Hildreth
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experience and involvement become more complicated. What is clear is that Public
Achievement deepened the quality of their already on-going political involvement.
V. Discussion
As a whole, the four areas of findings represent the significant, and sometimes profound,
learning experiences that occurred in the class and in Public Achievement. They show what the
experience of being in a democratic classroom and coaching Public Achievement look like, as
well as detail what students learned about politics and how they changed as political actors. But
what are the implications of these findings? What do they teach us about democratic education
and political engagement? In what ways can they be used to improve current practice? I argue
that the findings can be used to develop a grounded theory of democratic education and political
engagement (Strauss and Corbin 1990). In the following discussion, I will offer the first
tentative steps in this theory building.
The findings point towards a pedagogy of democratic education. Students understood
themselves as living what they were learning. This integration of living learning called students
to “step outside the box,” to experience the role of ‘student’ in new and different ways. Being in
a democratic classroom, and having the ability to change how the class was taught, made typical
practices of being a student more explicit, and thus, more permeable to revision. In addition, the
experience of coaching Public Achievement put students in a related situation to the class, but in
a different role. Facilitating learning experiences for young people called students to reflect on
their own educational experiences, and make their own pedagogical decisions. This nested
experience of teaching and learning provided significant learning opportunities for students, but I
also question whether being in a democratic classroom unrealistically raised students
Convention