“You’re indoctrinating us,” a Learner started in on me. I was taken aback; shocked to hear those words come out of his mouth. My mind began to race. Time slowed down.

Advocates of Self-Directed Education are long on negative critiques of conventional schooling. One common criticism they have of schooling, especially when it comes to public schools, is that schools serve as indoctrination centers. There is a lot of truth to that claim. Schools have been used to promote nationalism, imperialism, racism, xenophobia, and other forms of exclusion and oppression. In perhaps their worst incarnation, schools were used as a tool to destroy the cultures of those who were forced to attend (e.g., residential schools). And it is not just public schools; private schools have a history of indoctrinating the youth in similar ways, often with a religious flair.

But the indoctrination of children through schooling goes beyond elevating the state, a political party, a dictator, or a religion, as well as the most horrific practices schools have promoted such as ethnic cleansing and genocide. The indoctrination of children strikes at their inner composition. And it lays the foundation that allows for the -isms that come later.

The indoctrination of schooling starts with a demand to submit to power coupled with seeds of doubt. At schools, from the most conservative to the most progressive, there is no question who is in charge and who is there to be shaped and molded in ways that those in charge deem necessary. It is the adults who decide how young people get to use their bodies, from the way they move, to where and how they may sit, to how they dress, to when they can eat or use the bathroom. It is the adults who decide what is to be learned at school, even if they claim they believe in personalized learning or self-directed learning. It is the adults who decide how that learning happens, even if they claim to give the students voice in the process.

Students learn to listen to the adults and to suppress the thoughts that come from within. They are quizzed, not listened to. They are assessed and judged, and sometimes ridiculed and punished. They learn to accept as truth that what they are told, and to call into question their own beliefs and hypotheses. They defer to power because they learn early on that when they challenge power they get placed behind their peers. And if there is one thing all students learn, it is that their position relative to their peers determines their worth in the eyes of society.

Self-Directed Education advocates celebrate that they are different. They … we are not like all those other educators. We are helping to grow free thinkers—young people who will not just follow orders. We prefer questions over answers. We reject binaries. We play in the gray areas and challenge dominant culture. So how could I be indoctrinating this Learner?

This Learner got me thinking that perhaps challenging power, authority, adultism, and dominant culture is also indoctrination? Goodness, colleges that even allow students to dip their toes into gender and race studies are vilified for being left-wing indoctrination camps. Imagine what they’d think about Abrome!? What exactly is indoctrinating against indoctrination? Are we creating a bunch of anarchists?

“Indoctrinating us to think for ourselves,” the Learner finished.

Whew, existential crisis averted!

This moment was a wakeup call, though. I need to be more mindful about how I interact with Learners. I can hold true to my values and my beliefs. I can engage in healthy debates with Learners, and I can share my concerns about how society is structured. I can admit that I am not all-knowing and that the answers to our problems most likely were not laid out for us by people who died long ago. We can give each other the space to question and grow. We can dance in the gray areas together as we engage with ideas and the world together. We can become the answers to our problems.