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.

  • Nagarjuna [he/him]
    ·
    2 years ago

    There isn't a leftist concensus, frerian education, deweian, Reggio Amelia, and the east asian have all been used by leftists at different points in history.

    One of the big struggles in China during the gpcr was over traditional vs progressive education methods.

    Anarchists have advocated democratic schooling and unschooling as methods, relying on a students' desire to learn to drive curriculum and even attendance

    Feel free to ask me about any of these if you don't know what they are

    • PeludoPorFavor [he/him]
      ·
      2 years ago

      Anarchists have advocated democratic schooling and unschooling as methods, relying on a students’ desire to learn to drive curriculum and even attendance

      This Catalan/Spanish theorist is one I find interesting

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_Ferrer