Deschooling Society
‘‘Many students, especially those who are poor, intuitively know what the schools do for them. They school them to confuse process and substance. Once these become blurred, a new logic is assumed: the more treatment there is, the better are the results; or, escalation leads to success. The pupil is thereby "schooled" to confuse teaching with learning, grade advancement with education, a diploma with competence, and fluency with the ability to say something new. His imagination is "schooled" to accept service in place of value.”
These are the opening lines of a book called “Deschooling Society,” written by the Austrian Catholic priest, theologian, philosopher, and social critic (and some would say Anarchist) Ivan Ilych (1926-2002).
Ilych, who was in fact Jewish on his mother’s side, was raised in Vienna by his mother, and when he was 16, fled the Nazis with her and his brothers to Florence, Italy. He studied natural sciences, philosophy, and theology until he was finally ordained as a catholic priest in 1951 in both Florence and Rome. His work with Puerto Rican migrants in Manhattan eventually led him to South America, where he opened a center aimed for the education of other priests. It was there that he and his colleagues developed their radical criticism of the hegemony of the industrial Western world. His two best known works were aimed against both educational and medical institutionalization in modern society.
Ilych died of a tumor that he refused to treat with conventional medicine. Ironically, like the Tolstoy character bearing the same name, he died from a terminal illness.
In Deschooling Society, Ilych’s main claim is that modern schooling distorts the very meaning of education by equating learning with formal instruction and credentials. Thus, they “confuse process and substance.” Similarly to other education critics such as Paulo Freire, he claimed that schools reinforce social inequality, foster dependency on authority, and condition individuals to accept bureaucratic systems rather than think independently. But as opposed to Freire, Ilych did not suggest reform in education and schools, but rather their “disestablishment” — doing away with the entire system itself.
Our tradition, as opposed to Ilych, warns of such ideas. Our portion this week Shemini tells of the tragic death of the two sons of Aaron, Nadav and Avihu, who were consumed by Divine fire after they offered a "foreign" fire to God in the tabernacle.
The Gemara in Masechet Eiruvin states:
לֹא מֵתוּ בְּנֵי אַהֲרֹן עַד שֶׁהוֹרוּ הֲלָכָה בִּפְנֵי מֹשֶׁה רַבָּן.
“The sons of Aaron died only because they issued a halakhic ruling before Moses, their teacher?”
In other words, the children of Aaron died because they made Halachic decisions without consulting Moses, their teacher.
Our tradition views all wisdom coming initially from the Divine. The Divine is the primary source. As such, wisdom that was given directly to Moses was passed down from Rabbi to Rabbi, from a teacher to their pupil, and therefore, for the wisdom to remain the same from when it was initially given, it must be taught by a Talmid Chacham, a scholar. A person, no matter how wise and talented they may be, cannot study on their own. Their wisdom won’t be valid unless it was taught by an authority.
Rabbi Chayim Shmulevitz wrote in his book “Sichot Mussar”: “This is the reason for the institution of סְמִיכָה ordination. No person, wise and learned as he may be, can ordain himself. One must be ordained by his rebbe who was ordained by his rebbe who in turn was ordained by his rebbe, and so on, in an unbroken chain reaching back until Moshe.”
This hierarchical and institutional approach seems to contradict Ilych’s deschooling theory.
I find this quite a fascinating debate. As a lifelong educator, I do value certain forms of authority necessary for the passing down of knowledge. At the same time, I myself never formally studied what I teach, and almost all of the knowledge that I introduce to others I learned on my own. I agree with Ilych on many of his critical arguments against formal education, especially when it comes to higher education, and especially in the United States.
Ilych’s proposal of the disestablishment of the schooling system does not come without a plan or an alternative. Instead of existing institutions, he proposes a system which would be made of a combination of reference services (access to books, tools, resources,) skill exchanges (people teaching each other,) peer matching (finding others with similar interests) and mentor directories (access to experts.) In short, the system would be decentralized, voluntary, and driven by curiosity, not institutions.
However, a deeper look into our tradition’s approach to education begins to reveal something that does not actually contradict Ilych, but rather resembles him.
Midrash Bamidbar Rabbah describes the succession between Moses and his successor Joshua:
נֹצֵר תְּאֵנָה יֹאכַל פִּרְיָהּ, בָּנֶיךָ יָשְׁבוּ לָהֶם וְלֹא עָסְקוּ בַּתּוֹרָה, יְהוֹשֻׁעַ הַרְבֵּה שֵׁרֶתְךָ וְהַרְבֵּה חָלַק לְךָ כָּבוֹד, וְהוּא הָיָה מַשְׁכִּים וּמַעֲרִיב בְּבֵית הַוַּעַד שֶׁלְּךָ, הוּא הָיָה מְסַדֵּר אֶת הַסַּפְסָלִים, וְהוּא פּוֹרֵס אֶת הַמַּחְצְלָאוֹת, הוֹאִיל וְהוּא שֵׁרֶתְךָ בְּכָל כֹּחוֹ, כְּדַאי הוּא שֶׁיְּשַׁמֵּשׁ אֶת יִשְׂרָאֵל שֶׁאֵינוֹ מְאַבֵּד שְׂכָרוֹ, (במדבר כז, יח): קַח לְךָ אֶת יְהוֹשֻׁעַ בִּן נוּן, לְקַיֵּם מַה שֶּׁנֶּאֱמַר: נֹצֵר תְּאֵנָה יֹאכַל פִּרְיָהּ.
“Joshua served you very much and accorded you great honor, and he would come early and stay late at your house of assembly. He would arrange the benches and spread the mats. Because he served you with all his might, he is worthy of serving Israel, as he will not be deprived of his reward.’ “Take for you Joshua son of Nun.”
This Midrash states clearly that the main reason for the selection of Joshua as Moses’ successor was not his knowledge of Torah, but rather his servitude to Moses.
Here is where our tradition and Ilych converge. One of the main claims made by Ilych is that studying is a lifelong endeavor that is done within the framework of community. It is something that never stops, something that you cannot measure and which encompasses all walks of life. Studying is an act which not only achieves the accumulation of knowledge, but also shapes one’s soul and character, builds values and sets personal as well as societal goals. In that, the “schooling” models of Medieval times were something which might be worth revisiting. As in our tradition, apprenticeship is key.
In Ilych’s words:
“In the (Medieval) village, language and architecture and work and religion and family customs were consistent with one another, mutually explanatory and reinforcing. To grow into one implied a growth into the others. Even specialized apprenticeship was a by-product of specialized activities, such as shoemaking or the singing of psalms. If an apprentice never became a master or a scholar, he still contributed to making shoes or to making church services solemn. Education did not compete for time with either work or leisure. Almost all education was complex, lifelong, and unplanned.’’
Shabbat Shalom and Moadim L'Simchah,
Rabbi Ye'ela Rosenfeld
