Democracy in the classroom

With time, support and trust, young people are capable of making significant contributions to democratic life: now, not just in the future.

The full Year 9 cohort at Castlemaine Secondary College was invited to unpack democracy, deliberate and put it back together over two days.

On Day 1 we worked through:
•  Group values and agreements
•  Building our democracy muscles: disagreement; critical thinking and compromise at top of the list
•  What matters in a democracy?
•  Who gets included?
•  Who gets to decide?
•  How should decisions be made?

AND: we even had time for students to try out preferential voting (for their pizza orders for day 2! ... pizza types in lower house; and dietary requirements in the upper house to keep the lower house in check!)

On Day 2, we supported students to:
•  Digest the outcomes of their PIZZA VOTE mock election 🍕 🗳️ We revealed which pizzas students would eat based on their Day 1 voting, using different voting methods from Australia and abroad.
•  Explore fundamental questions in designing their ideal democracy, including: 'How does information shape decisions?', 'How do people and organisations influence decision-making?', and 'How do we keep power in check?'
•  Test and refine their democracy design from Day 1 and negotiate solutions that the whole group could 'live with'.

We are now supporting the students to finalise and publish their report!