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Democratic Education
Democratic A Beginning of a Story describes a fascinating personal journey and recounts the history of the foundation of the Democratic School of Hadera, which has successfully implemented a fascinating and important pedagogical How to convert the authoritative school into a democratic community, where the students have equal rights. Anyone with interest in education should read this fabulour book, about a unique school which has justly gained a worldwide reputation.
388 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 2011
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76 people want to read
About the author
Yaacov Hecht
3 books2 followersYaacov Hecht (Hebrew: יעקב הכט) born 1958 in Hadera is an Israeli educator and worldwide pioneer of democratic education.
Yaacov Hecht is an internationally distinguished leader and visionary in democratic education, learning theory, and societal change. In 1987, Hecht founded the Democratic School in Hadera, Israel, the first school in the world to call itself democratic. Due to the school’s success, Hecht helped to establish a net of democratic schools all over Israel. In 1993, he convened the first International Democratic Education Conference (IDEC); an annual conference that continues to connect educators, schools, and organizations. Shortly thereafter, Hecht founded the Institute for Democratic Education in Israel (IDE), which focuses on making change in the public schools system through democratic education principals. Within IDE, Hecht created an academic faculty for DE teachers. He served as the organization’s chairman from its beginning in 1995 until 2010. In 2005, “The Marker”—Israel’s largest economic magazine—named Hecht one of the 10 most influential people in the social and educational areas in Israel.
Yaacov Hecht is an internationally distinguished leader and visionary in democratic education, learning theory, and societal change. In 1987, Hecht founded the Democratic School in Hadera, Israel, the first school in the world to call itself democratic. Due to the school’s success, Hecht helped to establish a net of democratic schools all over Israel. In 1993, he convened the first International Democratic Education Conference (IDEC); an annual conference that continues to connect educators, schools, and organizations. Shortly thereafter, Hecht founded the Institute for Democratic Education in Israel (IDE), which focuses on making change in the public schools system through democratic education principals. Within IDE, Hecht created an academic faculty for DE teachers. He served as the organization’s chairman from its beginning in 1995 until 2010. In 2005, “The Marker”—Israel’s largest economic magazine—named Hecht one of the 10 most influential people in the social and educational areas in Israel.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
January 18, 2016
This is an interesting book about the experience of unschooling in Israel, more specifically at the Democratic School of Hadera, and indirectly about several other alternative education propositions that have emerged from pragmatism ideas developed by John Dewey and others (Summerhill in the U.K., Sudbury Valley in the U.S., and so forth.) The book was referred to me by a friend who works in the field, during a hot discussion about the occupation of public schools in Sao Paulo by students.
Yaacov Hecht is not a native English speaker and honestly admits he suffered a lot to get minimum command of the language, so it comes as no surprise that some phrases in the book sound weird and awkward as if literally translated from another idiom (Hebrew, I guess.) The book is also poorly edited. It reads almost like an amateurish, reckless brochure of notes rashly put together in the form of chapters. A careless narrative about the Hadera Democratic School blends disorderly with a normative exposition about Hecht’s theory of democratic education. That does not necessarily make the book difficult to read, but it does not make it more credible either.
Indeed, after finishing the book, I felt compelled to re-read Carl Sagan’s Demon-Haunted World: Since As A Candle In The Dark, and as I moved on through Chapter 2, I eventually understood why. There, Carl Sagan uses the opening paragraph of Albert Einstein’s 1905 paper on Special Relativity to describe how Science, real Science, operates: “It is refreshingly unself-serving, circumspect, understated. Contrast its restrained tone with, say, the products of modern advertising, political speeches, authoritative theological pronouncements” (Kindle: Loc 774). Well, it was exactly the Hecht’s congratulatory, self-indulgent tone that made me uncomfortable with this book: his heavy use of such words as "fascinating" (he uses this word 26 times, according with Kindle’s word count), "groundbreaking", "revolutionary", “celebration”, “impressive”, “excellent” sounded to me too passionate, uncritical, and biased to be a fair portrait of the pros and cons of democratic education, let alone honestly assess long-term implications of democratic education for individuals and the society at large.
All these presumably faults may well reflect Hecht's own mental model, since he really appreciates randomness and its role to produce genuine creativity, but to me it was a little annoying. Still, after managing to filter Hecht’s exacerbated enthusiasm, I could see the relevance of his ideas. Indeed, although I am very far from buying the book’s “sales pitch” for democratic education (and, for that matter, his arguments against traditional education), I acknowledge that in many aspects Hecht's contributions are valuable on their own right. There are two main topics of the theory that are noteworthy:
(1) Knowledge is not important, learning is what really matters. Hecht puts all weight on the student’s improving his or her learning skills instead of accumulating knowledge or content. One of his arguments is fairly persuasive: there is very little one remembers of all one studies in elementary, junior high and high school. So why bother? Let the student find his or her own area of growth and study it with passion and genuine interest. Another argument is more controversial: knowledge is not permanent anymore. In his view, there is no knowledge that will remain over time because of the hectic pace of change imposed on us. Hecht, in this case, assumes that knowledge does not accumulate and that learning can be random. He does not give any value to path dependence, which seems a too harsh of an assumption, in my opinion.
