Other Education: The Journal of Educational Alternatives ISSN 2049-2162 Volume 4 (2015), Issue 2 · pp. 185-188

OTHER CONTRIBUTIONS

The Political Dimension of Free and Home Schooling Stefan Blankertz Independent Scholar

During the 1960s and onwards, the idea of alternatives. In many European countries it free or alternative education was strongly has been, and still is, much harder to do so. associated with the politics of the New Other than in Europe, in the US Left. In contrast to the Old Left, the New criticism of state schooling was not only to Left stressed autonomy of the individual be found on the left wing. The Old and the expression of individual creativity American Right, classical liberal, next to the formation of a collective which individualist, conservative, always had was thought of as a grass-roots process. been skeptical about the idea that the state Being a revolt of the young, the focus of instead of parents should be the educator the New Left was often resistance to of the children. The Old Right and the public schooling and universities. The vast New Left found themselves in an odd and authoritarian structures of public agreement in the question of public education were seen as the death of education as well as in the question of individuality and self-regulated opposing a distant war in the Far East. Out participatory democracy. The answer of of this agreement grew the modern the New Left was to set up self-organized Libertarian Movement, set up by Murray educational institutions independent of the Rothbard who coined the slogan “beyond state apparatus. One of those activists at left and right” (see Rothbard, 1973/2006, the forefront of this line of thinking and 1971/2007). acting was the anarchist writer Paul From the European—at least the Goodman (see Goodman, 1964/1971). German—perspective, it was a strange Alternative, free and anti-authoritarian coalition when in the second half of the education have been historically almost 1970s socialist educator Christopher synonyms. The growing number of Jencks in California started one of the first protagonists of the free school idea as well experiments with school vouchers to as some independent observers thought enable more choice in the realm of that alternative educational institutions education. Milton Friedman, the herald of independent of the state would replace neo-liberalism, had thought up the idea of many of the public schools in a couple of such vouchers. The experiment was years, especially in the US where it used to backed by the republican Nixon be relatively easy to set up private school administration. Crippled and limited by the

185

OTHER CONTRIBUTIONS The Political Dimension of Free and Home Schooling bureaucracy and the resistance of the public education was David Nasaw teachers’ unions, the experiment did not (1979/1981). yield the results hoped for. Consequently, there was a shift from As early as 1973, one of the heroes of setting up alternative free schools to independent schools, the Gestalt therapist promoting home education. To school George Dennison—founder of the your kids at home does not imply paying a legendary First Street School in New York fee or to be confronted with organizational and close friend of Paul Goodman— and financial difficulties; and you and your warned that the state is flexible enough to children are not as exposed to the public as “occupy” the alternative movement when there is a non-public school (1969/1999). Exactly this is what building. One of the early promoters of happened. The number of alternative this shift was John Holt (1981/2003). schools did not explode but rather the state However looked at more closely the schools adopted some of the methodology idea of home schooling does not really of anti-authoritarian education. Many of solve the economic problem of alternative the now ageing proponents of the New education. Parents who educate their Left are content with the fact that in the children themselves also have paid for public schools they currently teach social public schooling via their taxes. They also competence, emotional intelligence, suffer an economic disadvantage by loss of ecology, sexual tolerance, feminism, wages. Moreover home schooling is atheism, gender mainstreaming, limited to parents who have some multiculturalism, politically correct universal knowledge and educational speech, checking your privilege, anti- genius enough to “teach their own.” Lastly capitalist, anti-discriminatory, anti-sexist but not least, home education undoes the and anti-racist ideas, you name it. If you merits of a capitalist division of labor and get into power, why continue to care about is a fallback into pre-capitalist home self-determination? industry. Those who continue to cling to the idea Having the right to teach your own of alternative education have been children (which is a freedom we do not confronted with increasing repression of enjoy in Germany) is better than nothing at the state and declining public sympathy. all but it is not the answer to the But some of them began to realize what educational plight of society. If the idea of Milton Friedman already explained in the alternative free education should not be mid 1950s: Because public schools are limited to a tiny minority of wealthy and (seemingly) free of (direct) charge it is intellectually fit parents, three points must very difficult to out-compete them with an be realized: offer you have to pay for—more so because the possible customers have been 1. Alternative free education ought forced to pay already for the public service not to be mingled with methods though the tax system (see Friedman, and contents. The idea must be 2002). One of the few left wing educators that every parent, every teacher, who realized the importance of “double every school, every educational pay” in the formation of the monopoly of entrepreneur has the right to try

186

Stefan Blankertz

out their ideas. You have to alternative free education cannot tolerate the others’ ideas and win influence in society without practices as long as you are not de-legitimization of the state and forced by e.g., compulsory its grip upon the lives and the education to submit to it. To earnings of the citizens. mingle the idea of alternative education with content and methods has, at least, the References tendency that you are ready to Blankertz, S. (2013). Pädagogik mit use the power of the state to beschränkter Haftung: Kritische enforce them when people are Schultheorie. Berlin: Books on not willing to submit to them by Demand. their free will. Dennison, G. (1999). The lives of children: The story of the First Street School 2. The idea of alternative free [1969]. Portsmouth, NH: education cannot grow out of its Boynton/Cook Publishers Inc. ecological niche until the Friedman, M. (2002). The role of principle has been established government in a free society [1955]. In that parents who do not send Capitalism and freedom, (pp. 22-26). their children to public schools [1962] Chicago: University of Chicago are entitled to get back the Press. amount of their tax money Goodman, P. (1971). Compulsory mis- dedicated to public schooling. education [1964]. London: Penguin. Without insight into the Holt, J. [with Farenga, P. as contributor] economic mechanism that (2003). Teach your own: The John empowers public schools the Holt book of homeschooling. idea of alternative free education Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press. has no practical future. Nasaw, D. (1981). Schooled to order [1979]. New York: Oxford University 3. The resistance of state Press. bureaucracy to allowing Rothbard, M. (2006). For a new liberty alternative free education has to [1973]. Auburn, AL: Ludwig von do with the very structure of the Mises Institute. state itself. Keeping the Rothbard, M. (2007). The betrayal of the education of the young under American Right [1971]. Auburn, AL: strict control is essential to Ludwig von Mises Institute. promoting controllable grown- ups who think that they cannot survive without the help of big mother state. The idea of

187

OTHER CONTRIBUTIONS The Political Dimension of Free and Home Schooling

Author Details Stefan Blankertz, born 1956, is a German writer, theorist of Gestalt therapy and political activist. As early as 1974 he translated and published in Germany Paul Goodman’s Compulsory Mis-education. From 1980 onwards, he promoted the idea of anarcho-capitalism in Germany, adopted from Paul Goodman and Murray Rothbard. He is the author of many books, lyrics, novels, and psychological and political philosophy alike. For further information and contact see: http://www.stefanblankertz.de

This written work by Stefan Blankertz is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported

188