View source for Anarchy 43/Reflections on parents, teachers and schools

{{header
 | title      = [[../|ANARCHY 43 (Vol 4 No 9) September 1964]]<br>Reflections on parents, teachers and schools
 | author     = John Ellerby
 | section    =
 | previous   = [[../Some addresses of organisations mentioned in this issue|Some addresses]]
 | next       = [[../Anarchy on education]]
 | notes      = 
}}


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<font size="5">'''Reflections on'''<br>'''parents, teachers'''<br>'''and schools'''</font>

<font size="4">'''[[Author:John Ellerby|JOHN ELLERBY]]'''</font>


<div style="text-align:justify;">{{sc|What anarch&shy;ists are after}} is per&shy;sonal and so&shy;cial auto&shy;nomy{{dash}}the idea that in&shy;di&shy;viduals and their organ&shy;isa&shy;tions should be self-<wbr>reg&shy;u&shy;lat&shy;ing auto&shy;no&shy;mous bodies. It is this which makes us ad&shy;voc&shy;ates of worker{{s|r}} control in in&shy;dus&shy;try and which makes us en&shy;thusi&shy;astic about such ex&shy;amples as we find of so&shy;cial organ&shy;isa&shy;tions spring up from below, from people{{s}} urge to sat&shy;isfy their own needs, as op&shy;posed to those which depend on a struc&shy;ture of hier&shy;archy, power and au&shy;thor&shy;ity in which one set of people give in&shy;struc&shy;tions and another set of people carry them out.

{{tab}}The the&shy;or&shy;et&shy;ical ap&shy;pli&shy;ca&shy;tion of our ideas to the organ&shy;isa&shy;tion of edu&shy;ca&shy;tion is clear enough. The auto&shy;nom&shy;ous self-<wbr>govern&shy;ing school is the aim, and in view of the ob&shy;vi&shy;ous limits within which chil&shy;dren may be said to govern them&shy;selves, this means in prac&shy;tice a school con&shy;trolled by teach&shy;ers by virtue of their func&shy;tional re&shy;spons&shy;ibil&shy;ity to chil&shy;dren, and by parents because of their bio&shy;lo&shy;gical re&shy;spons&shy;ibil&shy;ity for them. But the issue is more com&shy;pli&shy;ca&shy;ted, for in both prim&shy;it&shy;ive and com&shy;plex com&shy;mun&shy;it&shy;ies it is recog&shy;nised that all adults have a re&shy;spons&shy;ibil&shy;ity towards chil&shy;dren, which because of the vagar&shy;ies and vicis&shy;si&shy;tudes of in&shy;di&shy;vidual parent&shy;age, may have to be exer&shy;cised on its behalf or on the child{{s}} behalf. Once that is ad&shy;mit&shy;ted, we have of course ad&shy;mit&shy;ted that edu&shy;ca&shy;tion is the con&shy;cern of the com&shy;mun&shy;ity. But what com&shy;mun&shy;ity? The state as in {{w|France|Education_in_France}}, the local au&shy;thor&shy;ity as in the {{w|United States|Education_in_the_United_States}}, or a mix&shy;ture of the two as in {{w|Britain|Education_in_the_United_Kingdom}}? And where does the re&shy;spons&shy;ibil&shy;ity of the com&shy;mun&shy;ity begin and end?

{{tab}}Should edu&shy;ca&shy;tion be com&shy;puls&shy;ory anyway? (And is the com&shy;pul&shy;sion to be ap&shy;plied to the child or the parent?) {{w|Bakunin|Mikhail_Bakunin}} saw the ques&shy;tion dia&shy;lect&shy;ic&shy;ally:

