“What, then, is the school of today, no matter whether public, private, or parochial?
It is for the child what the prison is for the convict and the barracks for the soldier — a place where everything is being used to break the will of the child, and then to pound, knead, and shape it into a being utterly foreign to itself. “ – Emma Goldman

One of the objectives of this series of articles is to engage in the consideration of ideas that we may not already accept, perhaps even ideas we have rejected in the past. With that in mind, we are examining ideas that may be contrary to your own, or even to the author’s. All we ask is that you set aside bias and consider these “unthinkable” ideas to see if they have merit, or perhaps spark some new way of thinking. The market works because millions of ideas are tried, not because merely a select few are considered. We want to use the market to advance freedom and respect for persons, so we need to be open to almost any peaceful idea.

Children must have formal education.

This is an axiom that is accepted by virtually everyone in the industrialized world. Without a formal education, children will be savages. Only primitive people don’t have formal educations. We don’t even think about it. We accept changes to our entire lives, from summer vacations to scheduling activities around school hours and school breaks. We don’t think about it, but maybe we should. Is the one-size-fits-all, formal classroom oriented system of education truly the best we can do?

I should disclose that I spent 13 years in standard pre-college government schooling, well almost. I did have almost a year in a private school. I went on to spend another 9 years in government-approved and sometimes government-funded colleges. Furthermore, I taught at the university level for two years and have lectured at several universities, both at home and abroad. I am in some part a product of the government system. Not the product that they wanted, rest assured, but I cannot deny my experience and time there.

So with that out of the way, let’s tackle the ideas of education.

Governmental Schools:

Currently most people are dubiously educated in governmental schools. We are put into the program at 4 or 5 years old and stay in it for 13 years, assuming that we are not held back. We are then told that we must continue on to college in order to have a good life. This last assumption has been well tackled by people like Mike Rowe, whose foundation Mike Rowe Works, gives scholarships to people who want to go into the trades. This is a very lucrative choice for many people. Those who are interested in the arguments against college should read those arguments as offered by Mike Rowe, as he addresses them more effectively and efficiently than I can recreate here. The concern of this article is that of a basic education.

With “public” (aka governmental) schools in the United States being equipped with metal detectors and having police assign officers there full time, along with falling test scores despite teaching to the tests, with rote memorization taught instead of critical and creative thinking, there can be no doubt that the current governmental school system is failing. It doesn’t teach kids to think, and clearly it does not keep kids safe, a basic requirement for a good learning environment.

Furthermore, many of us who endured the government system also suffered socially, were bullied, and could not thrive as we should have, because we were forced into the one-size-fits-all approach. I myself was more than once chastised by “teachers” for reading. What kind of system penalizes self-education?

It isn’t merely the children and parents who are being harmed by the system. Even those who have no children are impacted by the very existence of the system of formal schooling. They are taxed to pay for the dubious benefit to others, with no cause to believe that they themselves will benefit, despite the promises and excuses of the defenders of governmental schooling. With no offspring, the taking of their property cannot be justified as some unspecified benefit to the future generations. Everyone, with or without kids, are subjected to school zones and buses that slow traffic and completely block two lane roads to pick up or drop off children. Various regulations are school based, such as firearm possession or ownership, which is of course a limit on simple self-defense.

The current system used in almost all countries, with only slight variation, has only been used for the tiniest fraction of human history. It does coincide with some pretty amazing human advancements, but correlation isn’t causation so we ought not take those advancements as evidence of the success of this one-size-fits-all system.

Though government run schools have been around in the US since April 23rd, 1635 (some 386 years), this is but a blip in human history. Education did not begin on that day, which alone proves that there are alternatives to the formal governmental approach, alternatives that the supporters of governmental systems dismiss. Ironically, those who advocated for government schooling were themselves not educated by the state, so if education can only come from the state as they advocate, then are they themselves not educated? Should we listen to such persons when their own reasoning tells us we ought not? The failings of the arguments advocating for government education are not new. Nor are the failings of governmental systems themselves new, though some of the tools to ensure those failings may be.

In the early years of the 20th century, Emma Goldman wrote of many of the same problems we still see today in governmental schools. She cites the core problems being that the system is coercive and controlling, with a single set outcome desired. These systems are cookie cutters that produce “good citizens” and “good workers,” though not necessarily good people or good thinkers.

Goldman is far from alone in criticism of these systems. Ralph Waldo Emerson said of them: “We are students of words; we are shut up in schools and colleges for ten or fifteen years and come out a bag of wind, a memory of words, and do not know a thing.”

Thanks in no small part to the ease with which information can be shared, we have seen a boom in these alternatives. There are many reasons to condemn the existing system, so let us consider the alternatives.

Private schools:

The most traditional alternative is that of the private school. They don’t solve all of the problems, but they do often solve many. These semi-autonomous schools as a rule follow a very similar methodology as governmental schools and by and large remain formal, sometimes even more formal than governmental schools. That said, they do tweak the government system enough to show consistently better scores on tests and tend to produce students more able to solve problems creatively. Some of these private schools, and even some charter schools, adopt different approaches to the rote memorization and teach to the test approach.

Private schools usually have smaller classrooms and more one-on-one time with teachers which helps individualize the material and teaching methods.

Private schools, however, are currently still usually out of the financial reach of many parents. The improved education comes at a premium price.

Home schooling:

Another alternative to traditional school is homeschooling. Homeschooling is what happened before formal schools existed. But what is homeschooling? Essentially it is what it sounds like: education at home. Usually there is some set format, much like a typical school, but instead of a paid instructor, a parent usually teaches their own kids. All the standard subjects are usually covered.

