Children, books and education in socialism

[rodshaw]

What would education be like in a socialist society?

I don’t mean formal training in ‘professional’ disciplines, much of which would obviously need to be kept.

My two grandkids go to a large secondary school which is reckoned to be pretty ‘good’. For all its respectable credentials, from the things they tell us the school seems to be like some kind of cross between a factory and a prison. They do their homework on laptops and get marked online. Sometimes there are mildly violent ‘incidents’ where one or more students may be sent home. The school hands out disciplinary points and detentions for all sorts of minor transgressions, on some kind of sliding scale.

With people freed from drudgery and poverty, in a way the whole of life in a socialist society might come to be seen as a learning process. But would subjects be formally taught in some kind of school or would children simply take in knowledge and experience from their elders and peers? Would teaching of some core ‘essentials’ perhaps be done in very small individually tailored groups with no standard curriculum?

What about reading matter? Much literature for younger children is well-written and can be very funny, and of course children develop the ability (usually) to distinguish between fantasy and reality. The accepted wisdom is that children’s imaginations need to be fed. But while it can be something of an achievement to get some kids to read at all, has it all gone a bit over the top? Story books aimed at kids are almost invariably about witches, wizards, ghosts, wacky cartoon characters or people with superpowers, with an endless stream of authors and everything having to be ultra-exciting, awesome, fantastic – choose your own hyperbole.

I don’t think we’d want to go back to previous centuries when children were regarded as little more than miniature adults. But is all this fantasy necessary or even desirable for children to absorb? Is it just a form of escapism from the banalities of life under capitalism and all that so-called education?

[Author]

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