Why Consensus, and How

Our schools need to be democratic in their design and their daily praxis for two reasons. First, democratic schools will be more culturally responsive, more personalized and individualized, more authentic and more community-connected. Better and deeper learning will happen when students and facilitators are designing learning democratically and collaboratively. We know that motivation is the absolute bedrock upon which all learning is built – anyone can learn anything so long as they truly and properly want to, and can access the resources they need. When students design their own learning, and in our vision, design their own schools for this learning, the intense burden teachers presently face of “hooking” student interest and finding “relevance” in their curricula to students’ lives becomes completely obsolete – they can focus on being effective facilitators of learning. If we can trust them to, students will design and build their learning in such a way that their cultures are expressed deeply, the needs of themselves and their communities are addressed directly, and the purpose of learning becomes living life itself rather than some external reward or punishment. This is an article of faith for us.

Second, our democracy needs us citizens to be practiced and educated in the science and art of living democratically. We know the best learning takes the form of authentic, meaningful, reflective practice within a community of practice; so, if we want students to learn democracy, our schools must become laboratories of democracy. We presently graduate all kinds of high school seniors, even valedictorian and those with mounds of AP credits, who have little or no practical experience sharing responsibility over authentic democratic institutions, or making meaningful decisions collaboratively. Is there any wonder that our adult institutions (political, social, economic, cultural) tend to be so rigidly bureaucratic and prone to hierarchy and authoritarianism, even against our rhetorical commitments to democracy? We are busy reproducing anti-democratic structures every day in our schools, and if we want to sincerely make change toward more meaningful democracy in all aspects of life, schools must change first. This is the bigger reason why we need democracy in schools – to set the bar as high as possible for our students’ expectations for their future lives, and to prepare them to do better than we are presently doing. We want every future instance in which our students’ best intentions and ideas and ethics are overruled by the forces of hierarchy and anti-democracy to rankle as deeply as it ought to, and to inspire them to make change. Because these instances will come, and they will be myriad. We don’t want students to learn to be accustomed to being dominated, disempowered, and marginalized. We want the injury that is anti-democracy to stand out in its proper stark relief, highlighted against the personal experience of knowing what’s right. We want them to see and to say, “another way is possible – I know because I have lived it.” Student councils and the occasional “passion project” in one or another class do not cut it on this front, not remotely.

Why Formal Consensus?

We have said that, as far as we’re concerned, democracy is measured by the extent to which each person in community feels authentically in control of the institutions that direct their life. It’s the polar opposite of the helplessness and pain that so many of us feel as we watch decisions being made on our behalf, with at best our nominal consent, and at worst in direct opposition to our core beliefs. To us, democracy is never having to utter, “yeah, but what can you do…?” It is never having to sigh and say, “Well, if it was up to me…” But it is also not about ego or selfishness, about getting what you want for yourself at any cost to those you are in community with. Democracy has to strike the balance between our seemingly opposed bits of genetic code that, in many ways, define us: altruism and self-interest. It’s about getting the balance between what we think is best for ourselves and what we hear our communities say is best for them.

Once we commit to building democratic schools, we face a choice: if democracy means shared decision-making and control over the institutions that impact our lives, how do we go about making decisions together? It’s more-or-less easy to call for democracy in our schools. It is much harder to say what this might entail, how it could be structured, or what limits can be safely placed on it without jeopardizing the whole purpose of the thing. What kind of democracy are we aiming for, anyways? How do we strike that balance between altruism and self-interest? How to we build institutions that ensure we are caring for each other and meeting our own needs? How can decisions be made that leave us authentically in power with those around us, not over them? We are here calling for the use of Formal Consensus as the most democratic form for collaborative, community decision-making in every possible school setting — particularly in the initial participatory design of schools, but likely also throughout re-iterative designing, and potentially in day-to-day praxis as well. How have we come to this commitment?

