(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
Judith Suissa is a philosopher, with a special interest in education. The book Anarchism and Education. A Philosophical Perspective was printed in the third edition in 2012, but is just as relevant today as it was then.
The purpose of the book is, according to Suissa, to re-actualize anarchism as a utopian project. Suissa links the utopian to the struggle against neoliberalism and especially how this affects our moral vocabulary. In light of, among other things, increasingly strong government control and bureaucratisation of the public sector, new management techniques and growing belief that the market can solve social problems, this is still an important book to read, 16 years after it was first published.
Anarchist philosophy can contribute to today's pedagogy.
The strength of the utopian project, as Suissa presents it, is that it is based on hope and the belief that it is possible to create new opportunities for the way people interact, as well as for how we organize life both socially and politically. She bases her understanding on social anarchism, understood as meaning that the individual's freedom is linked to the social and local – what she calls a municipal identity.
In the book, Suissa presents different perspectives on anarchist upbringing through education. She explains what anarchism is, anarchist values and the relationship with the state. Education is considered a public matter, but decentralization and autonomy lie with the schools. The anarchist pedagogical project – seen hypothetically – can be realized within the framework of today's Norwegian curriculum.
How to understand knowledge, upbringing and learning is central to Suissa's book. An anarchist school model is based on an anti-authoritarian, non-hierarchical, autonomous thinking. The students must participate and have a say in everything that concerns the school.
The Ferrer school
In the chapter with the apt title "Anarchism Goes to School", she refers to some schools that are based on this very model. The first is Escuela Moderna (the modern school), which was active in Barcelona from 1904 to 1907. Anarchism was strong in Spain during this period, and Francisco Ferrer (1859–1909) founded the school as an alternative to the Catholic schools. Escuela Moderna was founded in a period marked by great social unrest and a society that had a large proportion of illiterates. Ferr's school was radical in several ways, including mixed classes – girls and boys went together. The school did not give grades. The teachers did not use punishment as a method. The school did not have timetables. The students were free to come and go as close as they wanted – and develop their own schedules. The pedagogical methods were largely learning through practice, what is often called learning by doing – this combined with a scientifically based way of thinking. The school was rooted in the Enlightenment's ideals of freedom, progress and reason. In addition to giving students practical and scientific knowledge, moral education was the school's core activity. Normative, anarchist values were the basis.
Moral upbringing was Escuela Moderna's core business – normative, anarchist
values were the basis.
Ferrari's school model was naturally seen as a provocation and threat by the authorities. After years of pressure and opposition from the authorities, it was shut down in 1907. In 1909, Ferrer was accused of contributing to the uprising and general strike in Barcelona. That same year he was executed.
But in 1911, The Ferrer school was established in New York, inspired by Escuela Moderna in Barcelona. This school was in operation until 1953 and further developed Ferr's anarchist educational project. The school's pedagogy was systematized and built on many of the ideas of the time about a child – centered understanding of learning – inspired, among other things, by the American philosopher John Dewey.
One can object here that a weakness of the school and anarchist pedagogy is that they do not develop a theoretical understanding of child-centered pedagogical practice based on anarchist values and goals. They are based on ideological values, not pedagogical ones.
Summerhill School
Suisse also writes about Summerhill School, established by Alexander Neill in English Suffolk in 1921. This is perhaps the most famous of the independent, alternative and experimental schools in recent pedagogical history – which is built on a free pedagogical thinking. The school had many of the same characteristics as an anarchist school model, with a large degree of freedom for the students and an emphasis on participation – as well as the possibility of influencing one's own learning. But Suisse describes the school as libertarian and shows how it differs from anarchist schools. It can be argued that the school, rather than libertarian, is a school based on democratic ideas, but it is nevertheless an interesting and fruitful comparison that clarifies anarchist ideology of upbringing in a good way.
Hope for change
Anarchism and Education is an interesting and fun book to read for educationally interested and readers who are interested in social and political issues. Suisse is able to show that anarchist philosophy can contribute to today's pedagogy, first and foremost in that it is a contribution to a critical pedagogical discourse that is hopefully on its way up after several years of bureaucratization and unification of the school as a social project. Anarchist pedagogy offers alternative ways of thinking about school. The book shows the connection between political and anarchist pedagogy as utopian – in a positive sense, as it brings hope for change – and our actual knowledge-political educational thinking.
Suisse refers to the school's political significance through the school's influence on rising generations. The book's foremost quality is that Suisse discusses a number of the basic questions of pedagogy – such as the questions of why we have a school, who is the school for, and what it means to live as a human being with other people.
