Re: democracy

Betty.Zan who-is-at uni.edu
Thu, 28 Mar 1996 09:25:26 -0500 (CDT)

In response to Phil Agre's request for examples of democratic traditions of
teaching social skills.

Turner, M. (1957). _The child within the group: An experiment in
self-government_. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

This book describes one teacher's experience with a mixed-age class of
elementary school children between the years 1920-1923. Turner took quite
seriously the task of allowing children to govern themselves. The book
contains detailed descriptions of the children's struggles with rulemaking and
decision making, including transcripts of class meetings. It is a lovely book,
and was an inspiration to Rheta DeVries and me as we wrote our book _Moral
classrooms, moral children: Creating a constructivist atmosphere in early
education_ (DeVries & Zan, 1994), in which we describe some of the same
democratic processes (rule making, decision making, voting, clean up, etc)
with young children (preschool through first grade).

Hope this helps.

Betty Zan
Regents' Center for Early Developmental Education
University of Northern Iowa
Cedar Falls, IA
email Betty.Zan who-is-at uni.edu