Learning to Lead Democratically: A Democratic Imperative for Leadership Preparation 99ciety, making apparent the choices that society makes and the consequences of those choices.
A democratic education must also provide students with a sense of responsibility for control-
ling and directing decisions in such a way as to create the democratic ideal as an undercurrent
through the foundation of society. There is movement, continuity, and integration of a society
by its educational system, made democratic by the devotion to learning democracy through
activities designed for living the democratic ideal as forms of associated living, situated in
classrooms and schools as social spaces shared by students and teachers and parents.
As Dewey (1916a) explained, in “such shared activity, the teacher is a learner, and the
learner is, without knowing it, a teacher—and upon the whole, the less consciousness there is,
on either side, of either giving or receiving instruction, the better” (p. 160). When the educa-
tional system is purposed to prepare active, creative, critical democratic citizens, the activities
of individuals make social spaces practiced places of democratic life. Leadership that ani-
mates democratic education recognizes the critical and necessary role that educational leaders
play in preparing each new generation of citizens to take their places in the never-ending work
of making democracy a reality. Likewise, leadership education that understands the work of
leading for democracy understands its role in transforming society; transforming a democratic
imperative into a democratic society. In arguing for democratic education, which is also an
argument for democratic leadership preparation and leading for democracy, Dewey (1916a)
explained that we should try to make “the present experience as rich and significant as possi-
ble. Then as the present merges insensibly into the future, the future is taken care of” (p. 56).
Democratic Knowledge
Knowledge, Dewey (1916a) argued, cannot be transferred directly “as an idea from one
person to another” (p. 159). It is only by having an actual experience, “trying to do something
and having the thing perceptibly do something to one in return” (p. 153) that we can begin to
understand. Knowledge, then, is a result of interactive learning that involves the formation of
what Dewey (1916a) called a “habit,” defined as “an ability to use natural conditions as
means to ends. It is an active control of environments” (p. 46). In this sense, habits translate as
dispositions necessary to being an active, critical democratic citizen. Knowledge learned
through experience is democratic in so far as the nature of experience is democratic, that is,
the experience embodies the principles of democracy. Such democratic experience inscribes
in the cognitive and emotional dimensions of the learner the democratic dispositions neces-
sary to the work of continuing the evolution of a democratic society. Knowledge that is de-
mocratic is animated by an understanding of and commitment to engaged social responsibil-
ity. This suggests that types of knowledge that distance the educator and learner from being
socially engaged is not democratic; quite the contrary such knowledge contributes to the de-
democratization of society.
Democratic knowledge suggests a need for educators to redefine curriculum, animating
the learning experience with the language of ethics in ways that commit students to a dis-
criminating conception of democratic community in which the relationship between the self
and the other can be constituted in practices sustained by historical memories, actualities, and
further possibilities of a just and human society. Dewey (1916a) argued that a “curriculum
which acknowledges the social responsibilities of education must present situations where
problems are relevant to the problems of living together, and where observation and informa-
tion are calculated to develop social insight and interest” (p. 192).