In our present society very little Education takes place. A lot of schooling does, and it performs many vital functions for the maintenance of capitalist society. It’s Important to be clear about this before thinking about what education might be like in a sustainable and just society. Here are a few of the points discussed in the radical education literature that thrived in the 1960s and 1970s but which has died way now.
Schooling caries out the crucial selection task and it legitimizes placement. You come out with credentials which are assumed to indicate whether or not you have “brains”, and of course if you don't have many brains you can't expect to get a good job can you. So, the majority who end up with rotten jobs or none at all do not complain because they don’t deserve any better and they only have themselves to blame.
But in fact there is a great deal of evidence that credentials achieved at school have little or nothing to do with achievement in life and are bad predictors of success in anything, (except in courses directly related to what was studied.) This was understood long ago. “School grades appear to have no predictive validity as far as eminence is concerned, i.e., in public life, scientific or business achievement”. (Blum, 1978, p.78). “Most studies of the relation between high school grades and economic success have found negligible correlations.” (Jencks, 1972, p. 186). (For a lengthy account of radical education theory.)
Radical education theorists such a Reimer and Illich pointed out that Schools have a powerful “hidden curriculum”. You Learn to take for granted a lot of things about the world which it suits the ruling class for you to learn. For instance, you learn to do what you're told, to accept orders from superior elites, to work hard, to be diligent, to be rewarded according to how well you do what you are told. You learn to accept hierarchy and power. You do not get used to being a member of a community of equals cooperatively making decisions and working on common goals. You learn to accept the work conditions of the capitalist factory.
You also learn that your fate depends on your efforts as an individual competing against all others for scarce rewards, and that there will be dire consequences if you fail. You learn that society is normal and good, society is competitive and that’s’ the best way to organize things. You learn that our society is good, indeed the best there ever was. You are not taught that there’s anything wrong with it.
Schooling produces the schooled mind. This is full of bits of information it never thinks about again. How would you like to do your final exams again right now, with no prep? Do you ever look through your notes on the Atacarma desert these days? Or did you burn them right after the exam.
How utterly ridiculous that six years studying French, Math, English and a couple of other subjects, and another three or four years at university, Educates anyone. If some Educational benefits could be demonstrated, what an incredibly inefficient process; maybe 20,000 hours work, plus travel and the cost of fees, books, fares and wages and lifetime foregone.
The goal of schooling is obviously not to Educate. How can we be sure about this? Because no one ever makes any effort to determine whether any Education takes place! Indeed, the concept is never defined let alone measured or studied. I believe schooling does more Educational harm than good, putting most people off thinking about the subjects they studied. I was a student for 27 years and would be regarded as highly “educated”. Over 6 years I was forced to study French, Latin, Ancient Greek, and English, learning nothing that I have ever found to be useful and leaving me detesting languages in general.
We have no idea whether 15 years of schooling increases or decreases interest in those subjects, or improves critical thinking, or broadens interests and understandings of the world or inspires to learn more about it. Do graduates ever do maths problems for the fun of it, or buy books on astronomy or read Shakespeare again in later life? Some do, but that’s so incidental it’s not worth researching.
How is it that if one of the goals of schooling is to produce critical minds, there is just about no critical thinking about schooling, least of all on the part of the vast number of highly schooled professions who staff the system?
So what might Education be like in a sustainable and just society?
There is no correct answer to this question but here is my view. I have argued at length that in such a society most people would live in small highly self-sufficient and self-governing cooperative communities, happy with very materially simple lifestyles and systems. ( See The Simpler Way, Mother Pelican, and the video.) This is the only way to cut per capita resource use and environmental impacts right down, while actually improving the quality of life for all the worlds people.
It must be stressed that such a society would be technically far simpler than present globalized, industrialized, capital and energy intensive, urbanised, high-tech, IT infested, screen based, workaholic consumer society. We would need to train far fewer technocrats and professionals. We might need to work for money only one or two days a week. Everyone could fix just about everything because the technologies would be simple.
But in such a community it would be extremely important for members to learn a great deal of technical information and skills, and more importantly, to learn to be good thoughtful, conscientious, caring, cooperative citizens. The functioning and welfare of the community would depend entirely on the wisdom of its members and the robustness of their “social ecology”, that is the complex network of relationships generating readiness to contribute, harmony, friendship, resilience, pride and morale, and willingness to participate in community assemblies and working bees and to serve on committees etc.
One would learn to be a good citizen simply by living in the community and helping to maintain its systems. Youngsters would accompany their families at the community decision making assembles and on the working bees where they would become familiar with the agricultural, power, water etc. systems. This would be backed up by occasional talks and discussions elaborating on the background physical and biological theory.
There would be no place for coercion, teacher power, obedience, punishment, or exams and credentials. We would keep records on what each young person had covered, e.g., has Mary sat in on Fred’s explanation of how the water wheel works or Jim’s outline of ethical theories yet.
