File spoon-archives/anarchy-list.archive/anarchy-list_2000/anarchy-list.0002, message 124


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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