So, one of the Marxist ideas that appeals the most to me is the idea that we can do away with the division of labor and approach productive activity as something we do to express our humanity rather than through jobs and houswifery and the like.
With the end of the gendered division of labor, the nuclear family and the public / private dichotomy falls away.
At present, one of the core features of school is that it props up the public / private dichotomy. It takes care of children while parents work. As a private school teacher, I see this first hand. During the pandemic, parents dont care about the quality of education I'm giving anymore, just that I'm able to take their children where public schools won't. My job is, in their eyes, essentially to allow them to keep their public and private lives separate.
I'd also like to see jobs-as-years-long-specializations go out the window. This isn't a utopian proposition. Stalin wanted to teach every citizen multiple trades so they could move between different kinds of work freely. Under capitalism I've been (in the past few years) a house painter, a clerk, a mountaineering guide, a dog walker and a teacher. There's no reason I couldn't move between those roles freely except for the way the division of labor pidgeonholes people.
So without a division of labor, parents are freed up to look after their children. They're also freed up to participate in more parts of the world. Maybe you teach your kid to read and share a book with them in the morning, then in the afternoon you leave them with your uncle and several other children to just play. He takes them to overpass that's been converted into a greenway to forage for yucca and prickly pear while you go do a volunteer shift at the desalination plant.
Then you head to a mess hall to eat a meal with your soviet and extended family, then finally you all head to a general assembly where your child participates as a full participant.
To sort of ground this vision in the real world, I'll approach it from a couple angles:
From a class struggle angle, we need to get students to think of themselves as future workers and organize around that. This is already reality in parts of France, where university and highschool students regularly go on strike. There's even social theory about this, for example Vaneigm's "On the Poverty of Student Life." And Perlman's "Worker Student Action Committees." Organizing students in an oppositional relationship to their schools is how you move towards abolishing school.
Despite Engles' valid criticisms of the utopian movement, I think utopianism has value in expanding our imaginary for what's possible from a communist future and helps us break from capitalist subjectivity a little. So, from a more utopian angle: I'd like to see more deschooling / homeschooling, with government funding for folks to do it on their own terms so long as they're not teaching weird religious shit. I'd like to see public funding for "democratic / salsbury schools." I'd like to see a push to decommodify everything, from mass participation in buy nothing groups to library socialism to public housing, etc. And a willingness to include children in adult projects as equal participants.
See now this is definitely what I would call an abolishion of the current traditional school system. I like it though, thanks for the explanation. Definitely a lot more community oriented, which I think is something that most parts of the world severely lack at the moment, even before the pandemic started. Hopefully we can get there someday.
Depends on how broad your definition of school is. I'll give you the short answer now then come back.
I want social changes that would make schools as a place separate from the rest of life make less sense.
If I had money and a kid I'd send them to a "democratic school."
Eagerly awaiting the longer explanation.
So, one of the Marxist ideas that appeals the most to me is the idea that we can do away with the division of labor and approach productive activity as something we do to express our humanity rather than through jobs and houswifery and the like.
With the end of the gendered division of labor, the nuclear family and the public / private dichotomy falls away.
At present, one of the core features of school is that it props up the public / private dichotomy. It takes care of children while parents work. As a private school teacher, I see this first hand. During the pandemic, parents dont care about the quality of education I'm giving anymore, just that I'm able to take their children where public schools won't. My job is, in their eyes, essentially to allow them to keep their public and private lives separate.
I'd also like to see jobs-as-years-long-specializations go out the window. This isn't a utopian proposition. Stalin wanted to teach every citizen multiple trades so they could move between different kinds of work freely. Under capitalism I've been (in the past few years) a house painter, a clerk, a mountaineering guide, a dog walker and a teacher. There's no reason I couldn't move between those roles freely except for the way the division of labor pidgeonholes people.
So without a division of labor, parents are freed up to look after their children. They're also freed up to participate in more parts of the world. Maybe you teach your kid to read and share a book with them in the morning, then in the afternoon you leave them with your uncle and several other children to just play. He takes them to overpass that's been converted into a greenway to forage for yucca and prickly pear while you go do a volunteer shift at the desalination plant.
Then you head to a mess hall to eat a meal with your soviet and extended family, then finally you all head to a general assembly where your child participates as a full participant.
To sort of ground this vision in the real world, I'll approach it from a couple angles:
From a class struggle angle, we need to get students to think of themselves as future workers and organize around that. This is already reality in parts of France, where university and highschool students regularly go on strike. There's even social theory about this, for example Vaneigm's "On the Poverty of Student Life." And Perlman's "Worker Student Action Committees." Organizing students in an oppositional relationship to their schools is how you move towards abolishing school.
Despite Engles' valid criticisms of the utopian movement, I think utopianism has value in expanding our imaginary for what's possible from a communist future and helps us break from capitalist subjectivity a little. So, from a more utopian angle: I'd like to see more deschooling / homeschooling, with government funding for folks to do it on their own terms so long as they're not teaching weird religious shit. I'd like to see public funding for "democratic / salsbury schools." I'd like to see a push to decommodify everything, from mass participation in buy nothing groups to library socialism to public housing, etc. And a willingness to include children in adult projects as equal participants.
See now this is definitely what I would call an abolishion of the current traditional school system. I like it though, thanks for the explanation. Definitely a lot more community oriented, which I think is something that most parts of the world severely lack at the moment, even before the pandemic started. Hopefully we can get there someday.