The mailing list of the Keshet democratic school hosted a heated thread about how democratic the school should be. Um. Interesting, don't get a lot of discussion on how tyrannical the system should be in tyrannical systems. Never mind.

Every time I find myself witnessing such an argument, I remember my man Winston

Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."

Winston Churchill, November 11, 1947

I think that is true for education as much as it is true for governance. I actually think that if you reject it in education, you have a hard job justifying it elsewhere.