So, how does it work? The parent is a guide, and only on occasion, a teacher. The parent helps the student find the information that he/she desires, allowing the study to go wherever it needs to go. There are online programs and other retail programs that parents can adopt or buy to guide the student through a structured series of lessons to learn predetermined subjects such as mathematics, language skills, or the sciences.

In modern times, homeschoolers were originally associated, at least in the public consciousness, with religious fundamentalists who wanted to keep their children from being exposed to ideas such as evolution or sexual education. Those days are long gone with homeschooling covering a broad range of beliefs. Homeschoolers are even winning science, math, and spelling contests with perhaps surprising regularity. This is one alternative that isn’t mere theory; homeschooling has a proven record of success.

In 2020, because schools were closed by government mandate, many parents were introduced to homeschooling of one form or another. Often this was done by electronic remote access to the government school system, though not always. Many parents were surprised at how easy it actually is to home school, though of course there were the complainers who missed the babysitting function of governmental schools, as well as about the fact that they had to take part in the education of their own children.

Unschooling:

Perhaps the most controversial alternative is that of unschooling. Rest assured, unschooling does not mean that children are left uneducated. The term is simply denying the need for a rigid formal structure into which children must be put. There is some confusion as to whether unschooling is just homeschooling, but there are important differences, despite the potential for much overlap.

While homeschooling is structured and may have a formal plan, unschooling is unstructured and there is no formal plan dictating what children must learn. While homeschooling is usually MUCH more flexible than government or private schools, it still has a curriculum to follow. Unschooling has no set curriculum.

Unschooling is particularly suited to our digital age. Courses are available as desired, many free of charge, and there is a plethora of information at your fingertips. Khan Academy may be the best known online site for free education courses, but many universities now offer free online access to material. Hundreds of books are being digitized and made available each year. Digital content continues to grow daily. The parent need only get the student started along the path of discovery, then offer only support and encouragement.

But does unschooling work? As adults, we are all unschoolers now. Do you need to know how to hang a picture? You search for a web page or video. Why not start kids off doing exactly what they will be doing after their school year age? The boom in YouTube videos teaching others how to do everything from repairing their car to doing calculus demonstrates that unschooling works.

Are there problems with unschooling?

The fear that supporters of state schooling always pull out is that there will be a large uneducated class that will revolt against society. This is an odd belief, but one that has been used for decades to justify state control on education. If there were a large uneducated class, wouldn’t they BE society? Wouldn’t the smaller educated class be the oddities?

Wouldn’t the educated class be better suited to deal with any such potential threat given that they are educated? Do those who promote the state system truly lack confidence in it?

But let’s assume for a minute that their assumption is correct. A large portion of society is not “educated.” What will these people do?

Well, what do graduates of government school do when they lack knowledge for employment?
They gain the knowledge, or they do jobs that do not require special knowledge. They learn on the job. They take on apprenticeships. Sure a tiny percentage resort to crime. But we read about educated people committing crime every day. Entire corporations are destroyed by the crimes of “the smartest people in the room.” Enron, the energy giant, is perhaps the most notable example in our lifetime.

The other significant complaint that we see of education outside of the current system is that children will not be socialized. However, we find that when these homeschooled and unschooled children are interacting with adults in museums, in parks, and in the other places where they may go for “lessons,” they are actually better socialized to operate in the adult world. There is no reason to believe that being around other children prepares you for life in the adult world.

Ultimately, the fears of those who believe in the current system are unjustified. We have no reason to suspect that the “uneducated” class will ultimately make up any significant percentage of the population, and what problems that are cited by those supporting the governmental system still exist with the governmental system. There are still drug dealers and criminals. There are still thugs and bullies. There are still people who cannot read or write. Despite this, society continues largely in peace, especially if we exclude the violence of the state from consideration.

Proponents of the current system may argue that it exists because it is the best system that we as humans have come up with thus far. If that were true, wouldn’t the government school students always win spelling B’s and other educational competitions? Wouldn’t it be unheard of for homeschoolers to so frequently come out on top?

Finally, the critics of unschooling can claim, perhaps rightly so, that not all parents have the time to monitor and guide their kids. For these, there is an alternative, one that may seem odd having already covered private schools and dismissed them as a solution.

Francisco Ferrer i Guàrdia (1859–1909) provides us with a unique private school option that might check all of the boxes, but it is nothing like contemporary private schools. He founded Escuela Moderna in Barcelona, Spain in 1901. The school offered a sliding scale based on the parent’s ability to pay. His school took on the poorest and most misfit kids, and produced productive, capable adults. Ferrer believed in freedom for children at the expense of conformity, regulation, and discipline. His approach combined play and crafts alongside academic work. Traits of reason, dignity, self-reliance, and scientific observation were emphasized over those of piety and obedience. His methods eschewed exams, rewards, and punishments. He sought to inspire the inner autodidact in each child.

The approach was so successful that the school grew and inspired other schools across Spain. Other organizations created similar programs for both children and adults. Ultimately the church and the state targeted Ferrer, and after a kangaroo court verdict, they had him executed. But this came long after the approach was proved successful. The state killed the man, but could not kill the idea or the proof of success.

What Ferrer provides is essentially an unschooling environment with capable guides (teachers) and the opportunity for the child to pursue whatever interest comes to mind. It is a model that we as agorists could adopt and implement to the betterment of the kids as well as a modest business opportunity. Ferrer himself drew on libertarian and anarchist scholars for his system.
Anyone who has taught knows that one-size-fits-all just does not work. We know that coercion is inefficient and often ineffective. For this reason, the governmental system of education should be reconsidered. The best approach will be one that incorporates many approaches. This is why focusing on the individual child, as can be done with homeschooling, unschooling, and Ferrer’s method, all succeed where governmental systems fail.