Schooling for Humanity: When Big Brother Isn't Watching

Schooling for Humanity: When Big Brother Isn’t Watching documents David O. Solmitz’s thirty-year struggle as a controversial, anti-establishment teacher in a small, rural, central Maine high school. Using journal entries, accompanied by administrative reprimands, intertwined with historical documentation of the intensifying conflict between democratic pedagogy and capitalist domination in our public schools, the author gives a narrative account of his efforts to create a democratic classroom in a traditional secondary school setting. By incorporating theories of progressive educators into his practice, Solmitz demonstrates the possibility of achieving the ideals of democratic schooling in spite of an increasingly bureaucratic, rigid, and authoritarian system.