coACTION_dsc_en

coACTION Project Page 18/27 Democratic School Culture Implementation at Arnstein levels 6-8: Teachers can establish structures of genuine participation in their daily work: • Partnership (level 6): Children work actively in class councils to help shape everyday school life, for example in developing rules, resolving conflicts or choosing topics. A teacher could let the pupils freely choose the topic in science lessons and let the class vote on how they want to research it. • Delegated power (level 7): Pupils themselves decide on project methods or objectives, for example in cross-curricular learning projects. In such projects, pupils present their own solutions and jointly decide on a course of action. • Citizen control (level 8): Pupils' projects such as a pupil company, an environmental council or the organization of a school festival are planned and carried out independently, with teachers merely providing advice. !"#$ As a teacher, you act as a moderator: you provide guidance, but leave the decisions to the children and reflect on the results with them. Teachers also demonstrate democratic processes to each other and to the school management. For example, they can plan further training courses together or make self-determined decisions about new teaching materials in subject teams (level 6-7). By participating in subject conferences or the school conference, they practise communicating on an equal footing. In this way, they assume their own competencies (e.g. planning further training) and strengthen their recognition (power): If an initiative from the teaching staff (such as a new AG offer) appears in the school development, the teachers feel valued. Contribution to competence building Teachers who allow genuine participation promote democratic values such as fairness (every opinion counts) and respect (diversity is recognized). They strengthen attitudes such as self-efficacy, commitment and responsibility . At the same time, the children develop skills such as listening , negotiating , voting and arguing . They acquire knowledge about democratic processes on a small scale (e.g. how voting works) and content knowledge from the chosen topics. Attitudes Values Skills Knowledge