I saw a thread elsewhere recently which was heavily critical of the idea of school as in institution, and where some people were directly comparing teachers to cops (one guy even compared them to death camp guards). That seems silly to me, as police obviously have far more power over both adults and children than do teachers, but it's made me wonder if there is some kind of leftist line of thinking when it comes to education which I'm unaware of. Defenders of the idea of school, such as myself, definitely seemed to be in the minority.

I have a feeling most of the people in that thread were American zoomers, which might go some way to explaining things. Maybe anarchists have different thoughts about this than MLs and the like too?

What do you guys think?

Edit: A lot of interesting responses here, and I'm glad to see that people are broadly in favour of education and sympathetic to teachers. Actually, a book I have - but haven't read (tsundoku be damned) - which some people here may find interesting is The Ignorant Schoolmaster by Jacques Ranciere, and I'll have to read Pedagogy of the Opressed and Education to Govern one day too.

  • Budwig_v_1337hoven [he/him]
    ·
    2 years ago

    When education is not liberating, the dream of the oppressed is to become the oppressor

    I think every leftist interested in this should take a look at Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed.

    It's not just a classic for teachers and parents alike, it's also a pretty damning critique of the educational institutions as they exist. Might not be the 'leftist consensus', but it's probably as close to that as you're gonna get