A few stories…

It’s not always advised to define your central concepts by their deficit or lack, but as folks working in schools today it’s hard not to feel the real social, physical, and emotional tolls of anti-democracy each and every day. When our students are alternately pushing back hard against our most seemingly banal and neutral requests, or otherwise fawning for small favors and rewards from us as authorities, we feel it. There is a deep, baseline resentment towards school and our roles in it that is baked into the compulsion students are under. As a kid in school, you have next-to zero control over the formal goings-on of the school or your life in it. As educators in schools, our best relationships with students tremble with little ripples of the power dynamic we unwittingly (perhaps) find ourselves in: at any moment we as teachers can demand seemingly anything from students, and we can demand compliance under threat of consequences. Among the many dehumanizing effects of this unguarded opportunity for capriciousness is a damper placed on the ability and will to learn (we know this with strong confidence from brain-based research into learning — any whiff of fear, intimidation, or domination shuts down deep thinking, while freedom, play, and autonomy seem to be keys to real learning). If we don’t keep this in mind it can often be baffling — why don’t these kids want to learn anything? In other words, there is not much worth saving in our present design for decision-making in schools. Call this school status quo.

So should we just vote on every important issue that comes up, or elect people to vote for us? My own earliest memories of participating in anything nominally democratic are from the 6th grade in Omaha, Nebraska, when the Bush-Clinton-Perot presidential campaign was underway, and my teacher organized a mock election for our class. Students were divided into groups — I ended up on the Bush “team” and we watched debates and discussed them as a class, and then conducted our own class election. I remember being shocked that Perot won easily, and complaining bitterly about it. I don’t at all remember how or why I went from being an assigned member of a group to being an avid, enthusiastic Bush supporter, but I do remember the anger and hurt feelings as the results were announced. They were a mini-microcosm of what about a third of all Americans feel every four years when they find that their candidate has lost the presidency. Bitterness and a promise to do better against opponents next time. Exasperation. And maybe to make life difficult for the winners in the short run. I have certainly felt this way many times since I came of voting age, and I’m sure I will again, many times over. We’ve written about this before. Call this abdication to representatives.

Much later, as I myself became a teacher and got a new job in a new school district, I found myself sitting at one of many small tables scattered around a large conference room, listening to the superintendent lay out some objectives for the about-to-start school year. At one point (and I don’t remember what the issue at hand was, tellingly), she said, “OK, I’m going to need everybody’s consensus on this point — can you please show me a ‘thumbs-up’ if you’re on board, a ‘thumbs sideways’ if you can live with this, or a ‘thumbs down’ if you really disagree?” She paused for maybe 15 seconds as she scanned the room to see most thumbs weakly up, and a few hesitantly tipped to the side. The superintendent felt empowered, but I don’t think the rest of us did. Nearly every subsequent faculty meeting led by this superintendent would have line such moment of “consensus,” and I cannot remember a single incident of someone giving a “thumbs down” to block. Was this because everybody was always wanting these meetings to end quickly so we could go home? Was it out of hesitation to question our disrupt the perceived unanimity of the group, or the authority of the boss? Or was it because this call for consensus was only enacted when an uncontroversial issue needed a rubber stamp out approval? Likely each of these reasons came into play at different times. Call this faux-consensus.

Another time, later in another district, I was a representative to our local teachers’ union. We were in a contract negotiation year, and a team had been hard at work for months hammering out an agreement with the district. It was a hard negotiation, and there was a fair amount of nuance in the proposed contract, but the negotiating team had done a good job of it. Ratifying the contract among the membership seemed like it would be an easy vote to pass. What no-one was expecting was that the former local president, who had quit his union position in a huff of frustration at the end of the previous year, feeling slighted and unappreciated by his fellow members, would still be holding enough of a grudge at his replacement that he would attempt to mobilize a “no” vote on the contract. Word started going around on ratification day that the ex-president was going teacher-to-teacher trying to drum up support for his “no” campaign. As far as anyone could tell, there was not much substance to his complaint, but he was pulling the levers of personal loyalties, and maybe would have enough votes to scuttle the ratification and send the negotiations team back to the table with the district to re-work the agreement. This would have been a disaster, the new leadership all agreed. What could we do? We did our own room-to-rooming, asking for explicit commitments to a “yes” vote (which, of course, was supposed to be by secret ballot), and frantically reading over Robert’s Rules, looking for parliamentary maneuvers that we might use to shut down this little insurgency. It was a real moment of panic, right up into the start of the meeting. When the motion came up to ratify, the ex-president sat in the back of the room, glowering, but saying nothing. The vote passed with no problem. It was an uncomfortable kind of celebration afterward. Hard feelings lingered for some time. Call this procedural democracy.

