Anarchism and Education: A philosophical perspective by Judith Suissa

Author:Judith Suissa [Suissa, Judith]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-60486-444-1
Publisher: PM Press
Published: 2006-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

Accordingly, the basic organizational principles of the school were very similar to those of the Barcelona school, namely, coeducation, an emphasis on ‘learning by doing’, an anti-authoritarian pedagogy, and a heavily anti-capitalistic, anti-statist and anti-religious tone throughout the curriculum. However, the New York group seems to have taken the idea of the school as a vanguard of the socialist–anarchist revolution, and as a microcosm of an alternative society organized on non-hierarchical, cooperative grounds, further than Ferrer did. They believed that in order for the children to develop an adequate understanding of ideas such as justice, equality and cooperation, they must experience them first-hand in the fullest possible way. Thus:

We hold that children do not and cannot learn the meaning of duties or rights in an economic system composed of masters and slaves. That is why the children of the public schools and the vast majority of children who are pampered and petted by their ignorant or blinded parents know nothing clearly of either rights or duties. Where alone can children, or any others, learn the meaning of rights and duties? In a mode of life which is genuinely cooperative. A life whose products all justly share and whose labour all justly share. This points inevitably to a school which is based upon complete and inclusive cooperation.

(Kelly 1916: 4–5)

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