School Is Dead - Chapter 14

Strategy for a Peaceful Revolution

Reimer takes up this chapter where I left off in my summary of the last one: revolution will only happen if a majority of people want it to. He also notes that while the mass media is in the hands of a minority who are committed to the status quo, they won't be letting go of their power without a struggle.

However, an educated minority might convince a majority of the population that things need to change. Here is how Reimer sees this could possibly happen.

Step 1 - large numbers of people would have to become disillusioned with the school system, that schools are unjust, inequitable and deny freedom. From this base of disillusioned teachers, students and administrators, a ground swell of support for change could be grown.

Step 2 - a two-pronged legal attack - one part using existing laws to challenge compulsory school attendance, the distribution of educational resources to those who need them most, to spread the funding for education beyond the government-controlled school institutions and to sue existing schools for not providing the education that they promise - and the second part to introduce new laws to divorce schools from state control, to mandate against discrimination based on what school you went to, to distribute more educational resources to the less privileged by providing money directly to individuals to pay for the life-long learning and to introduce anti-monopoly laws against schools systems.

Step 3 - establish the "education bank" so that all individuals have their own funds with which to pay for their education throughout their lifetime. People could choose how and when they want to spend their money, taking responsibility for their own learning.

Step 4 - replace competition between nations with cooperation by limiting what an individual or group can consume, produce or do to others. (This enforced cooperation sounds like a denial of certain freedoms to me.)

Step 5 - educate people, and by so doing make them aware of the oppression around them, the way schools control the distribution of resources to a privileged few and how many poor and disenfranchised people gain very little from the institution that purports to be there for everyone.

Conclusion

Idealistic? Yes.

Unrealistic? Perhaps.

Possible? Not sure.

Provocative? Certainly - it's keeping me thinking.