Interviews

Interview with David Gribble about Democratic Schools, May 2007

Andrea Wheeler: I'm doing a project about participation - engaging schools children with architecture - but also about sustainability, teaching at the same time. I think that Democratic Schools might have something to teach me and the new schools building programmes. What do you think is important for the new Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programmes? What aspect of schooling do you think should be stressed to make learning better? There is a lot of stress on IT, I think, but also on sustainability? What do you think policy makers should be thinking about, in your opinion?

David Gribble: Friendlier buildings, smaller units, as in for example, Bishops Park College and the Kleingruppe Lufingen, a Swiss School/therapeutic community described in Real Education, also insulation and solar heating.

Andrea Wheeler: I hated school. Really hated it. When I have interviewed 16-19 year olds about anti-social behaviour, younger ones not going to school and hanging around, not doing much they have said that school is not all the fault, they tell me it's parents as well. They also tell me that BSF programmes are not going to be any good because they will be the same children that will be going to the new schools, with the same ways of teaching. Even young people know that loads of computers and new buildings are not going to solve all the problems of education, deprivation and lack of opportunity within some communities. What do you think about this? There's a lot of pressure in the BSF programme for design to achieve some very ambitious goals.

David Gribble: Student ownership is important for the success of the school, student ownership of buildings and the curriculum. The problem is that students do not know what is possible, they have no experience of anything other than traditional education, they think that if you call the teacher by his/her first name you won't have any respect. Perhaps they think that they won't be like that themselves, maybe they think it's only the others that will be like that. People in general think that if there is no obligation to go to lessons, children will not go, but it just isn't the case. There are a lot of examples in my books about Democratic Schools, some more radical than others. Room 13, for example, which is in a primary school, has recently been awarded a grant of £200,000 and the children are doing all the administration. There are street children in India, who are changing government policy, lobbying. In reality it is the most deprived children that need this sort of education most, they really need it far more than the middle class children whose parents can afford to send their children to independent schools of this kind.

Andrea Wheeler: I was a deeply mistrusting young person and had no faith that my teachers but wanted to be successful and achieve and it have made me a very individualistic learner which isn't always that helpful to me now. I want to argue that participation practices that really engage young people, that are democratic, have real value in teaching young people. But I also want to explore what this democratic is, what it means and could be in this context. Media pressure is suggesting we should unite under the common purpose of fighting the global energy crisis, but there are also so many emotive and confusing ways that the global environmental argument is being presented and so many different underlying agendas it must be very hard for young people to make sense of it all. In your experience of democratic schools what are the problems with contested agendas or hidden beliefs, such as potentially the sustainability one. The government wants all schools to be sustainable by 2020, I think, it might be earlier, and for children to be engaged in sustainable behaviour. It also wants to engage young people and listen to their voice. Is there a conflict? Do you think so?

David Gribble: You shouldn't try to "engage" young people as it suggests a relation of power. Let them engage you.

Andrea Wheeler: It is a question that I'd like to ask young people themselves. To ask them what a sustainable lifestyle would mean to them, without the influence of geography lessons or Al Gore's DVD. To ask them if they could image a link between well-being and sustainability, if a sustainable lifestyle would be nice, whether living a sustainable lifestyle would feel good, or would they would anticipate some conflict with society as it is and consumerist pressures. I would. But I might also be influenced by how the climate change storey is being told and what we think we need to do. Do you think this is too much to ask young people to think about or respond to?

David Gribble: They probably think about it but are not given much opportunity to discuss it. A teacher at Caol Primary school asked her class questions like what happens to the part of you that is you when you die, and why are we here. She also asked them if they had every though about these questions before, and most of them said yes. When she asked them whether they had ever talked to anyone else about such issues they said no. At the 1972 Rio Conference there was an alternative conference going on at the same time for children and there was one session at which children were able to put their own questions to a panel of adults in positions of authority, including Al Gore. Their questions were important ones. Sometimes children are too much for adults they can be very demanding and insist on answers.

Andrea Wheeler: My questions so far to young people have been around: What do you think about recycling, why do you think it is, or is NOT important? Do you think it will become more important in the future, so it's just what people do or think about naturally? What do you think about energy efficient buildings, or buildings that have their own technologies in them to provide their own electricity (wind turbines, heat pumps, solar voltaic cells)? Do you think we will have more and more of them in the future? Do you think people should learn to care more about those sorts of things? Do you think that in the future that people will care more? Do you think that training courses will teach more, or should teach you more about these technologies in building? Or teach other people to care more?

David Gribble: Recycling in schools usually means saving soft drinks cans etc. This naturally seems petty. Making things out of old tyres, white goods etc. is more important but hardly practicable in schools. Transport even less so. Discussing sustainability only in terms of recycling (cans etc.) is a little patronizing, there are more important questions for young people. Saving energy can be a potential exercise on a personal scale but on an industrial scale it is more impressive.

Andrea Wheeler: My responses to questions about sustainability have been stories about the inconvenience of recycling or about the lack of consistency in the stressing the importance of these things, as if schools have been a little faddy with their approaches to sustainability or ideas that these things are more pleasurable or appropriate for younger children. I don't think it's the right way to ask about these things. I'd like to ask young people to tell me what schools they would like to be or work in would be like but I would I think rather ask it in a deeper or more critical way as what sort of place they would like to be in or what sorts of different places for well-being (although I might need a different way of talking about that idea) a school might need. It is a question asked of not of what school I'd like, but how do I want to be, where, with whom and how? And how can I live well? Can you help? I would like to find out what the important questions are for participation, sustainability and good education from the perspective of young people?

David Gribble: The problem is that children who have never experienced it simply do not know what is possible - which is the same for Democratic Schools. No rules doesn't mean chaos. This is also the problem with the School I'd Like project. Clients need to brief architects about the emotional impact of a building, they don't need to be told not how many doors or windows there should be.

Andrea Wheeler: There was something in a newspaper lately about how they're going to abolish all Liverpool secondary schools and have personalised learning at home? What do you think about this? There was also something about a school that's been built without a playground so all the children can focus on learning. Do you think this is a good idea?

David Gribble: It's a dreadful idea, both are, what's important about schools is the relationships and I think there should be more opportunities for relationships to form, more playgrounds, more social spaces, more cafés, that sort of thing. It is important for young people. Places of social interaction are probably more important than classrooms. See Beyond Learning Gert J. J. Bieata (This answers both questions).

Andrea Wheeler

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