Freedom, dialogue, and education in a democratic school

Abstract

This article is based on two interviews between Jim Rietmulder, the founder and lead staff at The Circle School (in Harrisburg, PA), and Ana Marjanovic-Shane, an Independent Scholar and a Co-Editor of this Special Issue. We discuss and examine the daily practice and the philosophical approach of a particular democratic school as we discuss democratic education in general. The main purpose of these interviews has been to introduce democratic education and explore the place for dialogic pedagogy in a democratic school, where the students are free to choose what to study, when to study, in what ways they want to study, with whom they want to study, etc. What happens to dialogic pedagogy if the students are not engaged around the same topics together? The question is whether the students’ legitimate status of free persons with equal rights of opinion and decision-making also creates opportunities and conditions for the students to engage in the critical dialogic examinations of the world, of their life and learning, and of their desires, motivations, and values.