Adventures in Free Schooling

A Call For Teaching Guides On Workplace Democracy, Worker Cooperatives, and Collectives

Hey there folks, I’m putting together a mini-curriculum on teaching workplace democracy, starting worker cooperatives, and so on. It is going to be based on critical pedagogy/popular education models, and it will be designed so that it uses the least amount of (and least expensive) resources available so that it can be replicated by as many people as possible. I’m also planning on eventually expanding this mini-curriculum into a full-fledged teaching guide.

So, I’m wondering if anyone out there has had any experience in teaching workplace democracy or about cooperatives/collectives? Would you be willing to either correspond with me about your experience, share resources, or make available your curriculum (or ones you know about)? I would love to not have to reinvent the wheel and see what other folks have done so I can get a sense of what to try.

If so, please either leave a comment or send me an e-mail at brian AT freeschooling DOT org. Thanks!

(Just FYI: the mini-curriculum will be completed no later than December 18th).

Add comment November 18, 2008

Cultural Genocide and Education: The Story of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School

This is the second in our “History of Schools” Series. This is also an attempt that requires some editing.

Introduction

After the famous battle of the Little Big Horn in 1876, the surrender of Geronimo in 1886, and the massacre at Wounded Knee in 1890, the so-called “Indian Wars” came to an end (Adams, 1997), (Marshall III, 2007). According to historian Howard Zinn, these events solidified nearly four-hundred years of European and Euro-American conquest and genocide against the original inhabitants of the North American continent (Zinn, 2005). Many Native Americans now faced a harsh and unknown way of living. For them, the reservation system was a new and almost completely controlled existence. Lakota Indian historian Joseph M. Marshall III writes that a “loss of dignity came on the heels of [the] loss of freedom” (Marshall III, 2007, page 140). For the Lakota, living on vast plains became an extinguished reality, and instead they were reduced to miniscule agencies where they were trapped and confined (Marshall III, 2007). All the while, the United States government continued to take lands from the natives and attempted to destroy their cultures, societies, and identities. This was the process of assimilation.

One of the most powerful tools for cultural genocide that the United States had in its arsenal was the school. Both on reservation schools and boarding schools served assimilation goals by targeting native children and attempting to turn them into, what Euro-Americans identified as, “civilized.” The school that started this all was the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania, begun by Captain Richard Henry Pratt of the U.S. military. Supporters referred to this movement and its schools as a “noble experiment” to turn native children into mirrored images of the “white man.” This, they contested, was the only way that American Indians would be able to survive the “progress” of white expansion. They would either have to perish in its path or become assimilated into its borders (Adams, 1997).

This discussion will center on Carlisle and the role it played in founding the movement. We will also look in depth at both the history and philosophy of Pratt. Carlisle was his brainchild, and thus both the school itself and the movement it gave life to are intricately related to his actions and words. However, this dialogue will not center on a few topics that are sometimes discussed about Carlisle - including its football fame and celebrated athlete, Jim Thorpe. Instead, the intention here is to explore the use of education as a means of cultural destruction and replacement, and as a process of securing domination over American Indians. Nevertheless, as the Carlisle Indian Industrial School Research Pages expresses, “[i]t is our purpose to respectfully honor those students and their descendants who lived the experiment, to celebrate with those who prospered from it, and to grieve with those whose lives were diminished by it” (Landis, 1996). As we shall explore shortly, the legacy of Carlisle is a complex and intimidating one to comprehend. Yet, it is one we must attempt to familiarize ourselves with in order to understand the powerful role education has and can play as an instrument of oppression.

(more…)

Add comment November 14, 2008

The Education of Mondragón

(Please note that the following is a first attempt, and needs some editing. Also, I decided in this essay to examine the aspects of Mondragón’s education that bears respect. This is not a critical examination of the education of Mondragón in regards to what it needs to improve, although such a discussion would be a good, lengthy, and important one. Instead, this is an exploration of the aspects of Mondragón’s educational philosphies, techniques, and models that should be regarded as beneficial influences):

Knowledge is power.

