adults, while forcing all children above the age of 5 to sit still, be silent, and obey orders for 7-8 hours a day with minimal breaks, reducing their exposure to fresh air and sunlight to almost nothing, forcing them to alter their natural sleeping patterns to increase productivity, and repeatedly telling them their self worth depends on their being able to follow these instructions perfectly for 13 or more years: kids these days are so lazy! they never go outside! they never want to do anything! clearly it’s not because of us!
It is honestly so heartbreaking to see how many conversations in the notes are comparing who gets 30 minutes for lunch
and an afternoon or two off or no homework until they’re 12 years old.. as if that in ANY way compares to being able to run out in the sun whenever you feel like it and sleep as much as you need in your own rhythm and be in control of what your day looks like and who you spend it with and not being subjected to an environment that is designed to train discipline.
Experiencing true autonomy and freedom isn’t being able to go to the bathroom without asking, or having wednesday afternoons off. Slightly ‘better’ school systems are still designed to acclimatise kids to the drudgery of wage labour.
What would be the solution to this? Because kids still have to learn obviously. Homeschooling?
A better public education system with a focus on actually learning instead of making good grades.
Sorry, I was talking about @queeranarchism‘s response, because it seems to say that wouldn’t be sufficient?
Home schooling tends to do all the same disciplining in a more isolated setting where children are under the full time discipline of one adult who has absolute power over them. Not something I would recommend.
‘Free schools’ based on things like the Steiner/Waldorf model, where children do not have classes but are encouraged to do whatever they want, seem like a step in the right direction.
Anarchist non-hierarchial community education based on completely voluntary participation would be even better and is happening in some places where large groups of communists live together.
But really, education is going to have a deeply coercive aspect as long as capitalism and the state exists because the state decides what needs to be learned to become a productive citizen and a child that isn’t trained into obedience won’t function as a laborer under capitalism. A child whose autonomy isn’t eroded by this brainwashing is going to be an adult that can’t function in that society.
Only where it is possible to take a child out of capitalism for life, does it really become possible to let them shape their own education. Where that isn’t an option, we need to acknowledge the coercive nature of education, try to limit that coercion as much and possible and find ways to be honest with children as we prepare them for life in this coercive world.
I love this. I would like to add think about ways to meet the needs of youth, accept them where they’re at, and find ways to collaborate (*with* youth as much as possible) on creative facilitation styles or topics of interest – those encouraging growth and genuine learning that energize youth rather than putting them down and boring them.
Giving youth autonomy and freedom to be who they are and define their lives isn’t mutually exclusive with forms of structure that are adaptable, *youth-created and led*, and take into active consideration the needs of every youth in that particular group. As a facilitator in this current moment, the responsibility is to guide and really ensure shifting / redistributing / transforming of power back to young people.
And if we’re talking about learning, it’s really about mutual learning (facilitator-youth) and challenging one another to be creative in building the tools and skills to confront and solve real problems in the community, wherever and whatever the youth feel called to do. Learning also happens most often in moments where you wouldn’t expect it, so it’s important that whatever session adult facilitators are coordinating – not only prioritize youth leadership but also bring to life the intent of practicing an ethic of love and spirit. Meaning continual reflection & check-in’s about whether what you’re doing is truly undoing capitalist methods (i.e. taking away freedom and humanity) and *doing* towards something else you and your youth feel nurtures community and relationship-building in your lives (with one’s own self, each other, the world, our planet).
Don’t underestimate young people! They know what’s up and they are able to lead themselves, as long as they are provided the right environment and options to do so. Build together in your space, with your youth, the world you wanna see and practice it!
There are plenty of models out there, of youth development and youth organizing that are helpful to look at. All of what I’ve offered above is based on a combination of those models, what young people have taught me, and my own experience in this work 🙂 and there’s always room for feedback and reflection — that is a crucial piece of what we do!
Yeeeeees. I love the idea if adults as learning facilitators, following child leadership. (I’d use the word ‘child’ here because youth is often read as ‘teenager’ and the coercive education system is harmful to all ages).
While I fully realise that home education is not a viable option for many people who are incredibly busy and/or working multiple jobs etc., it definitely doesn’t have to be a school system imposed at home.
Because home-schooling has a (deserved) image of white, middle-class conservative Christians who don’t want their children’s minds poisoned by the ~ways of the world in the US, I expected everybody at the Home Education groups and activity days I attended with my brother to fit that stereotype. Instead, what I found was a bunch of parents and carers – from all different ethnic and social backgrounds, and different types of families, who (even though they didn’t really know what they were doing), pulled their children out of state education because it was killing them. Autistic and disabled kids who were being bullied by both peers and teachers, kids who were depressed and even suicidal because of school – almost everybody had a horrific story – and a bunch of parents who’d decided enough was enough.
And suddenly they had the freedom to learn about whatever interested them. Suddenly all of the crafts and skills and projects and areas of study they were interested in weren’t being squeezed out by 6+ hours a day of school work. Local parks, libraries and other community hubs are always putting on events or running courses. Find something you like. And the more you touch-base with other like-minded people, the bigger the network of skills you’ll be able to draw on – your kids friend’s dad is a mechanic so your kid has someone to satisfy their curiosity about how cars work and can show them all the moving parts; that friend who loves camping and hiking can encourage their outdoor and survival skills.
Kids are naturally curious, and want to learn. We all are, at heart, curious and inquisitive people, we just get it beaten out of us in school. And we are living in an age where so much information is available to us at the click of a button.
I’ve received a lot of responses here defending home-schooling and I do think it is possible to do some pretty good home schooling as long as it is child-led with the parents as facilitators and includes a lot of opportunities to be social and experience skill sharing with other children.
but I think homeschooling comes with a big risk:
We live in a society that gives parents total control over children and the only one stopping you from abusing that power is, well, you. This is true for everyone. No matter how anarchist your parenting methods are, a family in this society is always at heart a little dictatorship because whatever power parents give to children, they can take away at will.
Like, the thing with power is that often we hardly notice that we have it, we don’t really want to notice it & we often think we have given away our power when what we have done is given someone else permission to make decisions. When power can be taken back (and the person we gave it to has no way to stop us from taking it back), we never really gave it away.
This is a dangerous thing in any family, but when a child spends more time at home and all out of the home contacts are shorter times per week, it becomes a much bigger problem. Remember that relatives are invested in the existing power relationship. How many non-relatives spend 10+ hours a week with a homeschooled child and could thus pick up on a well hidden problem?
On a less dramatic scale: if your home schooling has flaws, the only one that can decide whether to fix those flaws is you. You may take advice from outsiders and go to community activities and more, but in the end you’re in control.
So that is why I see a lot more potential in community based learning facilitation with a larger group of people, so that children spend more time with a larger group.
QueerAnarchism 