"Growing Without Education" by Aaron Falbel
John O. Andersen
I enjoyed Aaron Falbel's article "Beyong GWS: Growing Without Education" on
pages 28-31 of the Sept/Oct issue of "Growing Without Schooling." Anyone
who questions the idea of education, will find this article well worth
reading. I found the magazine at a local library.
In it (page 28), Falbel includes a 1976 quote by John Holt:
"Education...now seems to me perhaps the most authoritarian and dangerous of
all the social inventions of mankind. It is the deepest foundation of the
modern slave state, in which most people feel themselves to be nothing but
producers, consumers, spectators, and 'fans,' driven more and more, in all
parts of their lives, by greed, envy, and fear. My concern is not to
improve 'education' but to do away with it, to end the ugly and antihuman
business of people-shaping and to allow and help people to shape
themselves."
The essay is packed with interesting thoughts. Here is one other I found
particularly good:
"Education teaches us that we must adapt ourselves to society as it is, that
we must keep pace with the dictates of "progress," that life is a race, and
that we need education to get ahead of the next guy or else we'll be left
behind." pg. 30.
When we reject the mindset that life is a race, we loosen the stranglehold
which education has over us. Thus freed, we might begin to learn things for
more authentic and natural reasons. We may then begin to fully enjoy the
delight of discovery, of intellectual stimulation, of the deep and
ever-changing diversity and endless wonder our world.
John Andersen
http://members.xoom.com/joandersen
pages 28-31 of the Sept/Oct issue of "Growing Without Schooling." Anyone
who questions the idea of education, will find this article well worth
reading. I found the magazine at a local library.
In it (page 28), Falbel includes a 1976 quote by John Holt:
"Education...now seems to me perhaps the most authoritarian and dangerous of
all the social inventions of mankind. It is the deepest foundation of the
modern slave state, in which most people feel themselves to be nothing but
producers, consumers, spectators, and 'fans,' driven more and more, in all
parts of their lives, by greed, envy, and fear. My concern is not to
improve 'education' but to do away with it, to end the ugly and antihuman
business of people-shaping and to allow and help people to shape
themselves."
The essay is packed with interesting thoughts. Here is one other I found
particularly good:
"Education teaches us that we must adapt ourselves to society as it is, that
we must keep pace with the dictates of "progress," that life is a race, and
that we need education to get ahead of the next guy or else we'll be left
behind." pg. 30.
When we reject the mindset that life is a race, we loosen the stranglehold
which education has over us. Thus freed, we might begin to learn things for
more authentic and natural reasons. We may then begin to fully enjoy the
delight of discovery, of intellectual stimulation, of the deep and
ever-changing diversity and endless wonder our world.
John Andersen
http://members.xoom.com/joandersen