EDUCATION FOR THE GOOD SOCIETY - Support

the unity of process and possibility. We have fortoo long marginalised participatory traditions ofdemocracy and the radical educational pioneerswhose prefigurative practice lived what many ofus still only aspire to. Now is as a good a time asany to take stock: there is an urgency to our task,heightened by the literal and metaphorical nearbankruptcyof the economic and political systemunder which we live.If ‘Patterns of partnership’ suggests a variety ofways in which we can develop more democraticways of working together in schools, myten-point ‘Schools for democracy’ suggests awider institutional framework within which theycan contribute to radical democratic practice. 71 Education in and for radical democracyThere should be:• a proclaimed, not just an intended, democraticvitality, albeit one that bears in mind thedemands of context and circumstance.2 Radical structures and spacesThere should be:• permanent and proper provisionality• residual unease with hierarchy• transparent structures that encourage ways ofworking that transcend boundaries and invitenew combinations and possibilities• emphasis on the spatiality of democracy, oninterpersonal and architectural spaces thatencourage a multiplicity of different formsof formal and informal engagement with amultiplicity of persons• pre-eminence of the general meeting withinwhich the whole community reflects on itsshared life, achievements and aspirations.Here young people and adults makemeaning of their work together, returningtenaciously and regularly to the imperativesof purpose, not merely to the mechanics ofaccomplishment.3 Radical rolesThere should be:• ‘role defiance and role jumbling’ (RobertoUnger) among staff but also between staff andstudents. See ‘Patterns of partnership’ above.4 Radical relationshipsThis involves:• ‘re-seeing’ each other as persons rather thanas role occupants• nurturing a new understanding, sense ofpossibility, and felt respect between adultsand young people• having a greater sense of shared delight, careand responsibility.5 Personal and communal narrativeThere should be:• multiple spaces and opportunities for youngpeople and adults, to make meaning of theirwork, personally and as a community• necessary connection with radical traditionsof education.6 Radical curriculum, critical pedagogyand enabling assessmentFormal and informal curriculum must:• equip young people and adults with thedesire and capacity to seriously interrogatewhat is given and co-construct a knowledgethat assists in leading good and joyful livestogether• start with the cultures, concerns and hopes ofthe communities that the school serves• include integrated approaches to knowledgewith students and staff working in smallcommunities of enquiry.Critical pedagogy is:• a reciprocity of engagement and involvementnot only with the immediate community, butwith other communities and ways of being,at a local, regional, national and internationallevel.Enabling assessment involves:• forms of assessment at national and locallevels that have the flexibility to respond tothe particularities of context• high levels of peer and teacher involvementthrough assessment-for-learning approachesand additional community and familyinvolvement through public, portfolio-basedpresentations.7 See Fielding and Moss, RadicalEducation and the Common School,Chapter 2, for a more detailedaccount.Education for the good society | 37