ONE OF TEN ARGUMENTS FOR THE ELIMINATION OF SCHOOL
First of all, let me confess that I’ve borrowed this title from Jerry Mander’s excellent “Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television” (HarperCollins, NY, 1978). I would highly recommend reading his book, even, perhaps, as a preamble to these blogs, especially if you have any questions in your mind about how television has affected our society—and, especially our youth. I add that the effects of school are parallel, if not similar, to the effects of television. There will be much more about this later.
These ten arguments do not appear in order of importance. They are all, in my opinion, equally damning of a system that not only fails to educate but also fails to support the social and intellectual growth of young people under its control.
SEGREGATION
School takes as its right and privilege the segregation of children into groups or classes according to age and what it chooses to measure as ability. It is taken as natural and beyond question that its charges shall be placed in grades and classes, the unchallenged assumption being that all six-year-olds, for example, will be ready to live and learn in very close to the same way. This segregation of the young begins at Kindergarten age (five-years-old) and continues through the next twelve to thirteen years, at which point 18-year-olds are discharged to fend for themselves into society or graduated into university which further proscribes their associations and limits their pursuit of enquiry.
Thus, from the time I first enter school, I am forced to surrender what is, in democratic societies, generally assumed to be a universal and inalienable right: the right to associate with whomever I please. No other person can decide for me who should be my friends or with whom I should pass my time. Until I go to school, that is. I must now spend the better part of each day in an artificial setting which pretends that I am equal to my twenty to thirty-some classmates while, at the same time, encouraging comparison and competition.
But that’s not all. The school year starts in September. If, in that month, I am six years old, I will be compelled to attend Grade One. I may have turned six in August or I may have turned six the previous October. Thus, in any grade and in any one classroom, youngsters differ as much as ten or more months in age. At this stage of life, those ten months can make a huge difference in physical and mental capacity. This discrepancy will continue for the next eleven years—and its effects felt forever after.
In his very interesting book “Outliers” (Little Brown, New York, 2008), Malcolm Gladwell documents the superiority of hockey players born in the early part of the year. The reason being that these players had a whole year in which to grow, practice, and develop, before the league-entry cut-off date of January first. The same would certainly apply to the arbitrary school-entry month of September.
Back in school, I will also be placed in a classroom run by one teacher, over whom I have neither choice nor control (except such control as I am able to apply subversively, through disruptive behaviour or inattention). Anyone who has ever been to school will remember certain teachers that they liked and certain—probably most—that they didn’t like. As Frank Smith says in his very enlightening book “The Book of Learning and Forgetting” (Teachers College Press, New York, 1998), “…we learn from the individuals or groups with whom we identify.” I think you’ll agree that most kids do not indentify with their teachers. In other words, they don’t say to themselves, “I am just like Ms. Wilson, therefore I want to learn how to be more like her and to like everything that she likes.”
Segregation is only one of the ways in which school takes control of lives and implants dangerous and destructive attitudes which deter growth and have far-reaching effects on how we live our lives. I have touched it but briefly here. This topic, like those to come, lends itself to further elaboration which will be dealt with in another context.
I emphasize again that the ten arguments for the elimination of school that will appear here are not presented in order of importance. All are equally important and illustrate the disastrous effects of this moribund institution.
More to come.
