Should Schooling Be Based on Social Experiences?

Perkinson points out a microcosm of the American Educational System when he writes about a classroom in operation during the Progressive movement in the 1960s. In this classroom, even though they hadn't covered arithmetic and spelling for “days”, the children “learned to explore and invent, to become obsessed by things that interested them and follow them through libraries and books back into life.” (Perkinson: pg. 299). All throughout grade school, from Elementary, to Middle, to High School, rarely did we go to the Library. Rarely did we peruse books, or speak about the books we read to others. I believe in a combination between freedom and control. We should force the children to learn the very basics, the 3 R's—Reading, Writing, and 'Rithmatic—since these are essential for life. But past that, it's all electives after that. Jonathan Kozol wrote a book called Death at an Early Age: The Destruction of the Hearts and Minds of Negro Children in the Boston Public Schools (1967). Kozol believed that the root of the problem lay with the bureaucratized establishment schools, and that there was no hope of reform within. The solution lay in alternative schools. I agree with this. I can teach freedom and democracy in my own classroom, but being surrounded by Totalitarianism everywhere, it's only a matter of time before some jealous resentful teacher, who hates that I provide freedom in my classroom, and have higher test scores than them, will try to conspire and sabotage me. Or, the children, while enjoying the 1 hour of freedom in my class, eventually go on to other authoritarian classes, and the lessons of solidarity and democracy are immediately lost. Or, even worse, the students may find your willingness to accept them as human beings as weakness, and that may generate disrespect, and then my class gets out of control, and that's all she wrote. I'm fired for poor classroom management. Allen Graubard's Free the Children (1972) writes that the problems with Free Schools was that the culture they were inmeshed with was irrelevant. Graubard writes: “I have seen free schools all over the country and have come into contact with many young people. Most of these young people have the same confusions about meaningful ways to live that any sensitive and perceptive young person would have today. The dream that the youth will find all sorts of new ways of life that we older people can't conceive of is one of the symptoms of our current cultural malaise. The young people are scared, and they mostly do not see themselves as exuberantly finding whole new ways of living. They are at least as confused as the rest of us. That the culture provides so few meaningful ways of living is a condition we are all suffering from, the young people most of all.” (Perkinson: pg. 301). Kozol writes in Free Schools (1972): While children starve and others walk the city streets in fear on Monday afternoon, the privileged young people in the Free Schools of Vermont shuttle their handlooms back and forth and speak of love and of “organic processes”. They do “their thing.” Their thing is sun and good food and fresh water and good doctors and delightful, old and battered eighteenth-century houses, and a box of baby turtles; somebody else's thing may be starvation, broken glass, unheated rooms and rats inside the bed with newborn children. The beautiful children do not wish cold rooms or broken glass, starvation, rats or fear for anybody; nor will they stake their lives, or put their bodies on the line, or interrupt one hour of the sunlit morning, or sacrifice one moment of the golden afternoon, to take a hand in altering the unjust terms of a society in which these things are possible. Kozol concludes: “In my believe, an isolated upper-class rural Free School for the children of the white and rich within a land like the United States and in a time of torment such as 1972, is a great deal too much like a sandbox for the children of the SS Guards at Auschwitz.” Kozol's concerns are warranted. Being “apolitical” is siding with the Oppressor. Those who chose to be neutral during times of injustice have chosen the side of the Oppressor. My fear for free schools is how effective authoritarianism is. Authoritarianism doesn't just destroy the individuals, but it makes them love their Oppressors, who manipulate them so much, to a degree, one could never fathom. Oppressors control their subjects even if they're removed a million miles away, or sometimes, even if they're dead. Stockholm Syndrome gets the Oppressed to defend their Oppressors, to love them, more than they love themselves. So when a student of Authoritarian education meets with a student of Free School education, the dichotomy will be strange, and perhaps, that's what's needed. For the Free Schoolers to be around these Authoritarian types, to see how manipulative and controlling they are, and also, to see how brainwashed they are. My fear, however, is that the Free Schoolers will bow down to this Authoritarianism, not being familiar with it. I still believe in Free Schooling, because, once you've had freedom, and have enjoyed the fruits of living a free existence, slavery can only mean a misery that's greater than a child whose been indoctrinated for many years, whose understanding of freedom, including it's language, is wholly absent. Because the Free Schooler understands freedom better than the Authoritarian types, they may placate the Authoritarian types, but eventually, they'll have to stand up for themselves, and say enough is enough. So it's better to teach Free Schoolers to always be themselves. For those who matter, do not mind, and those who mind, do not matter. Those who mind, only mind, because they want you to become their slaves. So the Free Schooler needs to understand that to call out this wicked philosophy as soon as they see it, to smash it in it's tracks, to either nip it in the bud, or just to recognize it to avoid it, is the best way to live. But they may have to stand up to them. So it will be important for Free Schoolers to be strong, to have strong morals and values, and character, and to be able to match a violent fascist, if only, to defend themselves, or their loved ones, or those being oppressed. Vygotsky, one of main educational theorists we're taught about in Educational Psychology classes, whose whispered in the same breath as Piaget, believes that socialization is necessary for learning to happen. He believes a person who is more competent in one area, can help others, who aren't so great in that area. They do it with scaffolding, bridging the divide between ignorance and knowledge. Of course that's true. If I know how to ride a bike, I can teach somebody who doesn't. But I must talk to them. That's Vygotsky. Social interactions are absolutely necessary. And odd how some teachers would be against socialization, but in favor of their own. It's hypocritical. It's time the teachers started treating their students like they way they want to be treated. Graubard, Allen. 1973. Free the Children. Kozol, Jonathan. 1972. Free Schools. Perkinson, Henry J. Two Hundred Years of American Educational Thought. Pgs. 299-303. http://books.google.com/books?id=XW4chHPko2QC&pg=PA302&lpg=PA302&dq=allen+graubard+free+the+children&source=bl&ots=lwaS9qmAsf&sig=AStUAaX4HvkvUB1VdnvQQkYdjE4&hl=en&sa=X&ei=_wgWVLvNBo6nyATMzIHgCw&ved=0CCUQ6AEwATgK#v=onepage&q=allen%20graubard%20free%20the%20children&f=false