Knowledge must be socialized so that power can be democratized.

After the socialization of culture, inevitably follows the socialization of wealth and even of power. We may say that this is the indispensable and prior condition for the democratization and socioeconomic progress of a people.

-Don José María Arizmendiarrieta, Reflections

Introduction

The above quote illustrates the unique tie that exists between workplace democracy and learning-place democracy. Don José María Arizmendiarrieta, the founder of the Mondragón cooperative movement, argued often about the distinct and important ties that exist between working and learning. Through his community and cooperative organizing efforts in the Basque region of Spain, Don José María was able to tirelessly paint education as the core to any successful implementation of revolutionary change towards democratic workplaces and a just society.

Mondragón is currently one of the largest worker cooperatives in the world and is an impressive and vital example of worker’s self-management and democracy. It is, in fact, a co-op of co-ops - held together via a cooperative bank, a cooperative congress, a dedication towards expanding democratic-economic opportunities, and the overall cooperative experience. The first cooperative of the Mondragón group was a child of a school built with the labor and the capital of a community desperate for social justice and economic security. The community of now 100,000 workers has its roots in a school that begun with twelve-pupils. Five of these pupils went on to start Ulgor, the first cooperative of the Mondragón movement. Their teacher, Don José María, continued to be involved with the new movement and wielded great influence over its direction and message. Thus, this cooperative movement was created out of an educational movement; consequently, the natures of working and learning have become inseparable in the experience.

There are many written documentations of the overall history, structure, and functions of Mondragón. This will not be one of them. Instead, this discussion will specifically focus on the philosophy of education that makes up the cooperative experience and specific educational implementations that exist within the Mondragón structure. In addition, it would take a great deal of time to explore every single aspect of Mondragón’s educational model (the primary schools, research institutes, the training methods of workers, the University of Mondragón, and so on), and to analyze both the promising aspects and those characteristics that need improvement. Therefore, this conversation will focus on particular examples that should be regarded as inspirational models.

Mondragón is by no means perfect, but there are multitudes of critical lessons to draw from its example. Throughout this dialogue, we will explore four specific arguments: 1) Cooperativism as an educational movement that uses economics is an exemplary model, and socialized knowledge is a direct prerequisite to socioeconomic progress and justice; 2) Mondragón’s link between workplace democracy and learning-place democracy are strong in the schools, but imperfect; 3) democratic and ongoing education is not only important in the promotion and establishment of cooperativism and workplace democracy, but it is also crucial to the continued maintenance and safeguarding of such movements and institutions; and 4) the Mondragón workplaces of democracy are also learning-places of democracy.

(more…)

2 comments November 3, 2008

Mass Education for Mass Production

By Brian Van Slyke

This is the first in our new series “History of Schools.” Please note, also, that this is a first attempt and it needs some editing.

Introduction

The history of mass and forced schooling in the United States can speak a great deal to the current nature of our educational model. It can also help us understand the culture of work in this nation. Our contemporary structure of education prepares the vast majority of the country’s children for a specific form of work that mirrors the industries that arose during the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. Compulsory schooling’s legacy thus has much to teach us about our current society - and also where we can go from here.

Yet, when this topic is discussed, it is often dichotomized into a tail of heroes and villains, purely nefarious forces or people’s movements. In reality, as is the story of nearly all political, social, economic, and cultural histories; compulsory schooling was born out of a mixture of aims from different groups, movements, interested parties, and alliances. In the end, the alliance in favor of compulsory schooling was victorious. Resistance and non-compliance ensued; but the most powerful faction of the pro-compulsory schooling alliance, some of society’s elite citizenry and businesses, were able to effectively enforce the system and tailor it to their interests and goals. While humanitarian players were involved in the initial implementation of compulsory schooling, including anti-exploitative child labor concerns and labor unions, their struggles were usurped by the powerful and were instead used to create a mass population of diligent, obedient, and complacent workers and “Americanized” citizens.

