Education is crucial in building a democratic society. People make good decisions when they are informed and able to defend their rights. Knowledge is no longer understood as a set of facts that can be transmitted by rote. It has to be discovered—and rediscovered. Our schools are still using an autocratic system that is not conducive to learning how to learn or to self governing.
Kees Boeke was an internationally known peace activist and educator. During WW II when he was arrested for harboring Jews, in his pocket he had an early draft of a declaration entitled “No Dictatorship.” It could have cost him his life, but he was released. It described a plan for a truly democratic society and was first published in May of 1945 as Sociocracy: Democracy as It Might Be. This version was edited by his… Read More . . . ““Sociocracy: Democracy as It Might Be” by Kees Boeke”
Crushing Middle-Class Prosperity
The American Dream is of obtaining middle-class prosperity and socio-economic mobility. Hedrick Smith analyzes how it was lost in America.
The American middle class in the 1960s was the largest and most prosperous in the world. Now, the disparity between top and bottom is huge. Even the wealthiest 5% are falling behind the super-rich 1% that controls 2/3 of the nation’s wealth—trillions of dollars. The remaining 99% earn the remaining 1/3. America… Read More . . . “Who Stole the American Dream”
Well-received biography of Kees Boeke in Dutch by Daniela Hooghiemstra, a noted Dutch Biographer.
Available from Bol.com
Description
De christen-pacifist Kees Boeke (1884- 1966) wordt wel ‘onderwijshervormer’ genoemd maar hij beoogde niet minder dan de stichting van een nieuwe wereld. Toen de poging om die gemeenschap te stichten mislukte, besloot Boeke een school te stichten waar de ‘nieuwe wereld’ van de grond af opgebouwd moest worden. Deze unieke school kreeg na de Tweede Wereldoorlog een… Read More . . . “A Biography of Kees Boeke”
Kees Boeke and Betty Cadbury
Before World War II, Dutch educator and pacifist Cornelius “Kees” Boeke was exported from England for vocally advocating peace with Germany. He and his wife, English Quaker and social activist Beatrice “Betty” Cadbury, settled in Kees Boeke’s hometown, Bilthoven, a small community in the Netherlands. They had previously been active internationally in Quaker peace education, predominantly in the Middle East before it became too dangerous. In Bilthoven, they actively supported… Read More . . . “First Implementation of Sociocracy”
In a workshop I conducted last Sunday, one of the participants asked, “How do you encourage self-organizationSelf-organization, sometimes called spontaneous order, is a ...?” By some miracle, probably related to my being on every mailing list on anything related to sociocracy and governance, I received in my mailbox a link to an article on the Interaction Institute for Social Change. You guessed it on Tips for Encouraging Self-Organization by Curtis Ogden.
After some editing and… Read More . . . “Encouraging Self-Organization”
The California Tenure Case is evidence of just one of the systems failures in education that could be resolved with the use of sociocracy in schools. The adversarial nature of the administrative structure and imposition of standards in education pits teachers, the school administration, unions, and state and federal governments against each other in a wars that none of them can win. Even the concept of winning ensures that the system will fail.
Conflict weakens… Read More . . . “The California Tenure Case, Part II: Sociocracy in Schools”
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The sociocracy email discussion list was started in 2002. The list language is English, but members speak many languages if you have translation questions. We discuss anything related to sociocracy, democracy, and collaborative governance.
This site is a resource on sociocracy and democracy and the ways they support each other. It examines the principles and practices and the ways in which together they could better achieve their objectives. How would things get done in a sociocratic democracy?
Kees Boeke and Betty Cadbury
Before World War II, Dutch educator and pacifist Cornelius “Kees” Boeke was exported from England for vocally advocating peace with Germany. He and his wife, English Quaker and social activist Beatrice “Betty” Cadbury, settled in Kees Boeke’s hometown, Bilthoven, a small community in the Netherlands. They had previously been active internationally in Quaker peace education, predominantly in the Middle East before it became too dangerous. In Bilthoven, they actively supported… Read More . . . “First Implementation of Sociocracy”
In a workshop I conducted last Sunday, one of the participants asked, “How do you encourage self-organizationSelf-organization, sometimes called spontaneous order, is a ...?” By some miracle, probably related to my being on every mailing list on anything related to sociocracy and governance, I received in my mailbox a link to an article on the Interaction Institute for Social Change. You guessed it on Tips for Encouraging Self-Organization by Curtis Ogden.
After some editing and… Read More . . . “Encouraging Self-Organization”