A democratic strategy for professional change. Networks and their context

Abstract

Being able to self-regulate lifelong learning must be the purpose of an educational system which focuses on the learner and which defends equity as a value. To promote democratic values means to strive for a system in which everyone feels acknowledged within their own biography and has all possible opportunities to express themselves and to improve their lifelong learning. Networks are a strategy to jolt the system and to promote debate with the aim of reviewing the extent to which the practices are aligned with the theoretical frameworks that have been validated so far, in order to be consistent in our actions. At the same time, networks are contexts of professional learning based on trustworthy relationships that seek to ensure that adults participate in learning through different forms of interaction, proposing by symmetry this same type of context to their students. To change the culture of a school, which is defined by how the practices are understood, contexts need to be changed so that beliefs will change too. Networks have this objective: to be environments of trust and safety so that the current educational system may be transformed on the basis of experience.

Keywords: Democracy, network, self-regulation, metacognition, collaboration, communication, equity.