Only once have I been called to Jury Duty and made it through selection. When I told people I was serving, the response was pretty universal — pity, a little annoyance on my behalf, warnings about what a waste of time it would be. When I reported, my fellow jurors and I found that we were to decide on a case with multiple counts. Burglary, breaking and entering, identity theft. After hearing arguments (the defense basically put up none — the lawyer kinda leaned back and said, “they will present you with no real evidence of guilt… so you have to acquit my client…”) and jury instructions, I was sure it would be a quick decision. Most of my fellow jurors thought so, too. Unfortunately, I was sure we didn’t have any solid proof to convict on, while most of the other people in the room with me were sure the defendant certainly seemed guilty — and it was hard to imagine a scenario where someone else was responsible. I proposed several plausible, if unlikely, scenarios. What we expected to be a 20 minute deliberation went into a full eight hours. People wanted to go home. People had tickets to a show that night. People were not getting enough smoke breaks. Tempers flared. It didn’t seem to matter how clear the judge’s instructions had been, or how complete the lack of evidence was. Twice we told the judge we couldn’t decide, and twice he sent us back to talk some more. It got uglier and uglier. In the end it was two of us who simply held out and refused to convict. The nice, elderly woman who had been sitting next to me at the table all day seemed ready to spit in my face by the end. And so, as a last-ditch effort, horse-trading began. “If you give us ‘guilty’ on counts one and 4, we’ll give you ‘not guilty’ on the rest…” I felt appalled and a little sickened that somebody’s freedom could be treated like a used-car deal on Craigslist. Nobody said goodbye (save me and the one other “no” vote) when, after the third note to the judge that we were simply hung in disagreement, he declared a mis-trial and sent us on our way. Call this consensus under compulsion.

Once I moved to a new city and wanted to do something decent with my spare time, and I was put in touch with a group that was building out a radical community center with an internet radio station on the top floor. I volunteered to work on the building, and I volunteered to help make the radio station run, and soon I found myself as an appointed representative to the collective meetings for the space. Every organization that occupied space in the building, and every group that supported its development, met periodically on the still-under-construction first floor, to make decisions about usage and development and events and finances. I came into my first of these meetings to find folding chairs and rummaged spindle-back kitchen chairs were arranged in a circle. One of the representatives sitting in the circle asked who would like to run the meeting — there was some foot-shuffling and aside-quipping before someone finally claimed it, and started running through the agenda. The language in the circle was broadly familiar to me, but I also felt totally out of place and a little bewildered about what I was supposed to do and say. People asked for my input directly, as a person and as a representative of the radio station. I tried to be honest. It was kinda exhilarating, as far as meetings go. When decisions came up that needed to be made, it kinda became clear to me that if I wanted to single-handedly stop something from going forward, I could do that. I didn’t ever — though after a few of these meetings I did get up the nerve to stop an agenda item from moving forward until my questions about it were answered. It was an odd feeling — I guess it’s what I’d call experiencing real solidarity, like everyone in the room was clear and open with each other and on the same mission, but with their own unique roles and views. Again, considering these were meetings, my memories of them are unreasonably happy. Call this untrained consensus.

 

How to do Formal Consensus for School Design

This summary is adapted from On Conflict and Consensus: A Handbook on Formal Consensus Decisionmaking by C.T. Lawrence Butler and Amy Rothstein. The full text of this book is available at the author’s website, http://www.consensus.net/ (licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License). This is a time-tested method, first published in 1987, and adapted through 2007. It is used widely by organizations interested in participatory democracy. The text is approachable and offers a clear-cut set of procedures which are easily applied and adapted — I have had good success in just giving this text out to (even 7th grade) students and letting them “jigsaw” it themselves.

At first blush, there may seem to be a contradiction between our desire to trust students as co-designers and the immediate imposition of such an external process that they have no real reason to engage with. In our first two iterations (limited to a single classroom each, designing one trimester’s curriculum) I tried to address this irony in two ways, with some success. First, I proposed this structure and smoky asked if it would be acceptable to the group – I was prepared to negotiate anything in it if necessary, though that didn’t happen. Second, I made sure to stress that this framework was itself subject to revision and adaptation by consensus as we went through the design process together –  nothing was set in stone even though we were starting with what appeared to be rigid rules and roles.