I would want us to be guided by an elaborate list of topics we would aspire to have eventually acquainted all youngsters with, ranging for instance, across major philosophical theories, the core branches of science, especially evolution and biology, just to name a few. But top of my list would be (selected aspects of) sociology. Nothing is a more important determinant of the welfare of humans than how sensible, just, equitable, rational and caring their society is. Western society has suffered ten thousand years of tyrannical rulers, while some non-western societies have avoided this. (See Graeber and Wengrow, The Dawn of Everything, 2021.) We should help youngsters to be acutely aware of such things and concerned to ensure that our social arrangements continue to be admirable.
In addition to the social goals, there would be concern to help individuals to work towards the understandings, skills, values and dispositions that are likely to maximize their life satisfaction. This would seem to be primarily a matter of fostering an inquiring mind. Einstein put it in terms of encouraging awe when confronted by the world. Russell put it in terms of intellectual zest. Education involves inspiring. The educator’s task is to find ways of enticing kids to explore and find out more and to be fascinated.
Educators will have no “power over” learners, they only have the power/skill to interest them, and then to explain well. Expertise gives no right to coerce, let alone admonish or punish; It can only give the power to advise. “Teachers” would be friendly, clever helpers, well acquainted with devices that capture interest, challenge assumptions and prod reflection.
Another crucial domain would be leisure interests and skills. We would introduce people to a wide range of hobbies and pastimes, including many arts and crafts. You will have about five days a week when you do not need to work producing things. Your town will be full of expert blacksmiths, painters, poets, astronomers etc. all keen to entice you to join them. Just growing up in such a context will install the normality of a creative life.
There would probably be no need for schools. Some professionally trained “teachers” might be useful. All members of the community would to varying degrees be teachers, and learners. All would realize how important it is for the community to establish and maintain the necessary skills and attitudes.
The training of trades and professional people might proceed more or less as at present. If at a late age you decide you want to become a plumber or brain surgeon you could plod through the preparatory courses and enrol. All such training participants would be paid a living income; if our society wants doctors it should pay to train them. (Then they would become salaried employees on the modest incomes we set.)
There would be intensive research on Education. We would have institutions designing studies to throw light on all of the above issues. How can we best assess changes in interest in issues, subjects, analyzing, critical thinking, intellectual curiosity etc?
I’m inclined to think it will be fairly easy to arrive at good answers and procedures. If we can establish the villages, they will largely automatically be stimulating places full of skilled people with plenty of time to develop interests and skills and eager to introduce others to them.
What has all this got to do with democracy?
Everything. The new communities cannot work unless they are thoroughly participatory democracies. They will not be representative democracies; those only elect the few who rule over us and we are going to rule ourselves for a change. All decisions will be made by members of the communities. This involves the principle of “subsidiarity”, having decisions and actions undertaken at the lowest level possible.
This is not a matter of preference or ideology. The community cannot run well unless all are directly involved in discussing options and problems and gradually working out what is best for the community and for maintaining the welfare of all members in the most caring and just way. All must feel they are equal, trusted, responsible, sensible, conscientious participants in the governing process.
Although we will have events which celebrate these virtues they will be reinforced mainly simply by living within the town. When we dig up the last parking lot all will be involved in figuring out the best use for that space. Young people will grow up constantly involved in these ideas and participating in these practices. At present they have no social role for 15-20 years other than to consume. We might get them to run the poultry coops, (with access to experienced adults.)
The decision making will aim at consensus on what is best for the town while treating all in caring and just ways. This can be lengthy, difficult and messy at times. We would try to avoid voting; if 51% want the proposal that means 49% will be disappointed. Let’s look for an outcome all would agree is best for the town and looks after anyone disadvantaged by it.
Regional, state and national issues should be handled in the same way. We would discuss the water plan for the valley in cafes and town squares, form our input at a town assembly, feed it into the issue-coordinating body which lets us know how the region is thinking and feeds back pointing out difficulties etc., groping towards a solution all will be content with. It would be a glorified form of using referenda to make big national decisions, with the power in our hands, not those of distant elites. Subsidiarity again. The Swiss do this sort of thing and there is increasing use of “citizen juries” and “sortition” to form city budgets etc.
In my view that is the correct form of government for humans. It is disturbing that it has taken Western civilization about 10,000 years to begin to realize this. We have mindlessly accepted rule by tyrants, kings and distant centralised governments. Many non-Western societies avoided the mistake. (See Graeber and Wengrow again.) We are being forced to wake up by the advent of the poly-crisis, because the many big global problems now threatening our existence can only be defused by radical degrowth to small, localized societies ...where real democracy, and Education will thrive.
References
Blum, J. M., 1978, Pseudoscience and mental ability: The origins and fallacies of the IQ controversy. Monthly Review Press, 1978.
Jencks, C., 1972, Inequality: A Reassessment of the Effect of Family and Schooling in America, Basic Books, 1972.
Graeber, D., and D. Wengrow, The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity, MacMillan, 2021.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ted Trainer is a Conjoint Lecturer in the School of Social Sciences, University of New South Wales. He has taught and written about sustainability and justice issues for many years. He is also developing Pigface Point, an alternative lifestyle educational site near Sydney. Many of his writings are available free at his website, The Simpler Way.
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