Compulsion is a Condition of Equality

John Taylor Gatto’s new book, Weapons of Mass Instruction: A Schoolteacher’s Journey Through the Dark World of Compulsory Schooling, is available for pre-order, and if you can stomach it, there’s an interesting post and discussion about it over at Metafilter. Seeing people’s reactions to the ideas of homeschooling, un- and de-schooling, and the dismantling of the public education system is alternately inspiring and dispiriting. Here’s an example of both:

My parents were big fans of Gatto while I was growing up, so I didn’t go to school until my sophomore year of high school. I did teach myself to read a bit after four and read books like a fiend, be it my dad’s college biology textbook, our copy of the Encyclopedia Britannica, or whatever I could get out of the library- once, I read the entire Hardy Boys series over a four-day period.

I ended up taking a lot of crap from some of the local kids, who thought I was weird and knew too much- at one point in sixth grade I was quizzed by some kids about TV shows, to their great amusement, since I didn’t even know who the Simpsons were.

The cool thing about homeschooling in my case was that I was able to follow my interests and circumvent the local elementary school, the mental poverty of which was/is just amazing. My mom was talking with their science teacher recently about how my uncle’s brain research was published in the journal Science and the teacher gave her a completely blank stare: It turned out he didn’t know what a journal was.

Then there’s just inspiring:

[I]f compulsory education is necessary to protect kids’ educational interests from their parents, who will protect kids’ educational interests from their teachers and from the state?

What a relief to see someone who understands that the state is not the omniscient benefactor of children everywhere. (Here’s just one particularly egregious example of state munificence toward helpless wards: 32 graves at centre of investigation into Florida reform school.)

But the pendulum swings back to dispiriting, over and over. You may need to keep Pepto handy:

Compulsory education is one tool the state can use to give many children better lives. When school is compulsory, parents can’t argue that their kids have to stay home learning nothing but how to shovel manure, scrub floors, pick rocks out of fields, and fetch pa another beer. It also gets kids out into public, where they can socialize with other kids while teachers have a look to see if they are fed and clothed adequately and are not abused. Often, the school lunch is the only hot meal kids get. And, by the way, going to school gives kids a chance to get an education.

Child labor laws? What are those? They work hand-in-glove with compulsory education laws: children not only have to go to school, they are prohibited from making any sort of independent living—for their own good, of course. (Which means that abused children who escape home either live a life of begging and/or prostitution on the streets, or get caught up in the tender mercies of the state foster system.) They also outlaw the above scenario of children “picking rocks out of fields” (because we all live on urban farms now?)

And again:

Sorry, but “compulsory education” is just one way to spin it; another equally valid way to see it is “universal access.” And yes, with the increasing emphasis on standardized testing and benchmarking, public education has become more and more about forcing a certain kind of education on students. But that emphasis isn’t a necessary feature of an effective education system.

And all children–whether their parents or any other meddling, embittered stingy or cynical grown-ups want it or not–should have the opportunity to get a good education. Education must be compulsory (to the extent it is) to protect universal access to education as a basic right. The only way you can protect universal access to education is by making attendance in education programs that meet at least minimal standards mandatory, or you’ll end up with parents forcing their kids to forgo education to enter the workplace prematurely, like my grandparents’ parents did to them–not to mention parents discouraging their kids from pursuing an education out of cultural or ideological prejudice.

Oh my God. Well, it’s nice to see it spelled out with no innuendo: “universal access,” whether to education or healthcare or anything else someone deems a public good, “must be compulsory” to protect it as a “basic right.” It can’t be universal unless everyone goes, right? So everyone will go, whether they want to or not, because some people would like to ensure “opportunity” by way of coercion, with no means of opting out. And, again, we are supposed to believe that, in the absence of coercion, a significant fraction of parents in developed Western nations would stampede their progeny into sweatshops and farm labor. (It’s called the Industrial Revolution, and that was way back in the seventies or so, at least.) If parents were really intent on exploiting their children for money, then kids everywhere would be pulled out at the legal drop-out age—I believe it’s 16 in California—and put straight to work. I wonder just what our booming higher education system has been subsisting on if this is the case.

At least this commenter is giving me permission to interpret “universal access” as synonymous with compulsion and coercion.

Those who write about the homeschooling/unschooling movement are familiar with the near-constant fallback argument of “socialization.” It fails on multiple levels. Constantly and defensively bringing up the importance of socialization is a tacit concession that the schools are worthless in terms of academics and developing the intellect. Secondly, it fails because the socialization at public schools is just so putridly godawful. Think back to your own school days: have you ever encountered such open, ugly and concentrated sexism, racism, classism and homophobia since, except perhaps at the hands of abusive panhandlers or in the thick of a Youtube comments section? Conservatives are fond of harping on the alleged feminization and pro-homosexual agendas of public school administrations, but I’ve certainly never heard, say, epithets like “fag” thrown around with anywhere near such impunity since.

Fortunately, there are rare lights in the gloom, such as Gatto, and after all, the homeschooling movement is already one million children strong. Here I will plug another upcoming book: College without High School, a teenage guidebook by Blake Boles. It is under negotiations with a publisher, but like Gatto’s it will surely be a text to look forward to.