(en) Britain,AFED Organise! #81 - Education in an Anarchist Society

?Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration of 
the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity, or 
it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and 
creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their 
world.? - Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed ---- Throughout history, education has 
been a force used for both oppression and liberation. The fact is, as with today?s 
education system, it can be both; an inspirational teacher, classmate or neighbour can 
teach invaluable skills, unlock a passion for learning and help mould inquiring, 
independent and creative learners. By the same token, education too often reinforces the 
logic of capitalist society, burdening kids with arbitrary rules, unquestionable and 
infallible authority figures and a training course in quietly accepting their future roles 
within class society (?Ain?t it funny that the factory doors close ?round about the time 
the school doors close? as Rage Against the Machine succinctly put it!).

When looking at what an anarchist
education may look like, we will
not focus on the structure of the
school for the worker. In an anar-
chist society, as with all workplaces,
schools would be self-managed. To
describe the process by which educa-
tion workers could self-manage their
own workplace in terms of negating
hierarchy, oppression and exploita-
tion is no different than the process
by which any worker would achieve
such a goal. Class struggle anarchists
have written on (and demonstrated
in practice) adequate examples of
the power and efficiency of workers
self-management. The school is a fac-
tory, and as such, the organisational
methods of education workers in an
anarchist society would not have to
differ radically from that of any other
worker (other than the fact that the
?product? in education is human, and
as such needs to be incorporated into
the decision making process!). With
that in mind, we will be predomi-
nantly focussing on pedagogical ap-
proaches to anarchist education; that
is, how, what and why would young
people learn?

Anarchist education has a long and
proud history, opening doors for
hundreds of thousands of working
class youth to explore, question,
learn and confront on their own
terms. But before we begin looking
back at the historical precedent for
anarchist education, we should begin
by looking at what it is not.

In recent years, free schools have
gained prominence in the press.
Some loosely defined ?anarchists? and
?radicals? have even suggested that
free schools provide an opportunity
for rolling out a more libertarian cur-
riculum. This is wrong for a number
of reasons. Free schools represent
the marketisation of education. Any
group or individual with enough
cash can set up a free school. They
have complete control over the cur-
riculum as well as admission policies.
Already, free schools for the offspring
of posh hippies are cropping up in
urban, working class areas. Do you
kids of the local people get a look
in? Any education system allowing
such a level of exclusivity needs to
be rejected outright by class strug-
gle anarchists. Free schools around
the country are already grooming
our kids to accept extreme religious
dogma; some are owned by corpo-
rations who refuse to teach climate
change, militarists who push un-
fortunate youth towards the armed
services and fanatics who refuse to
teach contraception, evolution or
recognise homosexuality as anything
other than a perversion. Any attempt
by anarchists to take advantage of a
government supported and spon-
sored system that allowed for such
inequality and reactionary teaching
and designed to open the education
system to the financial markets is
flawed in the extreme. So, while it
would theoretically be possible for
an anarchist group to fund and oper-
ate a free school, giving a rich and
exciting education to the few kids
involved, to do so would be lending
tacit support to the oppressive, exclu-
sive and market orientated education
suffered by pupils in the majority
of free schools. By the same token,
independent schools such as Sum-
merhill, so often lauded as anarchist
education in action, can offer us
little help when attempting to offer a
genuinely emancipatory educational
experience. After all, the wealthy,
liberal parents of the lucky few who
attend Summerhill fork out between
?3-5,000 a term for the privilege;
reinforcing the very class inequality
that any truly anarchist education
must seek to at the very least ques-
tion, and preferably destroy. While
there is much interesting to be
learned from the pedagogy of Sum-
merhill, the elite nature of its pupils,
and elitist model of its admissions
render it, like free schools, invalid as
a genuinely ?free? educational experi-
ence. As consistent anarchists, we
must rule out any education system
with the power or inclination to ex-
clude pupils on any grounds, includ-
ing economic. Our education will be
inclusive, or it will be bullshit!

Now that we have had a chance to
look at, and hopefully dismiss some
dead end roads on the route to an
anarchist education, we can begin to
look forward to how such a system
may function. On this subject, in
looking forward, the best way to start
is by looking back; specifically back
to the early 20th century, when a
wave of anarchist ?rational? schools,
emanating from Spain, but spreading
across the globe made an anarchist
education a reality for hundreds of
thousands of young people.

While anarchist schools - who had as
their teachers and founders figures
such as Francesc Ferrer i Gu?rdia, the
Catalan anarchist eventually execut-
ed by the state, Alexander Berkman,
Emma Goldman and thousands of
forgotten but equally dedicated anar-
chist educators - were diverse in their
approaches and pedagogy, there were
several factors that united them.