Roles I ask students to read the descriptions of roles in Butler and Rothstein, and then to create a sign-up sheet with each role’s title, a brief description of the role, and plenty of room for people to sign up to take on that role, in a rotating meeting-by-meeting basis. In our first two iterations, we have combined a couple roles and eliminated others. This is the list we’ve used so far:

Facilitator: Responsible for “running” the meeting — sets and follows the agenda, directs the flow of the Formal Consensus process, reminds participants of the rules, read proposals, etc. My first instinct was, as the teacher in the room, to claim this role for myself. I underestimated how interested and willing students would be to take on the job — by and large they did great, though I often had to sit next to them and occasionally whisper in an ear or do an out-loud reminder, especially at first. This seemed to work best when a student and I acted as co-facilitators, though I made every effort to defer to student leadership.

Timekeeper: Each agenda item needs to have a “cut-off” time listed — this is tricky and requires the facilitators to think hard about balancing enough time to make decisions without losing too much time to aimless meandering conversation or cyclical debate. Once times have been posted on the public agenda, it’s the job of the Timekeeper to watch the clock and give periodic updates on time remaining. Again, I have been surprised by how engaged students have been in taking on this role — it struck me as bland and perfunctory, but several participants in both iterations 1 and 2 really relished the job.

Scribe: As conversation unfolds, as much as possible needs to make it onto flip-chart paper or a whiteboard (if the latter, make extensive use of cell-phone pics to document before erasing). The Scribe writes down important ideas, and certainly all proposals, for everybody in the meeting to see. In moments where there is nothing to write, the scribe seems to find themselves doodling and writing little notes to other students on the white board, which is usually charming.

Notetaker: A formal record of the deliberations happening in each meeting, definitely including proposals made and consensus items reached, but also including notes on the day and evaluations of each meeting, is critical both for continuity between sessions but also for institutional memory and history. In the first two iterations, this has been accomplished in a free-form google doc, and reading back through it later has been like re-reading a diary of a typical middle schooler.

Peacekeeper: In Butler and Rothstein’s original conception, this role serves to diffuse conflict when difficult subjects are under discussion, often by simply interrupting proceedings to ask for a quiet moment and to remind the group of their commitments and principles. In a classroom of 7th or 8th graders, who have spent the entire rest of their day being restricted in body and voice, we found that the peacekeeper’s role transitioned (unfortunately) more to “reminder of the rules.” In this out-of-context democratic sphere, where discussion is not only valued but essential to the group’s work, and where the teacher has clearly abdicated some of the traditional disciplinary postures to participate equally in design, students found they themselves needed to step up to monitor and enforce certain rules — particularly “one person speaking at a time / only speak when recognized by the facilitator.” This was not, admittedly, done well, but it happened fairly organically and served a purpose.

Advocate: In every group there are people who hesitate to step up and speak their minds. There are also people who feel so strongly about a point that they struggle to communicate clearly. The role of advocate is to notice when these situations happen, and to offer help. This is suggested by Butler and Rothstein as a side-bar, one-on-one conversation (while the rest of the group moves on with the agenda). The advocate, once having heard the point that the struggling person wants to make, reports it back to the group. Personally, I am very drawn to this role — all teachers have seen plenty of students cowed by peer pressure into silence, or so worked up over something that they can’t quite find the words they want. Unfortunately, in our first two iterations of Participatory School Design, this role is the one that never quite worked out. Maybe it’s asking a lot of people, who are already in an unfamiliar and potentially uncomfortable situation, to not only be attentive to their own emotional state, but also that of the others around them. Maybe it just needed more training than I offered. It continues to be a work in progress.

Once the sign-up sheet is made up, I ask students to put their name next to any of the roles they’d want to take on. I encourage them to sign up for as many as they’re interested in. I have not yet had any problems with no-one signing up for any of the roles. At the start of each meeting, roles are chosen — typically by me just reading the next name on the list, asking if they’d want the role for that day, and then moving on. Sometimes during this part, people decide they want to add or remove their name from one or another role, which is fine. We make it flexible, and it has worked out really well so far.

Rules  Similarly to how we handle the roles, the initial rules come straight from Butler and Rothstein, who present clear-cut and approachable text — both 7th and 8th grade groups have had no trouble reading, summarizing, and reporting on the basic rules for Formal  Consensus. We take these summaries and write them up on chart paper, which is always displayed at the front of the room during meetings. Here are the numbered rules, direct from Butler’s website (http://www.consensus.net/ocac2.html — note the insistence that these rules are subject to change and adaptation for any given context):

“1. Once a decision has been adopted by consensus,it cannot be changed without reaching a new consensus. If a new consensus cannot be reached, the old decision stands.