(2) Learning requires confidence, and confidence comes from the reassurance of being good at something. While this sounds as a statistical fallacy to me, Hecht believes that everybody can excel at something. It is mathematically impossible for all individuals to be above average, but Hecht tries to solve this paradox by creating as many averages as there are individuals. To me, this is an ad hoc, indulgent and naïvé idea. However, it does make sense to assume that a student will persevere on a new area of growth if he or she is able to get energy from his or her area of strength. My only comment would be that this is not attainable only under democratic education models. On the contrary, I’d say this is the essence of traditional education models.
I researched articles on the Internet that could bring different angles and put Hecht and his ideas into a broader context. The most compelling article I managed to find was one posted by a student who lived in Israel and described several reasons why democratic schools such as Hadera had been successful in Israel: Israeli’s proneness to change, loose requirements for anyone establish (and maintain) alternative schools in Israel, the country’s small size, etc. In any event, my impression after reading Hecht's book is that democratic education thrives (at least in the short term) because it strives to reduce conflict and resistance to the minimum possible. And it does that by lowering the bar on content, by denying its importance and removing any student's obligation whatsover to absorb it. That seems an almost lazy way to solve tension but I may well work in the short term and from the point of view of each individual. However, it is hard for me to have an informed opinion about the implications of democratic education in the long term and collectively, especially if the model is deployed more broadly. Hecht tries hard to advocate about democratic initiatives beyond his school, as a global movement towards a more insightful and free education model, but he does so with thin arguments, tautologies and little evidence. As a result, at least in that regard, he utterly fails, in my opinion.
Yaacov Hecht is not a native English speaker and honestly admits he suffered a lot to get minimum command of the language, so it comes as no surprise that some phrases in the book sound weird and awkward as if literally translated from another idiom (Hebrew, I guess.) The book is also poorly edited. It reads almost like an amateurish, reckless brochure of notes rashly put together in the form of chapters. A careless narrative about the Hadera Democratic School blends disorderly with a normative exposition about Hecht’s theory of democratic education. That does not necessarily make the book difficult to read, but it does not make it more credible either.
Indeed, after finishing the book, I felt compelled to re-read Carl Sagan’s Demon-Haunted World: Since As A Candle In The Dark, and as I moved on through Chapter 2, I eventually understood why. There, Carl Sagan uses the opening paragraph of Albert Einstein’s 1905 paper on Special Relativity to describe how Science, real Science, operates: “It is refreshingly unself-serving, circumspect, understated. Contrast its restrained tone with, say, the products of modern advertising, political speeches, authoritative theological pronouncements” (Kindle: Loc 774). Well, it was exactly the Hecht’s congratulatory, self-indulgent tone that made me uncomfortable with this book: his heavy use of such words as "fascinating" (he uses this word 26 times, according with Kindle’s word count), "groundbreaking", "revolutionary", “celebration”, “impressive”, “excellent” sounded to me too passionate, uncritical, and biased to be a fair portrait of the pros and cons of democratic education, let alone honestly assess long-term implications of democratic education for individuals and the society at large.
All these presumably faults may well reflect Hecht's own mental model, since he really appreciates randomness and its role to produce genuine creativity, but to me it was a little annoying. Still, after managing to filter Hecht’s exacerbated enthusiasm, I could see the relevance of his ideas. Indeed, although I am very far from buying the book’s “sales pitch” for democratic education (and, for that matter, his arguments against traditional education), I acknowledge that in many aspects Hecht's contributions are valuable on their own right. There are two main topics of the theory that are noteworthy:
(1) Knowledge is not important, learning is what really matters. Hecht puts all weight on the student’s improving his or her learning skills instead of accumulating knowledge or content. One of his arguments is fairly persuasive: there is very little one remembers of all one studies in elementary, junior high and high school. So why bother? Let the student find his or her own area of growth and study it with passion and genuine interest. Another argument is more controversial: knowledge is not permanent anymore. In his view, there is no knowledge that will remain over time because of the hectic pace of change imposed on us. Hecht, in this case, assumes that knowledge does not accumulate and that learning can be random. He does not give any value to path dependence, which seems a too harsh of an assumption, in my opinion.
(2) Learning requires confidence, and confidence comes from the reassurance of being good at something. While this sounds as a statistical fallacy to me, Hecht believes that everybody can excel at something. It is mathematically impossible for all individuals to be above average, but Hecht tries to solve this paradox by creating as many averages as there are individuals. To me, this is an ad hoc, indulgent and naïvé idea. However, it does make sense to assume that a student will persevere on a new area of growth if he or she is able to get energy from his or her area of strength. My only comment would be that this is not attainable only under democratic education models. On the contrary, I’d say this is the essence of traditional education models.
