Deschooling Society

Didn't think I'd find myself in such agreement with Illich. Basically, what he's saying is that when you attempt to organize education from a top-down bureaucracy, lead by authoritarian teachers, organized into standardized cirricula, sanctified by abstract diplomas and certification and strictly confined by age.... the results are less than spectacular. Illich's counter-proposal, in short, is open-learning based on peer-to-peer networking (remarkably predicting of a world where people are linked via computers years and years before personal pcs and the internet come about) and the disestablishment of degrees and certification as qualifications. While I didn't find everything he said to be utopian, and even the author admits to flaws in his proposals, he does, however, point out that the status quo is hardly benevolent and working, and that alternatives shouldn't therefore be dismissed because of flaws, but on the weight of their benefits to pitfalls. ( )

A contrarian classic, well-worth reading.

An interesting look at school and the loading we give that idea. Argues that schooling should be a lifelong concept and that our existing education fails people.

And I agree, somewhat.

I sometimes wonder about my English Teachers statement that I needed to read more books and when she was told that I read a lot, said that I needed to read more, better books and what she would think today with my ecclectic mix of fiction and non-fiction. I also wonder what many of my classmates did with their reading in later years, I know many people who don't read and regard my reading as eccentric.

Some of Illich's ideas about the use of computers has happened but I think that while some people would benefit from an ability to move in early years from school to work and apprenticeship; many people could be forced into the wrong career and end up miserable.

While some would benefit from dipping in and out of education, modern education also fulfils the role of childminding service for the masses. ( )

Illich presents an excellent case for the elimination of the school system. But like many authors of this period, he does not present us with a solution. Rather, he provides detailed examples of alternative approaches to education, without giving us much of a clue about how they could actually be attained, particularly when he notes the protections provided the school system by the larger political order. It is a sort of magical optimism, that good ideas will necessarily crowd out bad ones. I did enjoy the book, but much more as he criticizes schools rather than spending time fantasizing about potential futures.

Related works: John Holt's Instead of Education, and Neil Postman's Teaching as a Subversive Activity. ( )

An amazing nutball book by a mind so utopian he does not see the limits of his purview. I have friends who admire Illich. I cannot. The first paragraph contains obvious whoppers, either in terms of untruth (the first sentence), or in bad writing (the rest of the sentences).

This is one radical classic that I find so radical as to be idiotic. ( )