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Video - Diploma in Local Democracy Graduation Ceremony - Class 2010This video includes scenes from the graduation ceremony of the class of 2010. In it, graduates and instructors descibe what local democracy means to them. Background
In the way it has pursued its educational mission, the Working Centre has also fostered distinct and invaluable social skills: how to teach, learn, and live in a respectful, reciprocal, democratic way. Hierarchical, top-down models of schoolwork, as of work in general, are avoided here in favour of more egalitarian models. Quality, productivity, job satisfaction, friendship and joy are achieved through mutual aid. Teachers and learners take turns talking and listening, showing one another how to do new things. In keeping with the educational facet of its objectives, the Working Centre has been collaborating for two decades with area schools, colleges, and universities. Every year since 1991, the Working Centre has provided space and resources to the University of Waterloo for credit courses in community sociology. More than 500 UW undergraduates have done part of their coursework in the unpretentious, dialogic setting of the storefront on Queen Street. A series of MSW students from Wilfrid Laurier University have done placements at the Working Centre. So have students from Conestoga College, Katimavik, and local high schools. Graduate students in social sciences at both UW and WLU, from recreation to planning to community psychology, have done participatory research here for theses and reports. In September of 2005, the Working Centre formalized its educational aspect in two ways. First, it now awards the Certificate of Contribution to Community Development for participation in specific study-groups, workshops, and collaborative learning endeavours. Second, it awards the Diploma in Local Democracy for successful completion of an eight-month advanced program in the knowledge, experience, and skills that underlie the Working Centre’s approach to community development.
Unlike the perceived image of the teacher being the giver of wisdom the Local Democracy gathering will be a sharing of many ‘wisdoms’ through diverse modalities such as the colloquium (facilitated open conversation), dialogues (more formal exchanges seeking common ground – the ‘dialogus’), peppered with some open-to-the-public lectures by people involved in social and political action. The course is really about discovering local democracy through the presentations of participants who report and reflect on their own experiences, both positive and negative, with the concepts of local democracy. Students will also learn through reading books that explore the philosophies of local democracy. The books we may suggest are drawn from The Working Centre's Ideas and Influences page, however students may choose their own book to report on.
In the course of the program, each Candidate will plan and write an essay on some aspect of local democracy in relation both to the assigned readings and to his or her own experience. The essay will be at least 700 words in length, and of a quality suitable for publication in Good Work News or on the Working Centre’s website. Candidates will read and criticize one another’s essays, for the sake of improving them and helping one another learn. The following is a rough outline describing the 14 classes of this course.
The course will include some essential readings that explore the lives and ideas of individuals and groups who have made significant contributions to building local democracy. These readings include:
The Diploma program is intended for adults who are committed to serving democracy, practically and effectively, in Kitchener-Waterloo: for office-holders in our municipal governments; for people employed in public service as administrators, police officers, or front-line workers in social work, recreation, or development; for leaders of churches, service clubs, business organizations or unions, the media, the performing arts, elementary and high schools. This program is designed for active citizens in whatever line of paid or voluntary work, people with a keen sense of their community and commitment to improving it, the kind of people who read the opinion pages of local newspapers and are tempted to write letters to the editor. Admission to the Diploma Program Participants in this program will bring to it significant prior knowledge, experience, and skill in democratic community development. This is not an introductory course, but a capstone. Even so, a college diploma or university degree is not required, though most applicants will probably have completed some form of postsecondary schooling. Each application will be evaluated on its own merits, with attention to the following three areas:
The first step is to complete the basic Application and Statement of Interest and send it by mail, email, or return it to The Working Centre's reception desk. Paper copies of the form may be obtained in person at 58 Queen St. South, or you may contact Kara by phone at (519) 743-1151 x119. Statements of Interest will be assessed within six weeks. Applicants accepted for the program will then be designated Diploma Candidates, and will be promptly informed. In June of 2010 and in each subsequent year, up to 15 individuals from the pool of Candidates will be invited to take part in the program, commencing the following September. Selection criteria include (1) when applications were received, the earlier ones being given priority; (2) the quality and strength of Statements of Interest; and (3) the need for a stimulating mix of backgrounds, occupations, and orientations in the class for a given year. If there are more Candidates for the 2011-2012 class than we have places for, the ones not accommodated in the first year automatically remain in the pool for subsequent years. The Diploma in Local Democracy amounts to certification of the holder’s knowledge, experience, and skill in furthering community development on democratic principles in Kitchener-Waterloo, and of successful completion of the eight-month program toward this end. For some Candidates, earning the Diploma in Local Democracy may yield career advantages, as evidence of continuing education in a given line of work. Employers whose objectives include service to democracy in Kitchener-Waterloo can be expected to look favourably on employees who have met the requirements of this program. For all Candidates, earning this Diploma signifies and demonstrates a personal commitment, a life goal, a component of identity. Like a university degree or a certificate in musical achievement, sport, or Bible study, the Diploma in Local Democracy derives much of its meaning and worth from what it says about the person who has earned it, whether this directly affects the person’s livelihood or not. Although its physical home is in Kitchener, the Working Centre has chosen the name Waterloo for its educational arm. This is out of respect for the name given in the early nineteenth century to our sister municipality as well as to our county, now a regional municipality. The name Waterloo was fresh in memory then, as the battlefield in Belgium where Napoleon met defeat. The name meant resistance to tyranny, determination to safeguard the pluralism, freedom, and human dignity for which the original Battle of Waterloo was fought. This part of Ontario was not founded by imperial edict. Our community arose from the grassroots efforts of settlers finding their own way along the trail of the black walnut trees. The defining character of Waterloo Region is as a place of decentralized power, a place where ordinary people make history, free of despotism of any kind. The Waterloo School of Community Development is rooted in these local, democratic traditions. It aims to maintain and deepen those traditions in the large, urban, diverse, high-tech setting the Region has become. This class operates on goodwill and the contribution of the teachers and The Working Centre. Unions, public service organizations, and other employers may opt to send their employees to the Diploma in Local Democracy course for staff development. An offering of $400 towards this 14 week course helps defray the expenses of this project. Participants can also make a contribution towards the cost of the course.
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This course is intended for adults committed to serving local democracy in Waterloo Region and is designed to
expand your knowledge of diverse forms of democracy. Participants will reflect on their actual experience
of democratic practice in the workplace, education system, public agencies, and civic initiatives, and learn how local democratic
values are integral for a flourishing community. For more information or to register, call Kara at 519-743-1151 x119.
Since its foundation in 1982, the Working Centre has supported grass-roots,
cooperative, self-directed, skill-based learning as an integral aspect of its
service to the Kitchener-Waterloo community. From the start, the Working Centre
has been a school where people gain competencies: in word-processing, resumé
writing, job hunting, programming, computer repair, sewing, cooking, gardening,
papermaking, retailing, construction, renovation, bicycle repair, and other
crafts.
The Local Democracy class will be participatory and democratic in format, drawing on each
individual participant’s experience of democracy or absence of democracy in their personal and
working lives whether lived in Canada or wherever in the world they may come from giving
a multi-dimensional hue to the collective learning experience. 
The program will consist of 14 two-hour sessions between October 2011 and March 2012.
Candidates for the Diploma in Local
Democracy will do assigned readings for each of these sessions, much
as in a college or university course, and come to each session prepared to make
well-informed and reasoned contributions to discussion.