<blockquote><font size="2">{{tab}}The prin&shy;ciple of au&shy;thor&shy;ity, in the edu&shy;ca&shy;tion of chil&shy;dren, con&shy;sti&shy;tutes the natural point of de&shy;par&shy;ture; it is leg&shy;itim&shy;ate, neces&shy;sary, when ap&shy;plied to chil&shy;dren of a tender age, whose intel&shy;li&shy;gence has not yet openly de&shy;veloped itself. But as the de&shy;velop&shy;ment of every&shy;thing, and con&shy;sequently of edu&shy;ca&shy;tion, im&shy;plies the gradual nega&shy;tion of the point of de&shy;par&shy;ture, this prin&shy;ciple must dimin&shy;ish as fast as edu&shy;ca&shy;tion and in&shy;struc&shy;tion ad&shy;vance, giving place to in&shy;creas&shy;ing liberty. All ra&shy;tional edu&shy;ca&shy;tion is at bottom nothing but this pro&shy;gres&shy;sive im&shy;mola&shy;tion of au&shy;thor&shy;ity for the benefit of liberty, the final ob&shy;ject of edu&shy;ca&shy;tion neces&shy;sarily {{p|276}}being the form&shy;a&shy;tion of free men full of re&shy;spect and love for the liberty of others. There&shy;fore the first day of the pupil{{s}} life, if the school takes infants scarcely able as yet to stam&shy;mer a few words, should be that of the great&shy;est au&shy;thor&shy;ity and an almost entire ab&shy;sence of liberty; but its last day should be that of the great&shy;est liberty and the ab&shy;solute aboli&shy;tion of every vestige of the animal or divine prin&shy;ciple of au&shy;thor&shy;ity.</font></blockquote>

{{tab}}Eighty-<wbr>five years later, {{w|Ethel Mannin|Ethel_Mannin}} in her utopian survey ''Bread and Roses'' took a more ab&shy;solutely {{qq|liber&shy;tarian}} line:

<blockquote><font size="2">{{tab}}At this point you per&shy;haps pro&shy;test, {{qq|But if there is no com&shy;pul&shy;sion, what hap&shy;pens if a child does not want to at&shy;tend school of any kind, and the parents are not con&shy;cerned to per&shy;suade him?}} It is quite simple. In that case the child does not at&shy;tend any school. As he becomes adoles&shy;cent he may wish to ac&shy;quire some learn&shy;ing. Or he may de&shy;velop school-<wbr>going friends and wish to at&shy;tend school because they do. But if he doesn{{t}} he is never&shy;the&shy;less learn&shy;ing all the time, his natural child{{s}} creat&shy;ive&shy;ness work&shy;ing in happy alli&shy;ance with his free&shy;dom. No Utopian parent would think of using that moral coer&shy;cion we call {{q|per&shy;sua&shy;sion}}. By the time he reaches adoles&shy;cence the child grows tired of run&shy;ning wild, and begins to ident&shy;ify himself with grown-<wbr>ups; he per&shy;ceives the use&shy;ful&shy;ness of know&shy;ing how to read and write and add, and there is prob&shy;ably some special thing he wants to learn{{dash}}such as how to drive a train or build a bridge or a house. It is all very much simpler than our pro&shy;fes&shy;sional edu&shy;ca&shy;tion&shy;ists would have us believe.</font></blockquote>

{{tab}}Some of us think it is not ''that'' simple. But the point is aca&shy;demic, for in prac&shy;tice the deci&shy;sion is that of the parents. Nowadays it is only highly soph&shy;ist&shy;ic&shy;ated and edu&shy;ca&shy;ted people who bother to argue about whether or not it is desir&shy;able that chil&shy;dren should learn the {{w|three Rs|The_three_Rs}}. The law in this country does not in fact re&shy;quire parents to send their chil&shy;dren to school; it im&shy;poses an obli&shy;ga&shy;tion on them to see that their chil&shy;dren while within the com&shy;puls&shy;ory age, are re&shy;ceiv&shy;ing {{qq|an ap&shy;propri&shy;ate edu&shy;ca&shy;tion}}. The oc&shy;ca&shy;sional pro&shy;secu&shy;tions of re&shy;calcit&shy;rant parents usually reveal a degree of apathy, in&shy;dif&shy;fer&shy;ence or parental in&shy;com&shy;pet&shy;ence that hardly pro&shy;vides a good case for the op&shy;ponents of com&shy;pul&shy;sion, though they do some&shy;times rope in highly con&shy;scien&shy;tious parents whose views on edu&shy;ca&shy;tion do not hap&shy;pen to co&shy;incide with those of the local au&shy;thor&shy;ity. (Mrs. {{popup|Joy Baker|Joy Elsbeth Baker}}{{s}} {{popup|ac&shy;count|Children in Chancery (1964)}} of her long and in the end suc&shy;cess&shy;ful struggle with the au&shy;thor&shy;it&shy;ies will be [[Anarchy 46/A partner not envisaged|re&shy;viewed]] in a coming issue of {{sc|anarchy}}). Usually, apart from a few of the rich, with their gover&shy;nesses and tutors, there are not many parents with the time or skill to teach their chil&shy;dren at home, and of those who could, many must feel it unfair to de&shy;prive their chil&shy;dren of the pleasures and so&shy;cial ex&shy;peri&shy;ence of be&shy;long&shy;ing to a com&shy;mun&shy;ity of their peers, or may cherish the right of parents to have the kids out of their way for some of the time{{dash}}and the recip&shy;rocal right of their children to be outside the parental at&shy;mo&shy;sphere.

