Education around the world will be in the spotlight Friday afternoon as a number of University departments host a conference discussing the various efforts being made to bring democracy to all people across the globe, notably through the classroom.

The Conference on Education for Democracy, which will take place from 4:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. in 201 Union, will include a number of experts and professors, many of them from the University, who all have their own expertise and experiences about different regions where democracy is being promoted.

Professor Glen Biglaiser, political scientist at the University and one of the scheduled speakers at the conference.

“I think it will be interesting to understand people from different cultures, how they perceive us, perceive democracy and why democracy is something we should value,” he said.

The two headline speakers, James Mayfield and Williamson Evers, will both give their insights as to their roles in building democracy in the country of Iraq.

Mayfield, emeritus professor from the University of Utah, took part in the one-year effort to build democracy in Iraq. With the aid of the United States Agency for International Development, Mayfield was responsible for setting up a number of local democratic governments in order to help the Iraqi people achieve sovereignty.

Evers also served in Iraq and was the former senior advisor for education to Ambassador Paul Bremer of the Coalition Provisional Authority.

He was an education policy adviser for George W. Bush during his presidential campaign in 2000. He later served under President Bush taking a number of different roles within the White House and the Department of Education.

The other speakers at the conference will delve into how democracy and educating about it has progressed in other areas across the world and this country.

“All the people that are going to be talking at the conference have been on the ground in these places,” explains Professor Alden Craddock of the School of Teaching and Learning. He is one of the experts scheduled to speak at the conference.

“Their not just talking about something they read about. They have worked there and worked with people in these places,”Craddock said.

Craddock, also the director of the International Democratic Education Institute at the University, describes some of the problems or misunderstandings that have hampered democracy from taking a stronger hold throughout the world.

“I think the biggest thing many educators and even students have a hard time understanding is to learn democracy, you have to be democratic,” he said. “Classrooms have to be democratic. Teachers have to use democratic methods. In many places in the world, that is not very well understood.”

The professor also expressed his concern about how the democratic process takes place in educational setting here on campus and in the United States and how the conference can prove insightful for students.

“The interesting thing I think for students will be that they will hear these speakers say, ‘If we want to be a good democracy and want to learn about democracy you have to be active in your classroom.’ And I’m not sure very many students on this campus have active classrooms,” he said

“Students have to demand it,” Craddock said. Demand their professors engage them more and have more learning experiences that are connected to the real world versus just standing and delivering a lecture.”