In a factory, one foreman can manage a lot of factory workers because what they are doing is tightly proscribed, repetitious and unimaginative.  Surely this is not something we want to emulate in a classroom. 

Despite the factory-like structure of most schools - for students, having bells dictate when to move from algebra to English is something like moving a car through an assembly line from the chassis to the steering wheel assembly - within each classroom the factory model must be replaced.  The huge number of interactions and decisions that are made in any classroom, the wide variety of activities, the range of abilities and readiness of students makes on foreman dictating the flow of activity impractical.

What we want, instead, is a system that responds to every student’s needs.  We need to do different things at the same time.  To accomplish what is truly needed, a teacher cannot make all the major decisions in a classroom;  decision-making must be distributed.  It’s also good training for citizenship.

The question is;  how can we distribute decision-making and still maintain an academically appropriate environment?  How can we achieve a kind of controlled anarchy?  

The answer largely rests on whether students can become self-directed and how well the structure of the class can support them.  It requires a classroom culture that supports responsible decision-making by students.  It also requires a way to organize those choices.  What is needed is a learning contract.