I researched articles on the Internet that could bring different angles and put Hecht and his ideas into a broader context. The most compelling article I managed to find was one posted by a student who lived in Israel and described several reasons why democratic schools such as Hadera had been successful in Israel: Israeli’s proneness to change, loose requirements for anyone establish (and maintain) alternative schools in Israel, the country’s small size, etc. In any event, my impression after reading Hecht's book is that democratic education thrives (at least in the short term) because it strives to reduce conflict and resistance to the minimum possible. And it does that by lowering the bar on content, by denying its importance and removing any student's obligation whatsover to absorb it. That seems an almost lazy way to solve tension but I may well work in the short term and from the point of view of each individual. However, it is hard for me to have an informed opinion about the implications of democratic education in the long term and collectively, especially if the model is deployed more broadly. Hecht tries hard to advocate about democratic initiatives beyond his school, as a global movement towards a more insightful and free education model, but he does so with thin arguments, tautologies and little evidence. As a result, at least in that regard, he utterly fails, in my opinion.
May 12, 2019
This book was suggested to me by my client, and after reading it I can only say- Why are we all not doing this already? Yaakov describes a solid, tested and growing education system we should all have in place to prepare children for being better democratic citizen and fulfilled individuals.
January 30, 2024
My next take on the democratic education topic, first being Free to Learn: Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students for Life.
This book complements the first one, it further opens up the democratic educational principles and gives a more generalized and theoretical view of the topic, the basis being the real life examples from Hadera Democratic School. Every democratic school is bit different in it self and has a face of its community, but the main principles remain.
On of the main ideas that I most relate to is that kids have this natural curiosity to learn and experiment and our responsibility as an adults is to value and nurture this curiosity, not to kill it with educational system that decides what and when someone should learn and measures our short term memory capabilities and not actual knowledge.
Interesting bit was that in democratic education system there is far less violence than in general public school system, the reason being that all kids can channel their creativity and energy in the area that they are interested in, so they don't have to seek attention through destructive actions and violence.
This book complements the first one, it further opens up the democratic educational principles and gives a more generalized and theoretical view of the topic, the basis being the real life examples from Hadera Democratic School. Every democratic school is bit different in it self and has a face of its community, but the main principles remain.
On of the main ideas that I most relate to is that kids have this natural curiosity to learn and experiment and our responsibility as an adults is to value and nurture this curiosity, not to kill it with educational system that decides what and when someone should learn and measures our short term memory capabilities and not actual knowledge.
Interesting bit was that in democratic education system there is far less violence than in general public school system, the reason being that all kids can channel their creativity and energy in the area that they are interested in, so they don't have to seek attention through destructive actions and violence.
May 24, 2025
Read it (in Estonian) and loved it. Many interesting ideas, presented really well. Made me think about why the traditional education is the way it is and why isn't it changing already, when there is so much evidence, that this is not the way to educate new generation. Loved the hope that the author gives about the future as well.
July 9, 2019
A must read for all teachers, educational experts and even parents.
July 8, 2022
Фърст хаф - вери гуд, секънд хаф - айм но лайк.
December 15, 2016
Една от книгите, които смятам за задължителни за всеки съвременен родител. Много ми допадна простия стил, необременен от сложни размишления, което не му пречи да излъчва дълбоко и силно послание за това какво може да бъде образованието и да вдъхнови за действие (или най-малкото за активно премисляне) всеки, който се интересува от образование. И тъй като имах възможността да се срещна няколко пъти с автора, както и да посетя две от описаните училища, мога съвсем спокойно да я препоръчам като напълно сериозно и достоверно четиво.
За мен прочитането на книгата беше последния и решаващ фактор да започна да посвещавам много време на тема образование и стана повод да се срещна с куп прекрасни хора, за чието съществуване не бях подозирала до този момент.
За мен прочитането на книгата беше последния и решаващ фактор да започна да посвещавам много време на тема образование и стана повод да се срещна с куп прекрасни хора, за чието съществуване не бях подозирала до този момент.
August 3, 2016
Yaacov does seem to be a pioneer in democratic education, so you're getting it straight from the horse's mouth here. I recommend the book for those thinking of going into the field, who want a bit of historical background.
I'm pretty much in accord with Aaron Aoyume's review. I also forgave Yaacov for his questionable English, and for mangling together all sorts of threads through the text, but the self-congratulatory tone and overuse of words, particularly 'fascinating', did wear thin after a while.
I'm pretty much in accord with Aaron Aoyume's review. I also forgave Yaacov for his questionable English, and for mangling together all sorts of threads through the text, but the self-congratulatory tone and overuse of words, particularly 'fascinating', did wear thin after a while.
December 29, 2016
A life-changing book. Must read for everyone.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews