Anarchism and education: Difference between revisions

▲[[File:Stirner-kar1900.jpg|180px|right|thumb|[[Max Stirner]]]][[Max Stirner]] was a German philosopher linked mainly with the anarchist school of thought known as [[individualist anarchism]] who worked as a schoolteacher in a [[gym]]nasium for young girls.<ref>''The Encyclopedia of Philosophy'', volume 8, The Macmillan Company and The Free Press, New York 1967</ref> He examines the subject of education directly in his long essay ''[[The False Principle of our Education]]''. In it "we discern his persistent pursuit of the goal of individual self-awareness and his insistence on the centering of everything around the individual personality".<ref name="tmh.floonet.net"/> As such Stirner "in education, all of the given material has value only in so far as children learn to do something with it, to use it".<ref name="tmh.floonet.net"/> In that essay he deals with the debates between realist and humanistic educational commentators and sees that both "are concerned with the learner as an object, someone to be acted upon rather than one encouraged to move toward subjective self-realization and liberation" and sees that "a knowledge which only burdens me as a belonging and a possession, instead of having gone along with me completely so that the free-moving ego, not encumbered by any dragging possessions, passes through the world with a fresh spirit, such a knowledge then, which has not become personal, furnishes a poor preparation for life".<ref name="tmh.floonet.net"/>

▲[[File:Josiah Warren.jpg|180px|left|thumb|[[Josiah Warren]]]][[Josiah Warren]] is widely regarded as the first American [[anarchist]].<ref name=Slate>Palmer, Brian (2010-12-29) [http://www.slate.com/id/2279457/ What do anarchists want from us?], ''[[Slate.com]]''</ref> "Where utopian projectors starting with [[Plato]] entertained the idea of creating an ideal species through eugenics and education and a set of universally valid institutions inculcating shared identities, Warren wanted to dissolve such identities in a solution of individual self-sovereignty. His educational experiments, for example, possibly under the influence of the...Swiss educational theorist [[Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi]] (via [[Robert Owen]]), emphasized—as we would expect—the nurturing of the independence and the conscience of individual children, not the inculcation of pre-conceived values."<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.crispinsartwell.com/warrenintrocurrent.htm |title="Introduction of The Practical Anarchist: Writings of Josiah Warren" by Crispin Sartwell |access-date=2012-02-20 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110430010738/http://www.crispinsartwell.com/warrenintrocurrent.htm |archive-date=2011-04-30 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

▲==The Early 20th century==

▲===Francisco Ferrer i Guàrdia and the Modern schools===

▲{{main|Escuela Moderna}}

▲[[File:Francisco Ferrer Guardia.jpg|150px|left|thumb|[[Francesc Ferrer i Guàrdia]], [[Catalan people|Catalan]] anarchist pedagogue]]In 1901, [[Catalan people|Catalan]] anarchist and [[Freethought|free-thinker]] [[Francisco Ferrer]] established "modern" or [[Progressive education|progressive schools]] in [[Barcelona]] in defiance of an educational system controlled by the Catholic Church.<ref name="Fidler">{{cite journal |author=Geoffrey C. Fidler |date=Spring–Summer 1985 |title=The Escuela Moderna Movement of Francisco Ferrer: "Por la Verdad y la Justicia" |journal=History of Education Quarterly |volume=25 |issue=1/2 |pages=103–132 |jstor=368893 |doi=10.2307/368893|s2cid=147119437 }}</ref> The schools' stated goal was to "[[educate the working class]] in a rational, secular and non-coercive setting". Fiercely anti-clerical, Ferrer believed in "freedom in education", education free from the authority of church and state.<ref>[http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/spain/ferrer.html Francisco Ferrer's Modern School] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100807032003/http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/spain/ferrer.html |date=2010-08-07 }}</ref> [[Murray Bookchin]] wrote: "This period [1890s] was the heyday of libertarian schools and pedagogical projects in all areas of the country where Anarchists exercised some degree of influence. Perhaps the best-known effort in this field was Francisco Ferrer's Modern School (Escuela Moderna), a project which exercised a considerable influence on Catalan education and on experimental techniques of teaching generally."<ref>Chapter 7, ''[[anarcho-syndicalism|Anarchosyndicalism]], The New Ferment''. In Murray Bookchin, ''[[The Spanish Anarchists: The Heroic Years, 1868–1936]]''. AK Press, 1998, p.115. {{ISBN|1-873176-04-X}}</ref> La Escuela Moderna, and Ferrer's ideas generally, formed the inspiration for a series of ''[[Modern School (United States)|Modern Schools]]'' in the [[United States]],<ref name="Fidler"/> [[Cuba]], [[South America]] and [[London]]. The first of these was started in [[New York City]] in 1911. It also inspired the Italian newspaper ''[[Università popolare (Italian newspaper)|Università popolare]]'', founded in 1901.

