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Deschooling Society
In 1971, the political philosopher Ivan Illich wrote a rather provocative book, called Deschooling Society. It was about modern educational systems and the way that they perpetuate hierarchical thinking by solidifying it in children from a young age. This hierarchical thinking filters out to the rest of society creating negative feedback loops which result in all sorts of problems.
Insightfully, he wrote that education should be self-directed using "learning webs." He explained further that, "The operation of a peer-matching network would be simple. The user would identify himself by name and address and describe the activity for which he sought a peer. A computer would send him back the names and addresses of all those who had inserted the same description. It is amazing that such a simple utility has never been used on a broad scale for publicly valued activity."
Now that his dream of a learning web has been realized beyond all expectations, maybe it is time to rethink education. We must rethink not just how technology can be utilized within current educational frameworks, but how technology can make new, equally legitimate frameworks possible.
The American pragmatist John Dewey had similar ideas about the need for self-direction in education. In his treatise Democracy and Education, Dewey wrote, "Individuality as a factor to be respected in education has a double meaning. In the first place, one is mentally an individual only as he has his own purpose and problem, and does his own thinking. The phrase "think for one's self' is a pleonasm. Unless one does it for one's self, it isn't thinking. Only by a pupil's own observations, reflections, framing and testing of suggestions can what he already knows be amplified and rectified."
It is said that pragmatism is one of the few distinctly American philosophies, so none of this should be all that subversive. Another distinctly American individual, Mark Twain, once wrote "I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." Countless other famous intellectuals have made similar statements ( http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/eduquote.htm )
In this vein, Dewey continues, "...there are variations of point of view, of appeal of objects, and of mode of attack, from person to person. When these variations are suppressed in the alleged interests of uniformity, and an attempt is made to have a single mold of method of study and recitation, mental confusion and artificiality inevitably result. Originality is gradually destroyed, confidence in one's own quality of mental operation is undermined, and a docile subjection to the opinion of others is inculcated, or else ideas run wild. The harm is greater now than when the whole community was governed by customary beliefs, because the contrast between methods of learning in school and those relied upon outside the school is greater. That systematic advance in scientific discovery began when individuals were allowed, and then encouraged, to utilize their own peculiarities of response to subject matter, no one will deny."
Unsurprisingly, most truly paradigm-shifting thinkers have had little advanced schooling or at least have been very self-directed. If such self-direction is not fostered from an early age, it is unlikely that our society will produce many Einsteins.
My questions are: how can society best accommodate the ideas put forth by the thinkers I mentioned? What sorts of decentralized learning methods have you all found that work successfully? How could students who were educated using a decentralized or self-directed method be recognized with a degree?
Is the idea of degrees in opposition to this notion? After all, appeals to authority are not logical, and anyone who puts too much stock in a piece of paper is committing a common logical fallacy.
Finally, is there something about "human nature" that makes hierarchy unavoidable? Familial relationships are almost always hierarchical, but maybe justifiably so. Is societal hierarchy rooted in familial hierarchy?
Insightfully, he wrote that education should be self-directed using "learning webs." He explained further that, "The operation of a peer-matching network would be simple. The user would identify himself by name and address and describe the activity for which he sought a peer. A computer would send him back the names and addresses of all those who had inserted the same description. It is amazing that such a simple utility has never been used on a broad scale for publicly valued activity."
Now that his dream of a learning web has been realized beyond all expectations, maybe it is time to rethink education. We must rethink not just how technology can be utilized within current educational frameworks, but how technology can make new, equally legitimate frameworks possible.
The American pragmatist John Dewey had similar ideas about the need for self-direction in education. In his treatise Democracy and Education, Dewey wrote, "Individuality as a factor to be respected in education has a double meaning. In the first place, one is mentally an individual only as he has his own purpose and problem, and does his own thinking. The phrase "think for one's self' is a pleonasm. Unless one does it for one's self, it isn't thinking. Only by a pupil's own observations, reflections, framing and testing of suggestions can what he already knows be amplified and rectified."
