yeah, i'll just keep going with my wildly unpopular criticism of institutionalized education and say i agree with that perspective.
if i'm correct in assuming that the use of physical or authoritarian coercion is truly avoided except in self-defense or the immediate defense of others, the only thing i can see wrong with this alternative system after a quick perusal is that it isn't the system for every part of everyone's lives. it almost seems unfair to provide people with such an ideal environment, knowing that it will be extremely different to replicate that experience later in their lives.
thanks to dan for the tip.
2 comments:
food for thought.
(1) From the wiki:"Order and discipline: is achieved by a dual approach based on a free and democratic framework: a combination of popularly-based authority, when rules and regulations are made by the community as a whole, fairly and democratically passed by the entire school community, supervised by a good judicial system for enforcing these laws -- due process of law. . . "
This doesn't sound like anarchism to me at all - at least not hardcore individualist anarchism where authority is only tolerated to stop aggression against others. These schools sounds like standard human governance to me, or anarcho-communism at best. Presumably, if the student body wanted to to vote to "outlaw" long hair, they could do so by majority vote; that has nothing do do with violence against others. I don't know how they enforce the rules, but presumably habitual offenders are expelled from the school (these are private schools, no?), another expression of force.
(2) Is it moral to educate children? Should we have public schools? Even is all schooling was voluntary and private, would it be moral to advocate that children should have any schooling at all?
Thanks for the thoughts.
1) I agree that it sounds like that authority might go to far. It would depend on exactly what kinds of rules and regulations are tolerated. Rules about making sure everyone can speak in a meeting and somehow socially sanctioning someone who violates meeting rules seem ok to me, despite the offender not being physically violent. But yeah, rules about things that don't infringe on the rights of others would go too far.
2) Good question. It seems to me that it is good to answer childrens' questions, and to do so as best we can, and with intellectual honesty. And to facilitate their self-directed learning seems good too.
Are you familiar with David Haig's work on pregnancy? He's shown that "normal" human pregnancy is not a purely cooperative endeavour between mom and fetus. There are conflicts of interest (since they aren't genetic clones, and the future siblings of the fetus could have a different father with significant non-zero possibility) there that manifest themselves mostly as the fetus trying to suck more resources out of mom, and mom trying to limit that flow of resources. So, "normal" pregnancy depends on both tugging in the opposite direction. When some disorder stops one side from pulling, you get fucked up giant fat babies or tiny underdeveloped babies.
Your question makes me think about that dynamic. Is some attempt by parents to "educate" necessary for "normal" development of the child? Or is such a process inherently conservative, preserving existing systems of power? I don't know.
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