Category talk:Democratic, Sudbury model, and free schools

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I created this because I couldn't easily separate the three descriptions.

I've (perhaps arbitrarily) included schools here on the basis that the school be democratically run by the students and that lessons are optional. This rules out Brisbane Independent School and Preshil. —Ashley Y 04:59, 21 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm unclear on why structuring this category this way is helpful. If it's a matter of essentially renaming the "Free schools" category to more accurately reflect the schools that are described here, and "Democratic schools" is not deemed appropriate, I suggest that something like "Non-hierarchical schools" would be less unwieldy, and also easier to grasp for readers unfamiliar with the concepts. Tim Pierce 17:53, 22 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"Non-hierarchical schools" is a bit vague, since one might argue that there's hierarchy in all human groups. "Democratic schools" might be better, but "democratic" might be a technical term. "Free schools" is a bit ambiguous. "Democratic and Sudbury model schools" would also work.

The idea here is that someone familiar with Summerhill will understand the term "democratic school", while someone familiar with Sudbury schools will understand the term "Sudbury model school". Each might not be familiar with the other term, but they're similar enough in concept to group together (I believe). —Ashley Y 07:36, 23 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, you could argue that any human group tends to adopt some hierarchy, but you could also argue that any "democratic" enterprise recognizes some external authority. These are pretty narrow technical exceptions that don't make the descriptors less valid or useful. "Non-hierarchical" was just a suggestion, so I'm not trying to push that specific designation here -- I just think that the current category name is confusing and unhelpful to a reader who isn't immediately familiar with the different non-traditional schooling models you're talking about. Tim Pierce 13:50, 23 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]