{{aster}}

{{tab}}Histor&shy;ic&shy;ally, in this country, the strug&shy;gle to make edu&shy;ca&shy;tion free, com&shy;puls&shy;ory and uni&shy;versal, and out of the ex&shy;clus&shy;ive con&shy;trol of reli&shy;gious organ&shy;isa&shy;tions, was long and bitter, and the op&shy;po&shy;si&shy;tion to it came, not from liber&shy;tarian ob&shy;jectors, but from the up&shy;hold&shy;ers of priv&shy;ilege and dogma, and from those (both parents and em&shy;ploy&shy;ers) who had an eco&shy;nomic inter&shy;est in the labour of chil&shy;dren or a vested inter&shy;est in ignor&shy;ance. The very reason why it had to be made com&shy;puls&shy;ory ninety-<wbr>four {{p|277}}years ago was because chil&shy;dren were an eco&shy;nomic asset. Read&shy;ers of chap&shy;ters {{l|8|https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch08.htm}} and {{l|12|https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch12.htm}} of {{w|Marx|Karl_Marx}}{{s}} ''{{l|Capital|https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/index.htm}}'' will not dis&shy;sent from the as&shy;ser&shy;tion that the {{w|in&shy;dus&shy;trial re&shy;volu&shy;tion|Industrial_Revolution}} was made by the chil&shy;dren of the poor. As late as 1935 {{w|Lord Halifax|Edward_Wood,_1st_Earl_of_Halifax}}, as {{w|Pres&shy;id&shy;ent of the Board of Edu&shy;ca&shy;tion|Secretary_of_State_for_Education}}, op&shy;pos&shy;ing the pro&shy;posal to raise the school leaving age from four&shy;teen to fif&shy;teen, de&shy;clared that {{qq|public opinion would not toler&shy;ate an un&shy;con&shy;di&shy;tional raising of the age}} and the {{w|Bradford|Bradford}} tex&shy;tile manu&shy;fac&shy;turers as&shy;sured him that {{qq|there was work for little fingers there.}}

The no&shy;tion that primary ecu&shy;ca&shy;tion should be free, com&shy;puls&shy;ory and uni&shy;versal is very much older than the {{w|English Act of 1870|Elementary_Education_Act_1870}}. It grew up with the print&shy;ing press and the rise of prot&shy;est&shy;ant&shy;ism. The rich had been edu&shy;cated by the {{w|Church|Church_of_England}} and the sons of the rising bour&shy;geoisie in the {{w|grammar schools|Grammar_school#Early_grammar_schools}} of the Middle Ages. From the 16th century on arose a grad&shy;ual demand that all should be taught. {{w|Martin Luther|Martin_Luther}} ap&shy;pealed {{qq|To the Coun&shy;cil&shy;men of all Cities in {{w|Germany|Holy_Roman_Empire}} that they estab&shy;lish and main&shy;tain Christian Schools}}, ob&shy;serv&shy;ing that the train&shy;ing chil&shy;dren get at home {{qq|at&shy;tempts to make up wise through our ex&shy;peri&shy;ence}} a task for which life itself is too short, and which could be ac&shy;cel&shy;er&shy;ated by sys&shy;tema&shy;tic in&shy;struc&shy;tion by means of books. Com&shy;puls&shy;ory uni&shy;versal edu&shy;ca&shy;tion was founded in {{w|Calvin&shy;ist|Calvinism}} {{w|Geneva|History_of_Geneva#Reformation}} in 1536, and {{w|Calvin|John_Calvin}}{{s}} {{w|Scottish|Scotland}} dis&shy;ciple {{w|John Knox|John_Knox}} {{qq|planted a school as well as a {{w|kirk|Church_of_Scotland}} in every parish.}} In {{w|puritan Mas&shy;sachu&shy;setts|Massachusetts_Bay_Colony}} free com&shy;puls&shy;ory primary edu&shy;ca&shy;tion was intro&shy;duced in 1647. The common school, writes {{w|Lewis Mumford|Lewis_Mumford}} in ''{{l|The Condi&shy;tion of Man|https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.188937}}'':