2. In general, only one person has permission to speak at any moment. The person with permission to speak is determined by the group discussion technique in use and/or the facilitator.(The role of Peacekeeper is exempt from this rule.)
3. All structural decisions(i.e., which roles to use, who fills each role, and which facilitation technique and/or group discussion technique to use) are adopted by consensus without debate. Any objection automatically causes a new selection to be made. If a role cannot be filled without objection, the group proceeds without that role being filled. If much time is spent trying to fill rolesor find acceptable techniques, then the group needs a discussion about the unity of purpose of this group and why it is having this problem, a discussion which must be put on the agenda for the next meeting, if not held immediately.
4. All content decisions (i.e., the agenda contract, committee reports, proposals, etc.) are adopted by consensus after discussion. Every content decision must be openly discussed before it can be tested for consensus.
5. A concern must be based upon the principles of the group to justify a block to consensus.
6. Every meeting which uses Formal Consensus must have an evaluation.”

In general, these rules have been easy to adopt and stick to. Perhaps the most challenging one, but also the most powerful, is “A concern must be based upon the principles of the group to justify a block…” This immediately insists that participants not allow personal grudges or arbitrary bad feelings to stop the work of the group, and it also offers an opportunity for the group to concretely define what their “principles” are, exactly. One important note about these rules: in our experience to date, they are incredibly useful once the “Consensus Process” (described below) is underway, but during other types design time (when different facilitation techniques come into play) they can be limiting. So far we have drawn a hard line between “consensus process time” and other discussion and design time, and put these rules into enforcement only during the former.

Flow Process  Butler and Rothstein indicate Formal Consensus as a stand-alone facilitation process for groups making decisions — but design is about much more than simply making one decision after another, so many other facilitation skills are needed (see our previous post about our Design Process). However, as an 8-step process, there are a minimum of eight moments in which the group must come to agreement before moving forward. Each step of the design process is really open-ended, and involves plenty of divergent thinking before creating the artifact or product needed to move forward with the design. Only when the entire design team agrees, by Formal Consensus, that this artifact or product represents the team’s best and most complete work, should the team move forward through the process. Of course, within each step there are also decisions to be made, and so there are many other opportunities to use the Formal Consensus flow process, too. Whenever one of these opportunities comes up, this is the process to follow:

Source: http://www.consensus.net/flowchart.jpg

An example of how this process is used:

