Little Boxes of Disestablishment
This article reminded me of a few songs: Little Boxes, by Malvina Reynolds; 21st Century Digital Boy, by Bad Religion; and Closer to Fine, by Dixie Chicks. It seems that the “deschooling” of America is a topic of great interest to those who feel slighted by “The Establishment”. I think I’ve bought into it though. I think things are working okay. Maybe I’m selfish and can’t see past my nose, but I’m satisfied with the way things are. There are problems, I know, I’ve seen school from two sides, as teacher and student. We don’t need, or have the time or resources for, a complete teardown of “The System”. What we have now isn’t perfect, and I think it takes more than bubblegum and duct tape to fix it, but a remaking is unnecessary. I think Illich’s specialization of education would prevent people from learning in the breadth that is available now. They wouldn’t get a chance to find what they really love to do. Illich, alas, suffers from the same lack of a solid plan that hounds other radical proposals.
on March 25th, 2008 at 3:54 am
[...] Original post by elemons [...]
on March 25th, 2008 at 5:18 am
Good points, though to be fair Illich does work out some specifics here and even more so in the book that followed, “Tools for Conviviality.”
on March 25th, 2008 at 8:26 am
test post
on March 25th, 2008 at 8:47 am
i dont think anyone can be OK with a flawed system. when that happens disaster happens. we can rather be either proactive in reform or we can refuse to buy into it. most ppl at mary wash have had the best of the us’ educational system. what about all of those schools in rural or urban areas that are DIRT POOR and cant even provide supplies/books for kids. how can we be ok with that?
on March 25th, 2008 at 9:28 am
@Anika I don’t know if I buy that deschooling is the solution to that problem though. I think there are a number of problems which are both caused and thwarted by the schooling system, but I don’t buy that deschooling would go right out and fix all the problems that plague inner city schools and rural schools. A different approach, sure, a lack of teaching for standardized tests, absolutely, but would what Illich is proposing fix that? I just don’t agree.
on March 25th, 2008 at 10:33 am
@ Gardner: I saw the speifics in this article but, his plans here don’t seem realistic.
@ Anika: We can be okay with that by not caring, not doing anything about those people that are dirt poor and thinking, “Hey, the system works for me.”
How would people speak to each other if all we had to know was what we did for our job? Bars would be obsolete except for those in the same profession. No one would have anything to talk about *unless* they learned something outside of their job. You don’t know what you like until you get a taste of it and the only way to be exposed to a breadth of information is school. I wasn’t really good at anything in school. I graduated with a “C” average. So I went to community college for a few years and started doing better.
Are any of us in this class really going to do anything about this “flawed system”?