Abstract
In this chapter I will discuss how the anarchist objection to the state and the defence of central anarchist values, such as mutual aid, autonomy and cooperation, yields a distinct perspective on debates about the aims of education. I will draw on historical accounts of anarchist educational experiments to explore how their pedagogical practices, organisation and content constituted a radical alternative to mainstream forms of educational provision in different historical periods and will reflect on the relevance of these alternatives in contemporary educational contexts. My discussion will incorporate both formal and informal education and will address central issues within educational philosophy and theory, such as the relationship between education and social change, the moral legitimacy of educational intervention and the conception of human nature. I will argue that the anarchist tradition of educational thought and practice, while overlapping in some respects with forms of libertarian, progressive and democratic education and with critical pedagogy, offers a unique perspective on issues such as the above, and a valuable set of resources with which to critique some dominant trends in contemporary educational policy and practice.
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Notes
- 1.
P. Avrich, The Modern School Movement; Anarchism and Education in the United States (Oakland: AK Press, 2006), 19.
- 2.
F. Ferrer, The Origins and Ideals of the Modern School (London: Watts & Co., 1913), 55.
- 3.
F. Ferrer, ‘The Rational Education of Children’, The Modern School (New York: Mother Earth Publishing Association, 1909), p. 2.
- 4.
Avrich, Modern School Movement, 21.
- 5.
Ferrer, Origins and Ideals, 62.
- 6.
For discussions of Ferrer-inspired anarchist schools around the world, see, for example, Avrich, Modern School Movement; K. Shaffer, ‘Freedom Teaching: Anarchism and Education in Early Republican Cuba, 1898–1925’, The Americas, 60:2 (2003), 151–183; M. Thomas, ‘“No-one telling us what to do”: Anarchist Schools in Britain, 1890–1916’, Historical Research, 77:197 (2004), 405–436.
- 7.
H. Kelly ‘What is the Modern School?’, The Modern School, 33:3 (1916).
- 8.
W. Godwin, Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (London: G.G.J & J. Robinson, 1796), 297–298.
- 9.
J.S. Mill, On Liberty Mill (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991[1859]), 117.
- 10.
F. Ferrer, The Modern School: Posthumous Explanation and Scope of Rationalist Education (1910), quoted in M. Bray and R. Haworth, Anarchist Education and the Modern School: A Francisco Ferrer Reader (Oakland: PM Press, 2018).
- 11.
P. Kropotkin, ‘Brain Work and Manual Work,’ The Nineteenth Century, March, 1890, 458.
- 12.
P-J. Proudhon, in S. Edwards (Ed) Selected Writings of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (New York: Anchor Books, 1969), 80.
- 13.
See Avrich, Modern School Movement, op. cit., Ref. 4; J. Suissa, Anarchism and Education; A Philosophical Perspective (Abingdon: Routledge, 2006), 78–88.
- 14.
Kelly, ‘What is the Modern School?”, 5.
- 15.
M. Buber, Paths in Utopia (Boston: Beacon Press, 1958), 13.
- 16.
C. Ward, Anarchy in Action (London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1973), 28.
- 17.
For one of the most eloquent, and brutally honest, descriptions of such experimentation, see Tolstoy’s account of his school at Yasnaya Polyana, in L. Weiner (Ed and Tr), Tolstoy on Education (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967).
- 18.
J. Shotton, No Master High or Low; Libertarian Education and Schooling in Britain, 1890–1990 (Bristol: LibeEd, 1993), 25.
- 19.
M. Smith, The Libertarians and Education (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1983), 70.
- 20.
For an insightful historical analysis of the establishment of compulsory schooling, see P. Miller, ‘Historiography of compulsory schooling: what is the problem?’, History of Education, 18:2 (1989), 123–144.
- 21.
- 22.
Smith, The Libertarians.
- 23.
Ibid., 64.
- 24.
In Weiner, Tolstoy.
- 25.
Smith, The Libertarians, 64.
- 26.
