Ideal re: coercion
Francoise Herrmann (fherrmann who-is-at igc.apc.org)
Wed, 24 Apr 1996 13:48:15 -0700 (PDT)
Hi everyone, I think that xmca is Curriculum as conversation (!) and
wish that Arthur were here (on-line) to see it! I've been riveted to my
screen, getting clear, wondering, disagreeing, agreeing, smiling,
laughing, commenting to the cursor! and feeling really happy. Answers,
many different answers in all shapes and sizes. This is sometimes the
best palce on earth, albeit a little too electronic!. Here are some of
the thoughts that I remember wanting to say.
I think that the reason that we construct an ideal of coercion free
education is not so much a myth of soemthing that never was, but simply
because the alternative is both i-moral (in the sense of negative) and
intolerable. To me, if we didn't believe in the possibility of
a coercion-free education that would imply somehow that we didn't
deserve the ideal. It would put us back so to speak in a pre-Rouseau
view of the child as "bad" in need of taming at all costs. And further
I believe that the ideal is necessary for change. It is a form of
resisitance, a way of saying "no", to refuse and break out of
conservative reproductive forces, of the ways that made us doubt the
very possiblity of coercion free education in the first place.
Thinking aobut it I wonder to what extent this ideal is not contingent
upon the exisitence of simple relations among parents and children,
educators and their students. And by simple I mean relations
where parents are parents of their chidlren in contrast to being
aprents of their own parents: parents and teachers that no longer
(perhaps never) haul their own parents along. So much for the
lightness of being!
Francoise
Francoise Herrmann
fherrmann who-is-at igc.org