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 though it does have some massive problems.
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.
QueerAnarchism 