Freedom

Robert H. Chappell presents us with a variety of anarchist thoughts and approaches to the public education dilemma. Most every scholar mentioned believed that Public education was doing things wrong and proposed a continuity of theory and practice and the deconstruction of discipline to allow freedom for the natural creativity of the individual. This document screams hatred for the bureaucratic state and the class repression it enacts through public education. There is a lot of talk on “freedom,” the “natural,” and “individual.”

One of the anarchist thinkers, Paul Goodman continues to elaborate on his position in the next text which pits him against Daniel H. Mann in the debate concerning compulsory school attendance.

Mann argues that every person has the right to education on the basis that the society that he will engage in later on will benefit from him. In Klepper’s words, “the public has the right to an educated citizenry in order to ensure the collective good.” The factor of class is also brought into the discussion with Mann positing that education serves as a great equalizer of power and eliminator of class distinctions. Goodwin follows up Mann’s position with his own. He asks a provocative question: “if we (U.S. citizens) are so dumb…how come we are so rich? America’s failure to match other countries in test scores doesn’t matter, because our society and learning has taken the route of anarchy…but our education system has not updated. He criticizes these standards and the public education curriculum and structure, calling it archaic, and unfit to meet the developing minds of the post-industrial era of learning citizens. The continued efforts to “improve” public education by including more standardized testing and more control of the students, he feels, misses the point. While the public school system remains a homogenizing One-size-fits all education, the people have adapted to become my size fits me social and economic body where their freedom and creativity translate into capital. This free agency society, Goodman says, values freedom, authenticity, putting oneself up on the line, and defining one’s own success and driving their own education rather than taking from someone else’s intentions. Freedom, not discipline, paves the way for learning. Goodman is completely in love with home-schooling and even proposes supplements for it, namely free-agent teaching where professionals hire themselves out to teach their skills. He envisions a nation of self-educators and free agent learners facilitated by the internet.

In a similar vein, Recess, recounts children’s experiences in one room country schools where they many of experiences created during recess allowed them to learn a variety of invaluable life skills that are not learned in the classroom. The learned to have fun, develop lasting friendships, to play, relate, and get along with boys and girls, how to put up with older kids, how to cooperate, to create and follow rules for games, and how to deal with disagreement. These skills are not learned in the banking method that is applied in the classroom when they return from recess.

One critical thing about this example of children at recess is the creation of these learning opportunities by the children themselves (as many anarchists advocate) and learning as experience.

Revisiting freedom and Anarchy also means revisiting power.