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Feb 13, 2023

"Democracy requires the kind of education that helps young people learn to lead themselves." --Deborah Meier

The Company We Keep: Deborah Meier

"When all goes even remotely well, we are remarkable learners. Our capacity to be so is linked to our equally remarkable capacity to imagine being another. We are designed to learn from others, to be apprentices to adults. All we need are those adults and a setting that seems to accept us and, in turn, seems acceptable to us. This allows us to trust sufficiently to explore and imagine, predict and wonder. The more trust the better; the less trust, the narrower our vision. Such a setting allows us to try out roles, make choices, and then take on an acceptable level of responsibility for our own actions and ideas." Deborah Meier is arguably one of the most renowned leaders of the school reform movement in the U.S. She has worked as a teacher, principal, best-selling author and advocate for over six decades. In this keynote address delivered in 1998, Meier makes a passionate (and still relevant) case for the kind of schools that truly nurture democracy.