It is therefore important to examine the driving factors behind compulsory schooling and its immediate aftermath. Such an exploration will allow us to exam what systems our current structure of education serves, how it came into being, and what lessons we can take away from these histories to help us work for a more just and equitable future.

This is the story of compulsory education.

(more…)

Add comment October 24, 2008

Read “The Underground History of American Education” Online and For Free

That’s right, you can read The Underground History of American Education in its entirety online - and for free! Just go here. While I don’t agree with everything in the book, it’s definitely an important social critique and historical interpretation about schools in the United States. It is certainly worth checking out.

I think it’s really important when books, especially ones that are not of the mainstream, do this and make their work and knowledge available to everyone and for free. (Plus, it’s just a good way to promote a book.) So, kudos to Gatto for that.

Add comment October 22, 2008

An Explanation, Apology, Question, and a Quote

Hey readers,

So, I know I said I was going to blog about each day at Mondragón. However, unfortunately, my first night there my computer’s hard-drive collapsed and I lost everything on it. Needless to say, I didn’t really have access to the internet often - and I was kind of preoccupied with dealing with that crisis. I’m sorry for that, though.

Regardless, Mondragón was an amazing and a life-altering experience. Because I was not able to post about it nightly, I’m going to write one large report back and discussion of the Mondragón, education, and worker-cooperative experience - and the links Mondragón draws between workplace-democracy and learning place-democracy.

Additionally, I’m going to be doing something a little different with this blog from here on out: instead of posting small-posts on a regular basis, I’m going to begin writing much longer and more in-depth ones with more time in between their submission. While this means that there will be less activity on this blog, it also means that there will be much more content in each discussion. However, I will still be posting other occasional short discussions and learning-tools and activities in between.

Now, this leads me to the question: are you interested in having something posted at or writing something for the Adventures in Free Schooling blog? It can be about anything you please: a discussion, an argument, a history, a workshop, a curriculum, a personal story, and etc. I’d love to expand this site beyond primarily my voice. If you are interested, send an e-mail to: brian AT freeschooling DOT org - and let me know.

And to hold you over for now, here is a quote from Don José María Arizmendiarrieta, founder of the Mondragón cooperative experience:

Knowledge is power.

Knowledge must be socialized so that power can be democratized.

After the socialization of culture, inevitably follows the socialization of wealth and even of power. We may say that this is the indispensable and prior condition for the democratization and socioeconomic progress of a people.

1 comment October 6, 2008

Mondragón and Education

UPDATE: You can now read my report on the Mondragón Cooperative educational experience here.

On September 27th, I will fly from New York to Bilbao, Spain. The purpose of this trip will be to participate in a program run by the Praxis Peace institute to learn about the Mondragón Cooperative Corporation. Specifically, I will be looking at how Mondragón functions democratically and as a worker cooperative, its relation to and involvement with education, and how themes of Mondragón could be related back to the learning-place democracy movement here in the United States.

What is a Worker Cooperative? What is Mondragón?

According to the International Co-operative Alliance, a cooperative is “an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social, and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly-owned and democratically-controlled enterprise.” There are many different types of cooperatives, but in the United States two of the most common types are worker cooperatives and consumer cooperatives. Consumer cooperatives are businesses that are owned by the customers for the customers’ mutual benefit. Worker cooperatives, on the other hand, are cooperatives that are owned and democratically run completely by its employees. Thus, the workers are also the owners (worker-owners). (more…)

Add comment September 22, 2008

Learning Activity: Underrepresented Peoples in U.S. History

The following is a learning activity I crafted for a class I was teaching on U.S. History. It was designed for teenagers, but I think it could be easily adapted for slightly-younger folks and adults.

Download it in PDF form here.

Activity: Underrepresented Peoples in U.S. History

• Goal of this activity: For the students to engage United States history by discovering what peoples go underrepresented in traditional tales of U.S. history. They will do this by interviewing community members, their peers, and themselves. This is both an individual and (can be a) group effort.
• Materials Needed: Community members to investigate, pens/pencil, paper. Optional: Note cards.
• Participants: 1-20 (or more, depending on your needs/ability).
• Time Needed: 45 – 90 minutes.

