I am so tired of the ‘crime solved by mindfullness’ stories that sugarcoat coercive systems of oppression.
Prison with cats for prisoners is still prison
Prison with theatre groups is still prison
School with meditation instead of detention is stil school
Your stories about how prisoners and students got more docile are not success stories. If anything they’re proof that you made a coercive system more effective at it’s coercion.
An oppressive system with some amount of ‘progressive’ policy sprinkled over it is still an oppressive system. End off.
wait question
what do you suggest we have in place of school?
Voluntary non-hierarchial learning.
Basically, children (& humans of all ages) are interested in learning new things all by themselves and when we throw them into non-voluntary and highly oppressive systems for 32 hours a week we don’t nurture that need, we stiffle it and make children loathe the idea of learning.
Schools teach children obedience, teach them to sit still for 8 hours, say ‘Yes, Sir’ to the person with power, ask for permission to go to the bathroom. In other words: schools prepare them to be obedient workers who accept the authority of bosses and governments.
If we abolish the school and create instead the opportunity to learn in a free, non-hierarchial environment, where skills are shared without coercion and everyone is encouraged to learn and share knowledge with others, we can create spaces of learning that do not rely on obedience and coercion, that do not stiffle the enjoyment of learning and that encourage a sense of connection, cooperation and community.
Some resources:
QueerAnarchism 