▲The first, and most notable, of the Modern Schools was founded in New York City, in 1911, two years after Francisco Ferrer i Guàrdia's execution for [[sedition]] in monarchist Spain on 18 October 1909. Commonly called the Ferrer Center, it was founded by notable anarchists — including [[Leonard Dalton Abbott|Leonard Abbott]], [[Alexander Berkman]], [[Voltairine de Cleyre]], and [[Emma Goldman]] — first meeting on [[St. Mark's Place]], in Manhattan's [[Lower East Side, Manhattan|Lower East Side]], but twice moved elsewhere, first within lower Manhattan, then to [[Harlem]]. The Ferrer Center opened with only nine students, one being the son of [[Margaret Sanger]], the [[contraceptives]]-rights activist. Starting in 1912, the school's principal was the philosopher [[Will Durant]], who also taught there. Besides Berkman and Goldman, the Ferrer Center faculty included the [[Ashcan School]] painters [[Robert Henri]] and [[George Bellows]], and its guest lecturers included writers and political activists such as Margaret Sanger, [[Jack London]], and [[Upton Sinclair]].<ref>[[Paul Avrich|Avrich, Paul]], ''[[The Modern School Movement (book)|The Modern School Movement]]'', AK Press (2005), p.212: At the Ferrer Center, Berkman was called "The Pope", Goldman was called "The Red Queen".</ref> Student Magda Schoenwetter, recalled that the school used [[Montessori]] methods and equipment, and emphasised academic freedom rather than fixed subjects, such as spelling and arithmetic.<ref>Avrich, Paul, ''[[Anarchist Voices: An Oral History of Anarchism in America]]'', "Interview with Magda Schoenwetter", AK Press (2005), {{ISBN|1-904859-27-5}}, {{ISBN|978-1-904859-27-7}}, p.230: "What everybody is yowling about now — freedom in education — we had then, though I still can't spell or do multiplication."</ref> ''The Modern School'' magazine originally began as a newsletter for parents, when the school was in New York City, printed with the manual [[printing press]] used in teaching printing as a profession. After moving to the Stelton Colony, New Jersey, the magazine's content expanded to poetry, prose, art, and libertarian education articles; the cover emblem and interior graphics were designed by [[Rockwell Kent]]. Artists and writers, among them [[Hart Crane]] and [[Wallace Stevens]], praised ''The Modern School'' as "the most beautifully printed magazine in existence."

▲After the 4 July 1914 [[Lexington Avenue bombing]], the police investigated and several times raided the Ferrer Center and other labor and anarchist organisations in New York City.<ref name=Avrich>Avrich, Paul, ''The Modern School Movement''. Princeton: Princeton University Press (1980); Avrich, Paul, ''[[Anarchist Portraits]]'', Princeton: Princeton University Press, {{ISBN|0-691-00609-1}} (1988)</ref> Acknowledging the urban danger to their school, the organizers bought 68 acres (275,000 m²) in [[Piscataway Township, New Jersey]], and moved there in 1914, becoming the center of the Stelton Colony. Moreover, beyond New York City, the [[Ferrer Colony and Modern School]] was founded ({{circa|1910}}–1915) as a Modern School-based community, that endured some forty years. In 1933, James and [[Nellie Dick]], who earlier had been principals of the Stelton Modern School, founded the Modern School in [[Lakewood, New Jersey]],<ref name=Avrich/> which survived the original Modern School, the Ferrer Center, becoming the final surviving such school, lasting until 1958.<ref>[http://www.educationrevolution.org/aerogramme11.html AERO-GRAMME #11: The Alternative Education Resource Organization Newsletter] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110929213939/http://www.educationrevolution.org/aerogramme11.html |date=2011-09-29 }}</ref>