Criticism of schooling
Anti-schooling activism, or radical education reform, describes positions that are critical of school as a learning institution and/or compulsory schooling laws; or multiple attempts and approaches to fundamentally change the school system. People of this movement usually advocate alternatives to the traditional school system, education independent from school, the absence of the concept of schooling as a whole, or the right that people can choose how, where and with whom they are educated.
These attitudes criticize the learning atmosphere and environment of school and oppose the educational monopoly of school and the conventional standard and practice of schooling for reasons such as:
Another very persistent argument of anti-schooling activists is that school does not prepare children for life outside of school,[5] and that many teachers do not have a neutral view of the world because they have only attended academic institutions a large part of their life.
Others criticize the forced contact in school and are of the opinion that school makes children spend a large part of their most important development phase in a building, in seclusion from society, exclusively with children in their own age group, seated and entrusted with the task of obeying the orders of one authority figure for several hours each day, which would be a dehumanizing experience.
Some may also feel a deep aversion to school based on their personal experiences or question the efficiency and sustainability of school learning and are of the opinion that compulsory schooling represents an impermissible interference with the rights and freedoms of parents and children; and believe that schools as a vehicle for knowledge transfer are no longer necessary and increasingly becoming obsolete in times of rapid information procurement, e.g. via the internet, and therefore generally consider compulsory education with evidence-based learning oriented online schools or autodidactism to be more sensible than the traditional cohort-based physical schools.[6]
Arguments[edit]
Teaching as political/government control[edit]
A non-curriculum, non-instructional method of teaching was advocated by Neil Postman and Charles Weingartner in their book Teaching as a Subversive Activity. In inquiry education students are encouraged to ask questions which are meaningful to them, and which do not necessarily have easy answers; teachers are encouraged to avoid giving answers.[7]
Murray N. Rothbard argues that the history of the drive for compulsory schooling is not guided by altruism, but by a desire to coerce the population into a mold desired by dominant forces in society.[8]
John Caldwell Holt asserts that youths should have the right to control and direct their own learning, and that the current compulsory schooling system violates a basic fundamental right of humans: the right to decide what enters our minds. He thinks that freedom of learning is part of freedom of thought, even more fundamental a human right than freedom of speech. He especially states that forced schooling, regardless of whether the student is learning anything whatsoever, or if the student could more effectively learn elsewhere in different ways, is a gross violation of civil liberties.[9]
Nathaniel Branden adduces government should not be permitted to remove children forcibly from their homes, with or without the parents' consent, and subject the children to educational training and procedures of which the parents may or may not approve. He also claims that citizens should not have their wealth expropriated to support an educational system which they may or may not sanction, and to pay for the education of children who are not their own. He claims this must be true for anyone who understands and is consistently committed to the principle of individual rights. He asserts that the disgracefully low level of education in America today is the predictable result of a state-controlled school system, and that the solution is to bring the field of education into the marketplace.[10]
The corruption of children – Rousseau[edit]
Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote in his book Emile: or, On Education (first published in 1762) that all children are perfectly designed organisms, ready to learn from their surroundings so as to grow into virtuous adults, but due to the malign influence of corrupt society, they often fail to do so. Rousseau advocated an educational method which consisted of removing the child from society—for example, to a country home—and alternately conditioning them through changes to environment and setting traps and puzzles for them to solve or overcome.[11]
Rousseau was unusual in that he recognized and addressed the potential of a problem of legitimation for teaching. He advocated that adults always be truthful with children, and in particular that adults should declare the basis for their authority in teaching being one of physical coercion: "I'm bigger than you." Once children reached the age of reason, at about 12, they would be engaged as free individuals in the ongoing process of their own.[12]