How much participation can classrooms take?

As so often stated, we are living in 'interesting times'. The number of conflicts, wars and crises is increasing. Global warming, digitalisation and artificial intelligence are changing our everyday lives and the world of work. This also has an impact on our educational institutions and, of course, on our schools in particular. Compared to ten, twenty years ago, students today bring other (and varying) competencies with them to school, such as digital or language skills. On the other hand, societal demands for schools have changed as well.

Schools facing new and varying expectations

This poses challenges for educational institutions, and especially for schools. Teachers simply cannot know all the diverse priorities, backgrounds and goals of the children and adolescents they supervise. Due to increasingly fast changes in the world of work (and in academic research), they are also less able to precisely assess which requirements children and adolescents will have to meet in the future. Various crises contribute to this uncertainty. How will the climate have changed 15 years from now? Which skills will (still) be relevant in the professional world? Which wars and conflicts will shape our society then? Fifteen years from now, who will need to flee from where to where?

'Mastering one’s inability' – learning as a joint process

So, teachers – not only in schools but also in vocational training, higher education and adult education – will in the future need a skill that educational scientist Paul Mecheril describes as 'mastering one's inability', referring to the ability of teachers to acknowledge that they often do not know better or more than learners. To develop a productive approach in dealing with this 'lack of knowledge', we can borrow the concept of another educational scientist in the field of adult education – Paulo Freire. He emphasises that teachers are themselves being taught by their students because there is a lot that they do not know that their students know already. So, in turn, the learners also always teach. Freire thus considers education a mutual learning process. In the age of AI, social media and varying knowledge resources due to migration, this approach is especially topical.

Democracy starts in the classroom

This mindset could, and should, be given increasing priority in educational institutions. If learners had the opportunity to participate more, their perspectives on fundamental questions would be considered more often and more systematically. It could be a joint decision between teachers and students how they would structure an educational institution, which contents would be taught and how learning processes could be designed. Adult education is not the only place where such methods could take place, as evidenced by participatory research projects and school development projects with children and adolescents. 

An example of 'alternative' school concepts was demonstrated in a situation where children were able to participate in weekly 'school parliament' meetings. They contributed to decisions such as school equipment and facilities, house rules, field trips or learning contents. Such a change at educational institutions also means that students can experience democracy in practice. Ideally, it would also be an opportunity to discuss the rules of engagement: how they should hold discussions and take decisions together.

This proposed change would lead to a democratisation of educational institutions and would have two positive effects. It would thus be possible to adapt teaching contents and educational structures to current societal requirements as well as to the skills, needs and interests of learners, while also enabling them to experience, learn about and practice democratic action. 

This also serves to counter other developments that are quite problematic for social life, such as the growing disinterest in politics, the increasing polarisation in political discourse and scepticism about whether or not participation is at all possible in today’s democracies (see the democracy report 'Demokratiemonitor 2024', in German). By experiencing and practising participation in school, students are learning that one's opinion is not only heard but also making a difference. This would be an interesting and crucial form of learning in times when everything is changing.