Are we indoctrinating kids?

“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.

Nazi Germany represents one of the most terrifying examples of efficient indoctrination through schooling

Image: Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-2007-0329-501 / CC-BY-SA 3.0, Bundesarchiv Bild 183-2007-0329-501, Reichsgründungsfeier, Schulklasse, CC BY-SA 3.0 DE

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.

Parenting, Schooling, and Planning the Future For Your Child

It is easy for parents to get caught up in the belief that it is their responsibility to identify a pathway for their child to proceed down en route to a successful life, and then direct them down that pathway. Likewise for educators, it is easy to believe that it is their responsibility to shape children and adolescents into eager students who will go to college, which will lead to success. It is easy to believe that the more we push children, demand of them, direct them, and handhold them, the more likely it is that the child will become a success. That is the narrative that society pushes, oftentimes blaming parents and educators for not doing enough, not doing it earlier, and not doing it with more rigor. 

Parents and educators do not deserve so much of the credit or blame when it comes to shaping children into successful adults. First, the way we define success is problematic in itself (consider what success means to you in light of these 5 deathbed regrets and these 24 regrets). Second, social and economic conditions that children are born into have a far greater impact on their future than proactive parenting or schooling does, and ignoring this most often leads to forms of victim blaming and practices that promote it (e.g., grit). And third, adults overestimate the benefits they provide to young people by way of deliberately trying to guide them down certain pathways, while grossly underestimating the harm they can cause by doing so.

Parents and educators generally want the best for children. They want a world where their children come out ahead, or at least keep pace. And the more that parents and educators try to prevent children from taking full control of their lives; because they fear the children will make suboptimal or wrong choices, or that they won't go down the right path; the more likely it is that they will deter the children from finding out who they are, where they want to take their lives, and how to make the most of it. In an attempt to put them on a right path, they end up moving each child away from an authentic, unique path that best fits each one of them. Some young people find ways to rebound; many do not. As a whole, adults end up doing more harm than good.

A better way forward for parents and educators is to focus on removing the obstacles that prevent young people from taking control of their education and lives. Addressing trauma or psychological distress is an obvious place to start. Next, remove toxic environmental conditions (e.g., bullying), or remove children from such toxic environments. Then, remove structures and practices (e.g., compulsory attendance, mandated curriculum) that undermine self-efficacy and prevent them from taking charge of their lives. Then, step back and breathe. 

Note, removing these obstacles does not mean removing adversity or denying them the opportunity to experience failure. All of the aforementioned obstacles inhibit growth, are not natural, and are unnecessary. When young people are able to focus their time and effort on their interests they will stretch themselves through meaningful challenges that move them further down their own pathways. 

It is time that we adults stop seeing ourselves as authority figures, decision makers, guides, or the ones who will protect children from themselves. It is time that we instead see ourselves as sounding boards, helpers, resource providers, and living examples of people who are leading remarkable lives themselves. 

If you also believe that we need to elevate the role of children and adolescents in their own lives then we encourage you to get involved in what we are doing at Abrome. 

The Private School Tuition Criticism

American society has been trained to believe that schools are necessary vehicles of education. Without school, it is believed, one would not learn to read, write, find a job, or stay employed. And if we accept that schools are necessary for success in life, then we are left to ask, how would people of lesser means ever compete in a capitalist society without the benefit of schooling? The misguided conclusion that comes through generations of people being subjected to a monopolized and compulsory schooling system is that we need schools, and that those schools must be publicly funded.

@ecomentario IOW, there will be no legitimate will to fix all public schools as long as white, wealthy parents have an alternative for *their* child.

— Jenn Borgioli Binis (@JennBinis) April 13, 2017

This morning, a critic of alternative education reminded me that Abrome charges tuition, and lots of it. This was meant to be a trump card that should somehow lead to the false conclusion that we (and other alternatives to traditional school) are undermining education in society.[1] More specifically, this critic wanted me to blindly accept that the current institution of public schooling was inherently good for society, and that the real problems are that we criticize coercive schooling too much, and “white, wealthy parents” refuse to leave their children in district public schools (meaning they refuse to invest their children into the system to try to make public schools better, as opposed to investing in education for their children).

