“Teachers who have a vision of democratic education assume that learning is never solely confined to an institutionalized classroom… Embracing the concept of a democratic education we see teaching and learning taking place constantly… Democratic educators show by their habits of being that they do not engage in forms of socially acceptable psychological splitting wherein someone teaches only in the classroom and then acts as though knowledge is not meaningful in other settings. When students are taught this, they can experience learning as a whole process rather than as a restrictive practice that disconnects and alienates them from the world”. (Bell Hooks Teaching Community)

Why is it that practitioners of informal learning can align themselves so closely with the tenets of democratic educational philosophy?

I observe and pose such a question from the perspective of an informal educator and researcher, using media technologies to facilitate learning activities in out of school, informal, community settings.

There are a number of central characteristics evident in informal education practices which reveal a persuasion for socially just and holistic approaches:

• Relinquishing control of the learning process
• redefining the value of what constitutes learning
• encouraging self-awareness & reflection
• facilitating critical skills, freethinking & experimentation
• engaging though innovation and equal access & participation.

In raising the profile of informal learning and understanding its impact, all these elements require exploration. Adopting these in the context of formal education settings marks a distinct pedagogic sea change. I am engaged in projects which bridge the informal/formal educational divide. I recognize the enormous potential of such collaboration in terms of rebalancing the educational skew from a social space epitomised by didacticism, disjuncture and division to one fashioned by dialectic exchange, connection and equality.

To reiterate, balance, is key. Whilst formal education instruction is being increasingly eschewed, some critiques of informal learning approaches continue to murmur about abdication of responsibility by practitioners i.e. the hands-on/participatory yet hands-off paradox. However, working beyond institutional mindsets which stultify learner experiences require generative, flexible and non-hierarchical approaches to learning. These will take time to develop, appropriate and embed in order to be successful. Policy makers and educationalists must therefore be willing to support and develop effectual and truly democratic conditions which will allow these processes to be seeded, to grow and ultimately to the bear the rich fruits of learning they offer.

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