1. First, designate a community of people to interview: i.e. a school, a downtown, a class, a library, or etc. Give the following questions/guidelines to the participants (recommended on a piece of paper):

Who were important [your group] in American history? How did they impact the world that we know today? What lessons can we learn from them? (REMEMBER: important people don’t have to mean good people)

Go ask people in the area if they can identify any of the following groups of people in American history and ask them the questions specified above (and any other questions you think are important). Record their answers and think about why they gave the answers they did.

The students will fill in the [your group] bracket with one of the following possibilities:

• People of color
• Women
• Women of color
• Gender queer folks
• Lower-class folks
• Differently-Abled folks
• People of non-Christian faiths
• Immigrants
• Political dissenters
• [Add more that you see fit]

(You might want to lay these different options out on a table on note-cards for the students to choose from.)
(more…)

Add comment September 20, 2008

Shut Down Youth Prisons

Via Racewire:

Tell the State Commission on Juvenile Justice: Shut It Down!

On September 25th, the State Commission on Juvenile Justice — the agency in charge of setting the direction for the Division of Juvenile Justice (DJJ) — will consider following the Little Hoover recommendation and closing the DJJ. The Commissioners need to know there is public support for this plan.

Please take a moment to tell your story or describe why you support shutting down the DJJ

This is definitely extremely important - and prison justice is definitely related to education justice.

For more information on the criminalization of youth - and especially its relation to how (the lack of) access to free education and learning tools is used to continue to keep historically oppressed people behind bars and dependent on the prison system - check out the HBO documentary Juvies. (I used this movie to introduce teenagers at North Star: Self-Directed Learning in Hadley, MA about the prison system and youth to great success. I’ll be blogging about this shortly.)

More info: The Real Cost of Prisons Project. Get Involved: National List of Books to Prisoners Programs

Add comment September 20, 2008

North Star Is A Place For Liberated Learners

I teach (and by default learn) at North Star: Self-Directed Learning for Teens, and it is one of my favorite places to be. The excitement and enthusiasm for learning and do-ing there is infectious and inspiring. Based in the Pioneer Valley of Massachusetts, it is a community learning center for teens who have left school for one reason or another. Recently an article about it was published online, so I thought I’d share it with you here. Here’s an excerpt:

Elizabeth arrives at 9:00 and together we go upstairs to the tiny room with comfortable chairs, a bookcase, art postcards on the walls. We walk past a few other teenagers who are curled up reading, or sprawled out on the couches getting the morning sleep that they missed at home because they wanted to grab the ride that would get them here early. We smile good morning at the small group about to begin its arcane discussion of Logic principles. It’s still quiet here at this hour, but there’s a nice feeling of easing into the day.

Elizabeth and I talk for a few minutes about where she is in the story she’s writing and what might happen next. She spends some time writing a new scene, offers to show me what she’s written, and we talk some more.

The day continues like this, with me welcoming one teenager after the other into this small, comfortable room. There’s Christopher, who has hated school since kindergarten and whose writing and reading aren’t at grade level; here he dictates his writing, and listens as I read aloud, finally getting a chance to absorb a book that challenges and moves him. There’s Josephine, who doesn’t just talk about writing a novel but actually works on it several hours a day; there’s Jackie, who declares that she isn’t good at anything academic but will offer astute observations and analyses if you toss the right questions her way. And once a week, in a larger room across the hall, there’s the workshop of young writers, ranging in age from 14 to 17, who come together to write.

This is my particular corner of North Star, a resource center that offers an alternative to middle and high school for teenagers in Western Massachusetts. As its literature says, North Star makes homeschooling a viable option for any interested teenager in the geographic area…

Read the full article here.

1 comment September 9, 2008

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Learning Activity: Underrepresented Peoples in U.S. History

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