1. A member of the design team, after reviewing the team’s work in Step 4 (Ideation), feels that the generated list of design ideas represents the team’s most complete and best work… any more time or effort expended would be overkill and unproductive.
2. That designer asks the day’s facilitator to gather the team for a proposal. The facilitator gathers all designers and lets them know that Formal Consensus is about to start — they might give a quick preview of the flow process if it’s early in the group’s work or they sense the team needs it.
3. The designer says (and the Scribe and Notetaker write down): “I propose that this list is our best work for Step 4, and that we move on to Step 5.”
4. The facilitator asks for Clarifying Questions — these should not be judgement-based (i.e. “Why are you making this proposal when everyone knows we have more work to do?”) but rather should seek to help the team understand the content of the proposal.
5. “Group Discussion” or “Open Sharing” — facilitator asks for input on the proposal. Try to avoid back-and-forth argument or debate, but instead allow all participants to share their ideas and opinions of the proposal. The original proposer may alter the proposal at any time during this discussion based on what they hear from the design team.
6. When the facilitator judges that enough time has been spent on discussion, they will “Test for Consensus” by reading back the proposal, and uttering the magic phrase: “Are there any unresolved concerns about this proposal?” Designers will either (a) say nothing because they agree with the proposal and want it to go forward, or (b) raise a hand or speak up to note that they have a concern. This is one of the trickiest things to get used to — voting affirmatively with your silence — but it is powerful, especially once the facilitator gets comfortable allowing the silence to “sit” and giving all designers time to really commit to the proposal or speak up with concerns.
7. If nobody speaks, the facilitator announces (often with applause!). “We have reached consensus!” Notetaker so notes. Done! On to the next agenda item!
8. On the other hand, if somebody (or multiple somebodies) acknowledges a concern, the facilitator asks all who spoke up to, one at a time, share their concerns (this is entering “Level 2”). The Scribe and Notetaker write down concerns.
9. The facilitator asks the team for suggestions: what concerns can be grouped together or re-worded to line up with each other? Sometimes, just the act of saying and seeing-written your concern clarifies it enough that it disappears and the facilitator can try another test for consensus. Other times, there are legitimate concerns that need to be addressed — maybe someone said, “My concern is that several people on the team didn’t contribute to the brainstorm session, so we’re missing their ideas.” Once the concerns are grouped up, move into Level 3…
10. “Resolve Concerns.” This is where Butler and Rothstein are at their most frustratingly vague. How does a group go about “resolving” a concern like the one listed above? Who decides if a concern is resolved? How? After two iterations, we’ve worked out a pretty approachable practice to this tricky situation. One at a time, concerns are read by the facilitator, who then asks for brainstorm ideas to resolve it. Each of these is written on the whiteboard next to the concern. After ideas have been generated, the facilitator groups them and reads them, one at a time. After each, the facilitator asks the team member who raised the concern if the idea eliminates their concern – they say either yes or no, or defer and listen to the other ideas, or start grouping ideas together. The point is, it’s up to the person who identified the concern to determine if, when, and how that concern is resolved. If the concern is resolved in some way, then maybe the proposal is re-written to include the resolution, or maybe the parties involved clarified a point enough to move on, or maybe the original proposer decides to stop the process and go back to group design work. A lot of different things might happen — good facilitation is the key to leaving all avenues open. In the hypothetical example, we might find that (a) the proposal is revised to say “This list is the best work of our group, despite limited attendance and participation, for Step 4, and that we move on to Step 5.” Or, maybe those who didn’t much contribute to the brainstorm simply offer a resolution to the concern along the lines of, “Well I didn’t have anything to add and I’m ok with the proposal…” so the designer with the concern is reassured without re-writing anything. Or, maybe the proposer realizes tha there’s more work to be done so the team goes back to brainstorm a bit more before continuing. If concerns are resolved one way or another, then another test for consensus is raised and probably passed. If, on the other hand, one or more concerns about a proposal can not be resolved, then…
11. There is another round of restating, clarifying, discussing, and brainstorming to try to find some common ground between the proposal and the concern. This is where things tend to become more tense and the Peacekeeper and Advocate have to step up their games. Reminders to stick to the group’s principles are important. Breaks can be important. The facilitator has to watch the clock and the attitudes in the room, and call a test for consensus when they think it’s best. If it passes, applause! Write it down! If not, there are three “Closing Options…”
12. Closing Options, in the event of a failure to find consensus, are a last resort but should not be considered as a “failure” of the design team. Which closing option is chosen is considered a “structural decisions,” so according to the rules it should be chosen “by consensus, without debate.” Honestly, though, if a discussion gets to this point then the design team will likely be worn-thin on debate and discussion, so I have also seen facilitators simply declare a closing path with no resistance from the team. The first option is “Send to Committee.” The thought here is that a smaller group can dedicate extra time to the proposal and concern and find interesting and creative solutions outside of the full group. If they do so, they then bring the revised proposal back to the next meeting for consideration. I have only had this happen once, but it worked beautifully. The second closing option is “Test for Stand Aside.” Here, you are basically asking those with concerns if they will allow the proposal to pass, with an attached statement of their concern and their name (if they so choose). The idea is to play to a team member’s altruism and commitment to the group, but also to allow the idea to float that there may be a “told you so” moment ahad. Finally, there is “Test for Block.” Here, the person with the concern over the proposal has to stand firm and declare that they will not stand aside, but rather will choose to block action from going forward. If this happens, the proposal is dead and cannot be re-proposed in its present form.

It reads like a lot, I know — but honestly as the design team gets into the process, and as facilitators get more and more comfortable, the process itself gets pretty “background” and the focus on ideas and discussion comes to the front. In that way, it is a very powerful tool for deliberation.

Why Formal Consensus Over Other Democratic Means

Strengths of the Process  The most apparent strength of this method to me is its built-in Insistence on inclusion of all voices, even and especially minority opinions in critical decisions. Our first two iterations of this process saw several (seemingly banal, but of real importance to the students doing the deliberation) “rules” proposals that would have forced students to act in a way they weren’t comfortable — but these proposals were effectively blocked by the minority of students they would have affected. This distribution of equal power to all participants stop any work from going forward on principle is good, and it was not a power that I ever witnessed being abused. This is a stark contrast to “abdication to representatives,” certainly, where the minority is always sore after decision-making, or scrambling to make unsavory alliances just to get power to affect decisionmaking.

