“Dissent is democratic,” but what does that have to do with school?

This quote was posted above an inner door in the main office of a school I subbed in last year. It struck me like a breath of fresh air, but also like a sparrow in a big box hardware store, beautiful and free in essence but trapped and doomed unless it could escape to the open air.

What could it mean? Sounded cool–so democratic, you know. I liked it–thought someone might have the best interests of students at heart there, even of teachers too, if he or she thought democracy was important and not just cooperation and conformity. Who posted it there? I wondered.

But dissent is not, in itself, democratic. What’s democratic is everyone having a say,  based on, I would like to think, the higher human faculties of adequate knowledge, reason, forethought, and good will, as above mere interest, passion, instinct, tradition, and social conditioning. Thjat’s all off the top of my own head, however–not a very democratic definition. But I never went in much for those–words have to have a good deal of gravity for there to be any continuity of sense to them, in my opinion.

And what about democracy in school, anyway? What role did it play in your schooling,? Did your teacher consent to let your math class work on the lawn outside when the weather got warm in the spring? Decide on test dates, content, classroom rules? Okay, so maybe not in the younger grades, but I guess we all at least got to vote on class president and so on then, and as we got older, there was more participation, right? Or, wait a second, was it…it was…less participation. Required courses, minimum GPA, mandated tests, approved texts, sign-in, sign-out, tight schedule, thirty-six weeks, no choice of teachers, classmates, venue. Even a snow day, an intervention of God himself, has to be made up at the end of the year. Not that the teachers were monopolizing the authority, either. So much of it is taken out of their hands, let alone the part that they can hand back to students in trust, as they grow into maturity.

What about the biggie, that decision most people never even think about, the decision of whether to go to school at all? It being legal in the U.S. to build an education outside the system, with more or less freedom and oversight, depending on the state.

But what about that sign on the wall? What did it mean? Was it for teachers, meaning that they should disagree with administrative decrees, district agendas, testing protocol? Should they say no to another staff meeting, no to the accepted way of teaching certain controversial subjects, no to grades? Was it for students? Should they refuse to do certain tasks they found a waste of time, choose their own books apart from the list, their own way of learning? Not follow the seating plan?

Or was it really an underhanded way of saying democracy does not work here? Because, after all, democracy often means dissent, and we can’t have that here.

 

“F— all parents! F— them all, except for mine.”

I really heard this today in a teacher staff room, said by a teacher. Refreshing it its forthrightness as it was, free of insincere eduspeak, I was still startled.

Another teacher had just finished describing a disciplinary action toward (against?) a student who had exhibited disrespectful body language to him, and the related conversation with the parent. The parent had defended the kid, of all people, and the teacher was furious, frustrated about the generational patterns, I suppose, that could not be broken. Disrespect for authority. He was full of righteous indignation, of the kind that made me wonder, afterward, if he really was convinced that eye-rolling was such a terrible thing. The kind of indignation that’s meant, by its very force, to cause unanimous agreement.

I had just read, on a sign above the doorway leading to the teacher’s lounge, a sign saying “Dissent is patriotic.” I ate my curry quietly, listening and observing the teacher lounge culture and keeping my thoughts as a good (job hunting) sub should. Then the “F—…” outburst. The fellow came to himself, and looked at me with a wry smile and a “Welcome to our staff room.” Perhaps I shouldn’t have, but I saw that as my opening.

“Well, at least you’re all talking, though I have to admit, I rolled my eyes last week at a Memorial Day event. And I mentioned the dissent sign I’d just seen, and said that I guessed that was dissent. Then I softened it, by suggesting the kid could be helped to express it in a better way.

I wonder who posted the sign. Some subversive, bless them.

Instead of trying to shove unruly students back into a cage, or cutting them out of the educational process, find the key, dude–the rolling eyes, the sneers, the resistance–it’s your opening. Get it out there–help him or her express it, let them know you value, smart people value, resistance. It’s not about you. Teach them the difference between dumb resistance based on selfish motives (I don’t want to exert myself; I never trust white teachers; freedom = never submitting, etc.) and resistance based on a refusal to violate one’s conscience, one’s highest principles.

In social studies we discussed unions–what are they for, and how do they determine what’s worth fighting for, and how to fight. If you show yourself to be the most reasonable, the most mature, and having the highest principles, your power for change is strong. Applies to students too, and, of course, teachers.