School and Revolution

[Geronimo Pratt]

In many potential uprisings and revolutionary conditions student and teacher movements often work with workers in organizing in the streets. 1968 France is an example, as is the 1976 Soweto Rising in South Africa and the recent Oaxaca Commune.

So what position will education and teachers/students play in a revolution? Is radical education in public schools a necessary precursor to organizing and formenting class consciousness or will the education system only change following a revolution? To me, implenting and teaching revolutionary ideas is necessary but how can this be done? Perhaps radical think-tanks and media "flak" to influence news but what about reaching the large segment of society, and kids, that ignores the media and intellectual thought?

Besides pushing for radicalizing class cirriculums, what else can be tactically useful for expanding and pushing far-left ideas?

[jake williams]

Good parenting. Most people are shit parents.

[Geronimo Pratt]

Good parenting. Most people are shit parents.

As if parents will arbitrarily adopt revolutionary ideas to pass on to their children. Obviously proliferation of socialism will require some medium or institution to communciate. The role that students and teachers can play in revolutionary conditions is crucial. The main question is whether revolutionary education comes before or after a revolution.

[STI]

Besides pushing for radicalizing class cirriculums, what else can be tactically useful for expanding and pushing far-left ideas?When possible, radical students could write articles in their student newspapers. Of course, most high school papers have teacher editors, and those teachers aren't always easy-going enough to tolerate something like that. In those cases, the onus is upon the radical students to make their own publications (papers, zines, etc.) and distribute them to their classmates.

Also, the internets presents themselves as a medium for exposing highschoolers to revolutionary ideas. For myself, it was going on RevLeft/Che-Lives, RedStar2000 Papers and Prole.info from home and on the library computers that really "sealed the deal" between myself and the radical left. The state can control what's said in classrooms a lot more easily than what's said online.

Are teachers powerless, then, to influence their students' politics? Far from. Radical teachers, especially Civics, History, Philosophy and English teachers can infuse a Marxist analysis into their lessons. I suppose the same can be done by science teachers in discrediting religion. So long as the teachers are revolutionaries, it seems like a workable possibility.

[jake williams]

As if parents will arbitrarily adopt revolutionary ideas to pass on to their children. Obviously proliferation of socialism will require some medium or institution to communciate. The role that students and teachers can play in revolutionary conditions is crucial. The main question is whether revolutionary education comes before or after a revolution.
You can't have a revolution without grassroots social change. You're not going to get the entire proletariat suddenly teaching their kids about Marx and Bakunin, no, but that doesn't mean that we don't, as individuals and people interested in these sorts of ends, encourage consciousness about social and political education of children, in the home. Some sort of institution, be it formal public education or something we develop on our own, may well be necessary, it's almost inconceivable it would hurt. But I think we need to think more directly and individually too.

I should follow up, though, and say that teachers have to be extremely careful about "teaching politics". Partly, yeah, to some extent it's wrong for teachers to indoctrinate their students, even with good ideas. But in a lot of ways I think it can be just plain ineffective, teenagers particularly can be quite interested in being oppositional. So it has to be treated carefully, it's complicated.

[Lenin II]

I believe that within the public schools in a new socialist society, basic Marxism as well as all its other theories, even revisionist ones, should be taught as part of the compulsory curriculum.Although some may call it indoctrination, I call it merely combating and responding in kind to the insane smear tactics and brainwashing leveled against Marxism for the past century.

[F9]

school kids and students should be the starters of revolutions!the youngs always are the most atacking personalitys :star:

[Geronimo Pratt]

I should follow up, though, and say that teachers have to be extremely careful about "teaching politics". Partly, yeah, to some extent it's wrong for teachers to indoctrinate their students, even with good ideas. But in a lot of ways I think it can be just plain ineffective, teenagers particularly can be quite interested in being oppositional. So it has to be treated carefully, it's complicated.

They consider teaching about socialism or anarchism to be indoctrination because they don't consider the hidden assumptions behind their own cirriculum. Capitalism and imperialism are behind the political and history cirriculums in public education. They just consider it to be the norm, similar to white privilege and claiming blacks are "reverse racist" for pointing out its existence. White institutions are thought to be non-racial and have nothing to do with race, they think its a "black problem". Capitalism and imperialism are thought to be "neutral" and "scientific" while anti-imperialism or anti-capitalist alternatives are thought to be "biased" and "opinion-driven".

[Dominicana_1965]

I feel that it is highly beneficial to have a alternative teaching method if we want the students & teachers to continually join the Revolution, and to continue this unification by that alternative. Not only would it possibly introduce a layer of the working-class to the Revolution but also higher education in most individuals which could result in the elimination of a lot of capitalist social & economic norms.

I think the main question when dealing with School and Revolution is how do we obtain a bigger percentage of the students/teachers to join us during and after (how do we maintain this interest, working-class alliance, etc.) the revolution. When a revolution occurs the students or at least a fair number of them join their working-class brothers & sisters in it's fight against the capitalists. It might be due to different reasons but I think the most common is gaining a consciousness during the upheaval. The point is that we must find out how the other students can bring themselves in.

