starting-point. This paper explores the nature of that forthcoming and fundamental transformation, as made necessary and possible through contemporary technology and as embodied in The Global School. Just as piecemeal Information and Communication Technology (ICT) applications are of limited significance, so also are isolated experiments with democratic educational initiatives now obsolete. Universal connectivity straddles schools worldwide and cuts across the institutional, societal and historical factors that gave rise to pernicious politico-socio-educational injustice. Propagating democracy is essentially undemocratic; moral education is the antithesis of morality. </em><em>T</em><em>he need from now onwards is for a convivial learning-supporting pedagogy, delivering the creative learner-driven curriculum, with the open, well-informed and on-going debate as the fundamental methodology. </em><em>The substance, practice and consequences of education may now become much more equitable, ethical and enjoyable (and far less competitive, test-oriented and world-of-work-dominated). </em><em>These and other implications for “Education and Democracy” of this ground-breaking “Education embodying Digitisation” reality are investigated and welcomed.</em><em></em></p>
Highlights
Well-intentioned initiatives have promoted the mutual fostering of democratic practice and egalitarian education, seeking schools that gave voice to their students, all the while set in less than democratic educational landscapes
With our heads in the cloud but with our feet firmly planted upon terra firma, courageously blending caution with creativity, let us explore how best “true” democracy may serve and be served by this emerging Global School and through the learners and teachers therein
They go on to contend that “As education raises the benefits of civic participation, it... increases the likelihood of democratic revolutions against dictatorships, and reduces that of successful anti-democratic coups” (Glaeser et al, 2006). This is arguable but not self-evident: an examination of available lists of comparative educational results suggests that several East Asian countries are performing relatively highly and that, while some—but not all—of those are regarded as democracies, their curricula are often examination-oriented rather than civilly participative [It may be added that, will The Global School make such odious PISA-fabricated comparisons meaningless, its approach will involve that of enabling learners to explore and assess unsubstantiated claims, such as those of Edward Glaeser and his National Bureau team]
Summary
Seeing democracy as a philosophy and a political system, Hyde and LaPrad (2015) contend that “mindfulness can enhance a democratic way of being, connecting practices of awareness, reflection, dialog, and action to democratic citizenship and social arrangements” They apply a “mindfulness pedagogy” to develop their concept of “mindfully democratic schools”, referring (as we do ) to the work of John Dewey, Paulo Freire and other philosophers of education in claiming that mindful practices may be embodied in such institutions whose “vision and principles promote teachers’ and students’ mindfully democratic action” (Hyde & LaPrad, 2015). The Global School resolves and outwears the fascinating late-second millennium discussions of pedagogy by determining the ownership and nature of the process, embodying a learning methodology that is neither technology-driven, nor indoctrination-targeted, nor the sporadic use of some devices and systems by some teachers some of the time
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