An Exploration of Myles Horton's Democratic Praxis: Highlander Folk School

Educational Foundations, Spring 2004 by Thayer-Bacon, Barbara J

Introduction

Highlander Folk School is an adult education center located in eastern Tennessee that was formed in 1932 by Myles Horton and continues today.1 My les Horton (1905-1990) hoped to create an independent adult learning center where people could come together and address their problems. He wanted to create a public space where people could learn from each other and use education as a means to challenge the unjust social systems affecting their lives. Highlander was built on principles of democracy ; however, Horton resisted definitively defining democracy throughout his lifetime. In The Long Haul, he tells us people get angry with him for not carefully defining what he means by democracy, but he says, "I've never been able to define democracy. ... it's a growing idea."2 Horton began Highlander Folk School by relying on Dewey's concept of a democratic society as "a society which makes provisions for participation in its good of all its members on equal terms and which secures flexible readjustment of its institutions through interaction of the different forms of associated life."3 A democratic society is one with shared interests and fullness and freedom of interaction within the group as well as with other groups.

Great changes have happened in political philosophy and in societies at large since Dewey was writing and Horton was organizing. We live in times that Nancy Fraser describes as "postsocialist."4 Today, key underlying assumptions of democratic theory are being questioned and dismissed. Dewey's liberal democratic theory focused on individual freedom and autonomy, even as he offered us the possibilities of moving beyond individualism, with his theory of social transaction; and, he assumed an Enlightenment-type of rationalism, even as he showed us how to move beyond this rationalism in his arguments for truths as warranted assertions.5 Enlightenment rationalism and the idea of a unitary subject have come under serious criticism by postmodernists, feminists, and critical theorists. Fraser says we live in times when group identity has supplanted class interests and when the need for recognition overshadows the need for redistribution. She suggests we live in times when no credible vision of an alternative to the present order is available, that the visions we have lack the power to convince because they bracket questions of political economy. The visions she refers to include: radical democracy, multi-culturalism, political liberalism, and communitarianism/1

Highlander Folk School did not bracket questions of political economy; rather it sought to address those questions head-on. It also did not bracket questions of recognition; instead, it embraced diversity with open arms. While Horton began with Dewey's concept of a democratic society, he worked for close to sixty years on further developing this "growing idea," based on what he learned from his experiences through Highlander during the socialist times of labor union organizing, the anti-racist times of the Civil Rights Movement, and beyond. Unlike Paulo Freire, who worked as an academic and wrote many scholarly publications about his ideas for academic audiences, Myles Horton wasn't worried about trying to reach an academic audience. Horton preferred to spend his time helping people come together and learn how to organize and work toward "replacing, transforming, and rebuilding society so as to allow forpeople to make decisions that affect their lives."7 He wrote next to nothing about his ideas, not trusting the written word as a medium for expressing living ideas that are contextual to specific settings and change over time. Horton preferred to rely on oral transmission to share his ideas, so he shared them through the meetings he attended, the stories he and others told and the protest songs they sang. Fortunately, many others have written about Horton' s ideas as well as captured them in interviews and on film. Also, he talked about his philosophy of education at length with Paulo Freire for a "talked book" project they completed together right before Horton died.8 Still, I am surprised at how little Horton's work in adult education is discussed today, given the incredible success the staff and students attending Highlander have enjoyed over the years. We seem to have a new generation of academics and teachers who do not even recognize the names of My les Horton and Highlander Folk School. It is my position that there is much we can learn today from Horton's work at Highlander as we continue to consider the concept democracy in postsocialist times. I want to suggest that Horton and Highlander offer us a credible vision of an alternative to the present liberal democratic order, though Horton would be the first to say that vision must continue to grow and develop and be critiqued, as times change.

In this paper I want to explore how My les Horton was able to take Dewey's concepts of democracy and education and further develop these as he attempted to live them through the daily practice of his pedagogy and curriculum at Highlander Folk School. I want to consider what Myles Horton and Highlander can teach us today about a democracy always-in-the-making,9 as I seek to further develop a relational, pluralistic democratic theory that moves beyond liberal democracy and closer toward achieving social justice and caring. A relational view of democracy does not begin with an assumption of individualism, as classical liberal democracy does, but starts with Dewey's concept of transactional relationships, that individuals affect others and others affect individuals, for we are all selves-in-relation-withothers. A pluralistic view of democracy emphasizes identity and differences without falling into the trap of thinking there is a unitary subject, and without embracing extreme pluralism that emphasizes heterogeneity and incommensurability.