2 Strengthening democratic values

In order for teachers to empower pupils in ways that promote the development of democratic values, they must first develop these values themselves.

Teachers primarily need to:

• value human dignity, human rights, cultural diversity, democracy, justice and the rule of law;
• be open to cultural otherness and to other beliefs, world views and practices, be respectful and responsible, civic-minded etc;
• develop autonomous and homonomous[1] learning skills, in particular analytical and critical thinking skills and including co-operation, conflict-resolution and other related skills;
• develop knowledge and critical understanding of the Self¹, of language and communication and of the world.

Teachers need to build a democratic culture in their classrooms. The strengthening of democratic values is achieved through a holistic approach and the interaction of different aspects of the four dimensions of values, attitudes, skills, knowledge and critical understanding.

Figure 4: The model of competences for democratic culture (COE, 2018a)

 

Democratic values are important for pupils, but also for schools as an institution and for the community as a whole. For democracy and human rights to become a reality in daily life in a society, they should become a reality in daily life in schools.
Schools are where young people often get their first opportunity outside the family to develop and practise the democratic competences that they need for active engagement and living together in diverse societies. Making democracy and human rights a reality in the daily life of schools is not only a question of classroom teaching. It is a function of all aspects of school life. Participation in shared decision making and school governance, for example, helps all school actors, and in particular young people, to gain practical knowledge of and develop trust in the democratic and participative processes.

A whole-school approach ensures that all aspects of school life – curricula, teaching methods, decision-making structures and processes, policies and codes of behaviour, staff–pupil relationships, extracurricular activities and links with the community – reflect democratic and human rights principles. In turn, this may create a safe learning environment where these principles can be explored, experienced and even challenged in a peaceful way.

This holistic approach makes clear, that the European Heart Project is addressed to all stakeholders in schools – school leaders, teachers, other school employees, pupils, parents and local community actors such as local education authorities, NGOs, parents’ associations and school boards and explores the added value of the whole-school approach in developing a democratic culture at school and the competences that need to be acquired by learners if they are to participate effectively in a culture of democracy and live peacefully together with others in culturally diverse democratic societies.

The benefits of using a whole-school approach to teach values such as human rights, respect, responsibility, justice, fairness and equality are well-established. These benefits include: more respectful and harmonious social relationships within the school; increased learner responsibility, self-efficacy, self-esteem and intrinsic motivation; improvements in learning and academic standards; better understanding by learners of the nature of rights and responsibilities; learners participating actively in decision making in the school; learners being empowered to undertake action in defence of human rights; and learners acquiring more positive attitudes towards diversity (COE, 2018b).

 

[1]Homonomous and the concept of Self with capital S as defined by Boucouvalas (2009).