I cannot accept that the current institution of public schooling is an inherently good thing for society. As I have pointed out in the past, traditional schooling hurts students, their families, and society. Traditional schooling is inherently bad because it introduces coercion and illegitimate authority into the lives of children, it harms the current and future happiness and health of children, and it undermines the learning process. The practices and structures of traditional schooling were put in place for a variety of reasons, the bulk of which were nefarious (e.g., producing compliant industrial workers and obedient soldiers, promoting nationalism, destroying marginalized or oppressed cultures, sorting students to determine which ones received resources and opportunities, preserving class privilege, entrenching racial hierarchies). When the effects and history of schooling are highlighted to alternative education critics, they tend to double down on the funding mechanism of alternative schools as their proof of the superiority of traditional, public schooling.

Attacking progressive schools for charging tuition is an unfortunate but common tactic of alternative education critics. Like public schools, progressive schools need to be able to pay the bills (e.g., a living wage for educators, rent, utilities). How can anyone take seriously a public school advocate who believes that private schools should not be charging tuition, while also not being publicly funded? Their argument is less about funding and more about existence; they simply do not want viable alternatives to exist.

The one point this critic made that had some merit is that tuition-charging private schools are not an option for all families. But this critic took that to mean that unless every child has access to the same options, then no alternative options should exist. We fully agree that tuition charging private schools are not universally available to all students, but a non-coercive public school option is not available to any, much less all students. We acknowledge that there are disparities in access to educational options according to socioeconomic status (and geography). But because those disparities manifest themselves in both public and private traditional schools, it is left to progressive educators and radical communities to create alternatives in the here and now.

@JennBinis @ecomentario @korytellers Fortunately for parents, they don't have to wait for systems of oppression to reform themselves.

— Abrome Education (@AbromeEd) April 13, 2017

Abrome greatly values diversity within our learning space. Diversity strengthens the learning environment by way of promoting tolerance and empathy, increasing creativity and innovation, and reducing bullying. And we consider socioeconomic considerations to be central to our diversity efforts. Therefore, our full-pay families subsidize the cost of attendance for our lower SES families. But while alternative school critics feign indignation over our sticker price, they also make clear that even a $1 tuition would be too much, because they believe that giving “white parents of means” an alternative to coercive schooling is the reason public schools are not working.

While economic barriers to self-directed learning environments are unfortunate, it is worth pointing out that there would be no need for tuition funded alternative education options such as Abrome if public schools were non-coercive.[2] In fact, there are plenty of alternative education advocates who believe in public education, just not coercive public education.[3] But the only thing these critics seem to take offense to more than school tuition is the notion of self-directed learning. Perhaps that is because a belief in the need for publicly funded, coercive, compulsory schooling requires a belief in the superiority of those who work within the institution of schooling over what they believe are ignorant and incompetent children.

@JennBinis @ecomentario @korytellers Sacrificing your child to a system that refuses to reform itself is not honorable. It is stupid.

— Abrome Education (@AbromeEd) April 13, 2017

For those alternative school critics who argue that cost of tuition is problematic, I encourage them to expand their understanding of cost. The current cost of coercive schooling is a society that is filled with unhappy children and intellectually dead adults. A society that is deferential to authority and disdainful of those abused by authority. A society unwilling to learn from the past, live in the moment, or prepare for a complicated future. There is a mental health cost to coercive schooling, and it is paid in part through youth depression and suicide. There is an opportunity cost to coercive schooling, where young people forfeit their childhood and their future in order to participate in a race to nowhere. There is a social welfare cost to coercive schooling, where low SES families and people of color are repeatedly told that they are inferior, and where affluent, white families are convinced that they have a cultural or genetic right to the advantages that society unjustly provides them.[4] When all the costs of coercive schooling are compared to the tuition costs of progressive schooling, it becomes clear that coercive schooling is the one that produces a deadweight loss to society.

One final note: we do not criticize coercive schooling too much, but we are working on it.

1.  Although we are not undermining education in society, we hope to undermine the status quo of coercive schooling.

2.  Even the poorest families can provide their children with self-directed learning environments via homeschooling, unschooling, and cooperatives.

3.  We believe in voluntary, community education; not government funded, monopolized, compulsory education.

4.  It is ironic that the people who recognize the privilege that rich white families have in society are unable to acknowledge that the institution of coercive schooling compounds that privilege.