Obviously we live in a Bourgeois culture which is primarily based on the privatization of our lifestyles, so it only makes it understandable that the school system would also adopt such a norm. With this understanding we must analyze the current method utilized by the Bourgeois state and society in "teaching" the masses:

The problems:

[1]Money over education
We live under Capitalism, a mode of production which is based on gaining profits and more profits. Society adopts to such norms set by the ruling class and because such a norm is based on more profits or "getting more money" it will be well understood that students will see education as a mere tool to obtain these profits. Students under a Bourgeois method of teaching usually don't know what they want to become by the time they get to college because they are just too caught up in the question of "where will I earn more?". It represents the disregard for human capital and the following of the capitalist norm. Thoughts and claims like "get a good job" are constantly being pushed by the Bourgeois media and parents. I asked my 8 year old niece a couple of days ago why she attended school in her personal opinion, she replied "To get a education so I can go to college and get a job that pays me a lot of money". Just yesterday while having a minimal political argument with a roommate one elderly visitor exclaimed "So you're into politics, that brings in a lot of money!". So we see so far 1 way that working-class students are blockaded or at least suppressed by the Bourgeois norms of what's really "successful". Happiness to some is not the ever increasing levels of education, but the ever increasing amount of greens (or w/e color the currency around their way is).

[2] The teaching method

As we see society casually adopts what is the ruling class normative. Such privatizing matters reach almost all forms from clothes, families, names, nations and even school classes. The division in my opinion lies in the differences placed by society on "teachers" and "students". In most classrooms the students sink into a chair and consume whatever is fed to them by the "teacher". What goes on is a fast-paced downloading which does not understand but mostly memorizes. No questions asked, just copy, copy and some more copy. This process combined with the want of more money is a crushing element against the working-class students. This combination means no historical questions lets focus on money. The reasons being that it presents history and society as strict reality. To this method, society is just simply moving along..no mass movements can really move it. History in it's opinion is stiff.

The solution, at least in my perspective:

We, the class-conscious students should start to critique our "teachers" in almost every subject (if the criticism is necessary, which most times, especially in Bourgeois society it is) so that the other students can realize that they are not merely notebooks waiting to be filled by a pen, but the pen and notebook! The students themselves must have a interest other than the capitalist message pushed by the norms, have a interest in the ever increasing thirst for more knowledge. The students must understand that history like Lenin said, has transformations of all sorts. It is NOT a strict reality. We must critique the division and realize that we are also teachers as we are students too.

[Raúl Duke]

I actually sometimes "critique" my teachers (more as I critique what's in the text book) and add my ideas, opinions, etc to many class room discussions. Although I can't stop but feel "out-gunned"... Many people find the text book more "credible" than another student especially when it says something they're familiar with. Although I'm not as critical as I should be...(its difficult...you just don't feel encouraged to in the environment I'm in yet I feel I should have. If only my other anarchist friend was in some of my classes at least I'll have someone to back me up.)

[which doctor]

Raoul Vaneigem wrote a very good piece on the nature of schools and their role during and after the revolution.

http://www.notbored.org/avertissement.html

[Black Cross]

Although we do need to teach about our revolutionary ideals, we need to tell the whole truth. Everything needs to be taught, not just our views, opinions and politics. Trust is a solid foundation for any relationship, and that's where we should begin. I was very much distraught by all the half truths I was taught in school. That was one big push toward socialism for me; the teachers wouldn't teach me about communism, so I found out on my own.

As for means, I believe they've been covered. Papers, TV, other media outlets, and, ideally, the teachers and parents (but I wouldn't get your hopes up).


I suppose the same can be done by science teachers in discrediting religion.
I hope you mean religion in the sense of "organized religion", which has committed countless atrocities over the years, rather than spirituality. The difference being that religion is a form of control through dogmatism, and spirituality is having a relationship with god (or whomever). I know from experience that christians, for example, don't engage in religion, but rather in a meaningful relationship with their god. I see no problem with people believing in some higher power, so long as they don't encroach on the freedom of others.

[mykittyhasaboner]

schooling today at least in the US is should be considered an authoritarian mandatory brainwashing facility, for example, the history books-i cant even begin to say how much is worded to suppress all views other than capitalism. the idea that kids are opressed at the earliest age of their non ignorant existence is direct proof that the US has a Nazi-esque agenda to create national identity. To be a leftist in school could be compared to prison.

[Szkotii]

"The capitalist will sell you the very weapons you will use to destroy him"
This doesnt neccessarily means bullets. Ideas are weapons too. The media is a weapon. And you can put just about anything into the mainstream media so long as you do something that catches people's eye. Unfortunately this often means negative images of leftist movement but the first step is the awareness of the movement... then it is a simple task to educate the working class.
As soon as people are curious they read into it. So long as the ideas make sense they will participate in the movement.
The Young Communist league of Canada had a whole page in the Toronto Star when they did a demonstration. I think it was a very big step toward revolution. The capitalists will try to misrepresent and humiliate the movement into submission. The more media coverage the better.