Anarchism and education

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Anarchism has had a special interest on the issue of education from the works of William Godwin and Max Stirner onwards.

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A wide diversity of issues related to education have gained the attention of anarchist theorists and activists. They have included the role of education in social control and socialization, the rights and liberties of youth and children within educational contexts, the inequalities encouraged by current educational systems, the influence of state and religious ideologies in the education of people, the division between social and manual work and its relationship with education, sex education and art education.

Various alternatives to contemporary mainstream educational systems and their problems have been proposed by anarchists which have gone from alternative education systems and environments, self-education, advocacy of youth and children rights, and freethought activism.

Early anarchist views on education

Max Stirner was a German philosopher linked mainly with the anarchist school of thought known as individualist anarchism who worked as a schoolteacher in a gymnasium for young girls. [1] He examines the subject of education directly in his long essay The False Principle of our Education . [2] In that essay he deals with the debates between realist and humanistic educational commentators and reflects that both consider the learner as something to be acted upon rather than someone to be encouraged towards self-realization. [2]

Josiah Warren is widely regarded as the first American anarchist. [3] "Where utopian projectors starting with Plato entertained the idea of creating an ideal species through eugenics and education and a set of universally valid institutions inculcating shared identities, Warren wanted to dissolve such identities in a solution of individual self-sovereignty. His educational experiments, for example, possibly under the influence of the...Swiss educational theorist Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi (via Robert Owen), emphasized—as we would expect—the nurturing of the independence and the conscience of individual children, not the inculcation of pre-conceived values." [4]

Early 20th century

Francisco Ferrer and Modern schools

In 1901, Catalan anarchist and free-thinker Francisco Ferrer established "modern" or progressive schools in Barcelona in defiance of an educational system controlled by the Catholic Church. [5] The schools' stated goal was to "educate the working class in a rational, secular and non-coercive setting". Fiercely anti-clerical, Ferrer believed in education free from the authority of church and state. [6] La Escuela Moderna, and Ferrer's ideas generally, formed the inspiration for a series of Modern Schools in the United States, [5] Cuba, South America and London.

The NYC Modern School, ca. 1911-1912, Principal Will Durant and pupils. This photograph was the cover of the first issue of The Modern School magazine. The Modern School in New York City, circa 1911-12.jpg
The NYC Modern School, ca. 1911–1912, Principal Will Durant and pupils. This photograph was the cover of the first issue of The Modern School magazine.

The first, and most notable, of the Modern Schools was founded in New York City, in 1911, two years after Francisco Ferrer i Guàrdia's execution for sedition in monarchist Spain on 18 October 1909. Commonly called the Ferrer Center, it was founded by notable anarchists — including Leonard Abbott, Alexander Berkman, Voltairine de Cleyre, and Emma Goldman — first meeting on St. Mark's Place, in Manhattan's Lower East Side, but twice moved elsewhere, first within lower Manhattan, then to Harlem. The Ferrer Center opened with only nine students, one being the son of Margaret Sanger, the contraceptives-rights activist. Starting in 1912, the school's principal was the philosopher Will Durant, who also taught there. Besides Berkman and Goldman, the Ferrer Center faculty included the Ashcan School painters Robert Henri and George Bellows, and its guest lecturers included writers and political activists such as Margaret Sanger, Jack London, and Upton Sinclair. [7] Student Magda Schoenwetter, recalled that the school used Montessori methods and equipment, and emphasised academic freedom rather than fixed subjects, such as spelling and arithmetic. [8]

After the 4 July 1914 Lexington Avenue bombing, the police investigated and several times raided the Ferrer Center and other labor and anarchist organisations in New York City. [9] Acknowledging the urban danger to their school, the organizers bought 68 acres (275,000 m2) in Piscataway Township, New Jersey, and moved there in 1914, becoming the center of the Stelton Colony. Moreover, beyond New York City, the Ferrer Colony and Modern School was founded (c. 1910–1915) as a Modern School-based community, that endured some forty years. In 1933, James and Nellie Dick, who earlier had been principals of the Stelton Modern School, founded the Modern School in Lakewood, New Jersey. [9]

Late 20th century to present

Experiments in Germany led to A. S. Neill founding what became Summerhill School in 1921. [10] Summerhill is often cited as an example of anarchism in practice. [11] British anarchists Stuart Christie and Albert Meltzer wrote that Neill pioneered of libertarian education and claimed him as an anarchist though he has denied this affiliation. [12] However, although Summerhill and other free schools are radically libertarian, they differ in principle from those of Ferrer by not advocating an overtly political class struggle-approach. [13]

The English anarchist philosopher, art critic and poet, Herbert Read developed a strong interest in the subject of education and particularly in art education. Read's anarchism was influenced by William Godwin, Peter Kropotkin and Max Stirner. [14]