Ibid.
- 27.
See J. Holt, How Children Fail (London: Penguin, 1969).
- 28.
E. Goldman ‘The Child and its Enemies’, Mother Earth, 2:9 (1906).
- 29.
Kelly, ‘What is the Modern School?’.
- 30.
J. Shotton, No Master High or Low, 13.
- 31.
A.S. Neill, Summerhill (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1968), 315.
- 32.
A.S. Neill, The New Summerhill, Edited by A. Lamb (London: Penguin, 1992), 9.
- 33.
H. Kelly, ‘The Meaning of Libertarian Education’, The Modern School, 1:5 (1913).
- 34.
Avrich, Modern School Movement, 28.
- 35.
Shotton, No Master High or Low, 13.
- 36.
D. Morland, D. Demanding the Impossible? Human Nature and Politics in Nineteenth Century Social Anarchism (London: Cassell, 1997).
- 37.
M. Bakunin, in G. P. Maximoff (Ed) The Political Philosophy of Bakunin (New York: The Free Press, 1953) 147.
- 38.
P. Kropotkin, ‘Are we good enough?’, Freedom, 21 June 1988.
- 39.
Kelly, What is the Modern School?, 51.
- 40.
Thomas, ‘“No-one telling us what to do”’.
- 41.
S. Kerr, ‘Ferrer and Montessori’, The Modern School, 1:5 (1913).
- 42.
Bray and Haworth, Anarchist Education.
- 43.
J. Mueller, ‘Anarchism, the State, and the role of education’, in R. Haworth (Ed) Anarchist Pedagogies; Collective Actions, Theories, and Critical Reflections on Education (Oakland: PM Press, 2012), 22.
- 44.
Ibid.
- 45.
N. Jun, ‘Paedeia for Practice: Philosophy and Pedagogy as Practices of Liberation’, in Haworth, Anarchist Pedagogies, 294.
- 46.
E. McKenna, The Task of Utopia; A Pragmatist Feminist Perspective (Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001), 59.
- 47.
A. Berkman in Ibid.
- 48.
D. Gribble, ‘Good news for Francisco Ferrer—how anarchist ideals in education have survived around the world’ in J. Purkis and J. Bowed (Eds) Changing Anarchism; Anarchist Theory and Practice in a Global Age (Manchester; Manchester University Press, 2004), 196.
- 49.
Ibid., 187.
- 50.
Ibid.
- 51.
See http://autonomies.org/ru/2015/03/anarchy-in-the-school-escuela-libre-paideia/ (accessed 9 August 2017).
- 52.
See http://santacruz.freeskool.org/content/about-free-skool-santa-cruz (accessed 31 July 2017).
- 53.
https://torontofreeskool.wordpress.com/about/ (accessed 2 August 2017). See also J. Shantz, ‘Spaces of learning: the Anarchist Free Skool’, in R. Haworth (Ed) Anarchist Pedagogies, op. cit., and ‘Theory meets practice: Evolving ideas and actions in Anarchist free schools’, in R. Haworth and J. Elmore (Eds), Out of the Ruins; The Emergence of Radical Informal Learning Spaces (Oakland: PM Press, 2017).
- 54.
I. Cunningham, ‘Democratic Education—some notes towards defining the term’, Conference Paper for International Democratic Education Conference, Israel, July 2011.
- 55.
https://freeskoolsproject.wikispaces.com/theory (accessed 2 August 2017).
- 56.
Haworth, Anarchist Pedagogies, 3.
- 57.
Ward, Anarchy in Action, 11.
- 58.
See Y. Savran, ‘The Rojava revolution and British solidarity, Anarchist Studies, 24:1 (2016), 7–12.
- 59.
http://new-compass.net/articles/revolutionary-education-rojava (accessed 3 August 2016).
- 60.
Haworth, Anarchist Pedagogies, 2.
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Suissa, J. (2019). Anarchist Education. In: Levy, C., Adams, M.S. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Anarchism. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75620-2_29
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