It is said that pragmatism is one of the few distinctly American philosophies, so none of this should be all that subversive. Another distinctly American individual, Mark Twain, once wrote "I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." Countless other famous intellectuals have made similar statements ( http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/eduquote.htm )
In this vein, Dewey continues, "...there are variations of point of view, of appeal of objects, and of mode of attack, from person to person. When these variations are suppressed in the alleged interests of uniformity, and an attempt is made to have a single mold of method of study and recitation, mental confusion and artificiality inevitably result. Originality is gradually destroyed, confidence in one's own quality of mental operation is undermined, and a docile subjection to the opinion of others is inculcated, or else ideas run wild. The harm is greater now than when the whole community was governed by customary beliefs, because the contrast between methods of learning in school and those relied upon outside the school is greater. That systematic advance in scientific discovery began when individuals were allowed, and then encouraged, to utilize their own peculiarities of response to subject matter, no one will deny."
Unsurprisingly, most truly paradigm-shifting thinkers have had little advanced schooling or at least have been very self-directed. If such self-direction is not fostered from an early age, it is unlikely that our society will produce many Einsteins.
My questions are: how can society best accommodate the ideas put forth by the thinkers I mentioned? What sorts of decentralized learning methods have you all found that work successfully? How could students who were educated using a decentralized or self-directed method be recognized with a degree?
Is the idea of degrees in opposition to this notion? After all, appeals to authority are not logical, and anyone who puts too much stock in a piece of paper is committing a common logical fallacy.
Finally, is there something about "human nature" that makes hierarchy unavoidable? Familial relationships are almost always hierarchical, but maybe justifiably so. Is societal hierarchy rooted in familial hierarchy?
Comment
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Comment by Sean Henderson on March 8, 2008 at 9:41am -
Alot of the junk we learn at school isn't useful for getting a job or society - just old memes.
Self-directed learning could also be tailored for specific desired jobs.
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Comment by Acumensch on August 13, 2007 at 5:39am -
Roko pointed out the paradox in thinking that we must either have a standardized system of work and school or a system of complete voluntaryism.
But in the spirit of voluntaryism, some conservatives might like to hold to a form of the standardized system, and thus it would exist parallel to the voluntary society.
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Comment by Edward Miller on August 4, 2007 at 12:16pm
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I think that humans have tendencies and predispositions, but that these do not rigidly determine how a person or society will turn out.
I think that most societies are inclined to be dominating and hierarchical because of a sort of natural selection process. It is just common sense that societies which are most inclined towards domination of others will probably be the ones that become dominant.
Obviously there are other factors too, as described in books like Guns, Germs, and Steel.
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Comment by Dan on August 4, 2007 at 10:48am
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I think the idea that human nature is constantly changing and very flexible is quite far from obvious, and ultimately incorrect. Both the arguments for and against are long and complex (and not obvious) and hard to boil down in a note on a blog. However, if you're open to it, Steven Pinker does a pretty good job demolishing the notion that human nature is malleable in his book, "The Blank Slate," and Robert Wright makes a very strong case for a fundamental core shared by all humans in his book "The Moral Animal."
I've actually not come across a particularly good answer to the arguments in those books.
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Good points.
It does seem likely that humanity will reach a point where it produces so much that wage slavery becomes a thing of the past.
At the same time, I would be cautious of making predictions about this for the near term. Obviously people have been predicting the 4 or 3 day work week for awhile now. They failed to realize the nature of capitalism is endless accumulation.
Thus, although humans could consciously decide to work only 3 days per week and live very comfortably, the current system makes that unlikely.
Currently, technology is allowing for the decentralization of more and more industries. Assuming current trends continue and people use technology for decentralization whenever it becomes viable, then society will gradually progress towards the type of coercion-free future you envision.
I would add one more thing. Obviously human nature, even without considering transhumanist ideas, is constantly changing and very flexible.
Thus, hierarchy is not inevitable, but its emergence was understandable.
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