<font size="2"><blockquote>{{tab}}&hellip; con&shy;trary to popular belief, is no be&shy;lated pro&shy;duct of 19th century demo&shy;cracy: I have pointed out that it played a neces&shy;sary part in the ab&shy;solu&shy;tist-<wbr>mech&shy;an&shy;ical form&shy;ula. {{w|Friedrich Wilhelm I|Frederick_William_I_of_Prussia}} of {{w|Prussia|Brandenburg-Prussia}}, fol&shy;lowing Luther{{s}} pre&shy;cept, made primary edu&shy;ca&shy;tion com&shy;puls&shy;ory in his realm in 1717, and foun&shy;ded 1,700 schools to meet the needs of the poor. Two ordin&shy;ances of {{w|Louis XIV|Louis_XIV_of_France}} in 1694 and 1698 and one of {{w|Louis XV|Louis_XV_of_France}} in 1724 re&shy;quired regular at&shy;tend&shy;ance at school. Even {{w|England|England}}, a strag&shy;gler in such mat&shy;ters, had hun&shy;dreds of private char&shy;ity schools, some of them foun&shy;ded by the {{w|So&shy;ci&shy;ety for Pro&shy;moting Chris&shy;tian Know&shy;ledge|Society_for_Promoting_Christian_Knowledge}}, which had been in&shy;cor&shy;por&shy;ated in 1699. {{w|Vergerious<!-- as spelt in original -->|Pier_Paolo_Vergerio}}, one of the earliest renais&shy;sance school&shy;masters, had thought edu&shy;ca&shy;tion an es&shy;sen&shy;tial func&shy;tion of the State; and cen&shy;tral&shy;ised au&shy;thor&shy;ity was now be&shy;lat&shy;edly taking up the work that had been neg&shy;lected with the wiping out of mu&shy;ni&shy;cipal free&shy;dom in the greater part of Europe.</blockquote></font>

{{tab}}All the ra&shy;tion&shy;al&shy;ist philo&shy;sophers of the 18th century thought about the prob&shy;lems of edu&shy;ca&shy;tion, and of them, the two acutest edu&shy;ca&shy;tional think&shy;ers ranged them&shy;selves on op&shy;pos&shy;ite sides on the ques&shy;tion of the ''organ&shy;isa&shy;tion'' of edu&shy;ca&shy;tion: {{w|Rousseau|Jean-Jacques_Rousseau}} for the State, {{w|Godwin|William_Godwin}} against it. Rousseau, whose ''{{w|Emile|http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5427}}'' pos&shy;tu&shy;lates a com&shy;pletely in&shy;di&shy;vidual edu&shy;ca&shy;tion (human so&shy;ciety is ig&shy;nored, the tutor{{s}} entire life is de&shy;voted to poor Emile), did never&shy;the&shy;less con&shy;cern himself with the so&shy;cial aspect, argu&shy;ing, in his ''{{l|Dis&shy;course on Polit&shy;ical Eco&shy;nomy|http://www.constitution.org/jjr/polecon.htm}}'' (1755)<!-- '(1758)' in original --> for public edu&shy;ca&shy;tion {{qq|under regu&shy;la&shy;tions pre&shy;scribed by the govern&shy;ment}}, for

<font size="2"><blockquote>{{tab}}If chil&shy;dren are brought up in com&shy;mon in the bosom of equal&shy;ity; if they are im&shy;bued with the laws of the State and the pre&shy;cepts of the General Will &hellip; we can&shy;not doubt that they will cher&shy;ish one another mu&shy;tually as broth&shy;ers &hellip; to become in time de&shy;fenders and fath&shy;ers of the country of which they will have been so long the chil&shy;dren.</blockquote></font>

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Reflections on parents teachers and schools}}
[[Category:Children]]
[[Category:Education]]
[[Category:Articles]]