An emphasis on learning by doing
was a central factor. To the anarchist
teachers, exploring, experimenting
and pupil-led processes of trial and
error were infinitely superior to desk
bound, fact based learning. The focus
on hands-on-skills extended beyond
the school to involve the whole
community in the education of the
child. Who better to teach a young
person to build than the carpenter
and bricklayer or to prepare food
than a local baker or chef? In this
way, the anarchist idea of community
self-management was extended to
provide pupils with real life learning
opportunities, taught by the working
class experts that surrounded them.

Encouraging critical thinking was a
key part of anarchist education. All
the assumptions of society, from the
institutions that governed countries,
to the church and capitalism were
put on trial and held to scrutiny by
pupils encouraged to question and
where necessary confront, a far cry
from the quietly acceptance of soci-
ety and it?s norms bred by traditional
education.

Creating and developing the ?whole
person? was an important part of an-
archist education. Rather than seeing
academic knowledge, or suitability
for obedient employment as the end
goals of education, anarchist teach-
ers fostered independence, inter-
dependence, problem solving skills
and social skills; prioritizing the
development of happy, emotionally
and socially balanced, enquiring and
co-operative young people. As a part
of this approach, anarchist education
included a large number of group
collaborative projects,
showing that we are
capable of more amaz-
ing feats when working
together than when sat
isolated behind a desk, in
the intimidating silence
of an exam hall. Anarchist
educators recognized
that the strict, fact and
exam based learning of
traditional schools served
only to more efficiently
categorize pupils into
appropriate bands of
?ability? and determine
future employment . The
exam hall was detached
from reality; a tool to
make life easy for employers when
selecting employees, whereas group
work allows the truly cooperative
and collaborative nature of young
people to make engagement, success
and real, practical learning a real-
ity. In the spirit of this collaborative
approach, assessment did not take
the form of an end of term exam or
other alienating, divisive experience.
Rather pupils were more likely to
be constructively assessed based on
projects, coursework and produc-
tions, during the creation of which,
the pupil would have been free to
draw on the experiences, skills and
knowledge of those around them.

But as well as being a highly com-
munal system, the anarchist school
placed high importance on nurturing
the talents, skills and interests of the
individual. The purpose of education
was the pursuit of truth, interest and
happiness and it was recognized that,
while a sound understanding of key
aspects of literacy, numeracy and the
world around them was vital, this
could best be achieved through a pu-
pil focusing on the aspects of learn-
ing that most engaged and interested
them.

In addition to providing a libertarian
education, anarchist schools often
modelled the form of democracy
they wished to extend to wider so-
ciety. Attitudes differed from school
to school and examples of pupil-
inclusive self-management varied
widely. However, it was not uncom-
mon to find the administration and
curriculum of the school managed
through meetings in which pupils
and staff had an equal say. In some
cases, pupils successfully overturned
unpopular punishments, subjects or
rules, or forced apologies, or even
resignations from unpopular teach-
ers. In some schools, justice was
administered by a rotating jury of
pupils who would hear any disputes
before reaching a verdict. Any ?pun-
ishment? was made to be relevant to
the ?crime? and a focus on restora-
tive justice and reconciliation was a
central aspect of this self-managed
student justice system.

That much of this article has been
written in the past tense should not
be a cause for dismay. While it is true
that anarchist schools all but ceased
to exist in relation to the decline
of the vast anarchist movement of
the first half of the 20th century,
there are still thousands of
schools across the world
practicing a rational, creative,
co-operative and democratic
educational curriculum. That
many of these, especially in
the global North have lost
their anarchist roots and
either abandoned or never
considered class struggle by
charging admission fees and
operating an elitist intake
system does not detract from
the soundness of their peda-
gogical approach. In fact,
many pedagogical approach-
es pioneered by the found-
ers of the rational school
movement have found their
way into mainstream state education
(although it goes without saying that,
while these approaches have created
a more creative, interesting learning
environment for young people, a cur-
riculum that democratizes education
and teaches pupils how to challenge
the status quo is still lacking). The
society that the early anarchist teach-
ers sought to bring crashing down
still exists and the validity of their
creative, rebellious, democratic and
cooperative approach to education
still as vital now as then. These teach-
ers saw and nurtured the uniqueness
of every pupil while allowing them
to grow and develop in a communal
context that allowed them to foster
respect, solidarity and interdepend-
ence with their fellow pupils and
the wider community. Our ideas
have stood the test of time, the real
task for today?s anarchist pupils and
teachers is to take those ideas and
turn them into an inclusive, revolu-
tionary modern day curriculum.