See also

Related Research Articles

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Individualist anarchism is the branch of anarchism that emphasizes the individual and their will over external determinants such as groups, society, traditions, and ideological systems. Although usually contrasted with social anarchism, both individualist and social anarchism have influenced each other. Some anarcho-capitalists claim anarcho-capitalism is part of the individualist anarchist tradition, while others disagree and reject the notion that anarcho-capitalism is a genuinely anarchist belief system or movement. Economically, while European individualist anarchists are generally pluralists who advocate anarchism without adjectives and synthesis anarchism, ranging from anarcho-communist to mutualist economic types, most American individualist anarchists of the 19th century advocated mutualism, a libertarian socialist form of market socialism, or a free-market socialist form of classical economics. Individualist anarchists are opposed to property that violates the entitlement theory of justice, that is, gives privilege due to unjust acquisition or exchange, and thus is exploitative, seeking to "destroy the tyranny of capital,—that is, of property" by mutual credit.

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Paul Avrich was an American historian specializing in the 19th and early 20th-century anarchist movement in Russia and the United States. He taught at Queens College, City University of New York, for his entire career, from 1961 to his retirement as distinguished professor of history in 1999. He wrote ten books, mostly about anarchism, including topics such as the 1886 Haymarket Riot, the 1921 Sacco and Vanzetti case, the 1921 Kronstadt naval base rebellion, and an oral history of the movement in the United States.

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Harry May Kelly (1871–1953) was an American anarchist and lifelong activist in the Modern School movement.

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The Ferrer school was an early 20th century libertarian school inspired by the anarchist pedagogy of Francisco Ferrer. He was a proponent of rationalist, secular education that emphasized reason, dignity, self-reliance, and scientific observation, as opposed to the ecclesiastical and dogmatic standard Spanish curriculum of the period. Ferrer's teachings followed in a tradition of rationalist and romantic education philosophy, and 19th century extragovernment, secular Spanish schools. He was particularly influenced by Paul Robin's orphanage at Cempuis.

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Elizabeth and Alexis Ferm were early 20th century libertarian educators best known for their work at the Ferrer Colony's Modern School.

Abraham Bluestein (1909–1997) was an American anarchist who participated in the Spanish Civil War.

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References

  1. ↑ The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, volume 8, The Macmillan Company and The Free Press, New York 1967
  2. 1 2 Introduction to The False Principle of our Education by Max Stirner by James J. Martin Archived 15 May 2011 at the Wayback Machine
  3. ↑ Palmer, Brian (2010-12-29) What do anarchists want from us?, Slate.com
  4. ↑ ""Introduction of The Practical Anarchist: Writings of Josiah Warren" by Crispin Sartwell". Archived from the original on 2011-04-30. Retrieved 2012-02-20.
  5. 1 2 Geoffrey C. Fidler (Spring–Summer 1985). "The Escuela Moderna Movement of Francisco Ferrer: "Por la Verdad y la Justicia"". History of Education Quarterly. 25 (1/2): 103–132. doi:10.2307/368893. JSTOR   368893. S2CID   147119437.
  6. ↑ Francisco Ferrer's Modern School Archived 2010-08-07 at the Wayback Machine
  7. ↑ Avrich, Paul, The Modern School Movement , AK Press (2005), p.212: At the Ferrer Center, Berkman was called "The Pope", Goldman was called "The Red Queen".
  8. ↑ Avrich, Paul, Anarchist Voices: An Oral History of Anarchism in America , "Interview with Magda Schoenwetter", AK Press (2005), ISBN   1-904859-27-5, ISBN   978-1-904859-27-7, p.230: "What everybody is yowling about now — freedom in education — we had then, though I still can't spell or do multiplication."
  9. 1 2 Avrich, Paul, The Modern School Movement. Princeton: Princeton University Press (1980); Avrich, Paul, Anarchist Portraits , Princeton: Princeton University Press, ISBN   0-691-00609-1 (1988)
  10. ↑ Purkis, Jon (2004). Changing Anarchism. Manchester: Manchester University Press. ISBN   0-7190-6694-8.
  11. ↑ Andrew Vincent (2010) Modern Political Ideologies, 3rd edition, Oxford, Wiley-Blackwell p.129
  12. ↑ The Floodgates of Anarchy, Stuart Christie and Albert Meltzer.
  13. ↑ Suissa, Judith (September–October 2005). "Anarchy in the classroom". New Humanist . 120 (5).
  14. ↑ David Thistlewood. "HERBERT READ (1893–1968)" in PROSPECTS: the quarterly review of comparative education. Paris, UNESCO: International Bureau of Education, vol. 24, no.1/2, 1994, p. 375–90

Bibliography

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