From: "Andy" <as-AT-spelthorne.ac.uk> Subject: Re: Ivan Illich? Date: Wed, 9 Feb 2000 14:01:17 -0000 >Anybody ever heard of this guy? I'm reading his book 'Deschooling Society' >right now, he makes some really good arguments about dismantling the >institutionalized producer-consumer model of education and replacing it >with a self-driven individual model, which sounds great, but then he keeps >veering off towards proposing legislation to support his model, where >needless to say, he loses me. Yo - he was hot news in '74 when I did my teacher training - as I trained at a Catholic college [fluke - not intentional] they were all for him [well reading him anyway] as he was one of the brothers as it were. They were quite hot on liberation theology as well. You'll find an interesting but brief account of Illich's ideas going nowhere much [not his fault] in VS Naipaul's Among the Believers - his tour of Islamic Revolutions in the late 70s + and much more readable than his novels. My main problem with him is purely theoretical in that he tends to believe that education creates this consumerism. Call me a "marxist" but I think the economy drives this consumerism, and education, via the state, lap-dogs along to support the capitalists. Fine read though - my introduction to education as a topic in Sociology usually consists of going round the class to establish what sort of parental/guardian /sis/bro/significant other resources we can amass to establish a learning network which could "teach" us all we need. Never yet had a class where we didn't pretty much have the back up to do without skool. By the way, via Chuck0's teacher list, I came across these guys in Bristol: ***We're a small collective publishing an occasional mag, books and our web-site (in its infancy) at www.libed.demon.co.uk. Let us know what you think. Cheers Richard for LIB ED*** I've sent off a couple of notes to get their mag. Andy
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