Another major benefit is that this process eliminates authoritarian possibilities by minimizing leadership to “facilitation.” By rotating roles and establishing a procedure (and over time a culture) of deliberation more than acquiescence to authority, it has not yet occurred during our iterations that a decision was made strictly because of the social power of the person who happened to be facilitating that day — this is saying something for Middle School. Compare this to the “faux-consensus” of a boss asking subordinates to go along with their ideas.

In establishing that culture of slow and purposeful collaborative decision-making, where ideas are the most important thing in the room, Formal Consensus also discourages factionalism and pretty “procedural” tricks. By simplifying a process to be followed and insisting on principled concern-raising out in the open, the situation described in the story above with the union vote simply would not have happened. This is a major selling point for me.

Likewise, the fact that this procedure sets a clear expectation of slow and purposeful decision-making as its own benefit is a powerful argument for Formal Consensus. When the culture of design that builds through repeated cycles through the process gets ingrained in the team’s principles, then the work of deliberation gradually loses its burdensomeness, and, I swear, starts to be kind of fun. It helps tremendously if there is no external “clock” running down to some deadline, but even in our first two iterations, when we only had a trimester to create and implement a course design, there were real moments of joy when we were all sitting around the table discussing and debating. The opposite of “forced consensus.”

Finally, the fact that this process includes clear roles and rules that are easy to understand, adopt, and stick to, makes training in it fairly quick and painless. Even designers who join the team late can be brought up to speed very quickly. There is no situation where people are “along for the ride,” not knowing how or when to contribute their thoughts and opinions. By rotating roles, especially, the team starts to “own” the process. This makes a great difference when compared to less formal, “untrained consensus” situations.

One side note: following the work of architect Christopher Day, this Formal Consensus process offers a powerful way to balance “local expertise/knowledge” with “specialist expertise/knowledge.” When I describe the idea of designing a class or a school democratically with students, most people think it’s a cute idea but totally impractical — “Won’t the students just choose recess all day?” Aside from the cynicism in this thinking (which is not at all borne out in our experience), these qualms can be put to rest by the process itself. When we, the “teachers” — the adults in the room — the so-called “experienced designers” of curriculum, instruction, and assessment, are equal to each and every “student” in the room, that means we’re giving up much of our control, but by no means all of it. After all, we can block any proposals on principle, too — our own “non-negotiables” can be brought into design sessions and made clear to justify any potential blocks to proposals that don’t meet our “specialist expertise.”

Limitations and concerns Formal Consensus is not a silver bullet, and there are many valuable critiques of it in theory and practice. Many practitioners and advocates for representative democracy will say that consensus is too slow, and that one bad actor can derail an well-intentioned process. True enough — though I haven’t seen it happen yet, in part likely thanks to the investment in team-building and trust-building that happens at the start of our design sessions. Others will suggest that an insistence on unanimity can, ironically, have corrosive effects on individual expression and dampen the spirit and practice of dissent. This is certainly possible, too — though again I have seen little in the way of a repeatedly-frustrated and blocked minority forced to go along with the group for social reasons alone. Finally, there is a concern that consensus will breed a stagnant status-quo which is hard to break up with interesting, new, or potentially risky ideas. This is maybe the most worrisome to me, but on the other hand, when designing alongside young people, the spirit of recklessness is hard to overestimate. All in all, the experiences I’ve had applying this process with students have brought me to my current understanding, to a place where I see Formal Consensus as the best way to be democratic, and therefore the best way to learn democracy.

So, why consensus?

And why formal consensus specifically? Because I have never felt the power of being committed to deliberative decision-making like I have within this framework. By voluntarily subordinating my own wishes to the wishes of my community (of which I am an important part), out of nothing more than faith in a common process and faith in the other individuals in my community, I have truly felt that anything was possible. That’s why: we’ll be able to do things together that we could never do alone, and the best way to be truly together is to say that none of us goes ahead unless we all go ahead. We can be sure that every voice is heard, that we respect, above all things, the individual’s authority to stop an action that they deem to be wrong. We can talk and listen and negotiate and make agreements. “Agreement is sacred,” said Utah Phillips. I never felt this way about a cell phone contract or a vote for president, but I absolutely felt this way about a commitment I made to students after working through Formal Consensus.