Education and the Social Revolution
Provocation: Education is the lever for a radical social revolution, but only if we have the courage to make it so.
There is so much “hand-wringing” in our current education discourse. I recently saw a post which read as such:
Grades are harmful to children. Research has shown this clearly.
Since grades are harmful, lets replace the A/B/C/D’s with cute pictures, which is less harmful.
This type of “innovation” will merely reproduce the status quo, which is crumbling around us. How can we ethically stand a solution that is “less harmful” when we could simply remove the harm in the first place?
Our young people are acutely aware that the systems of organization we have designed in the West are inequitable, serve only the elite, and are crumbling around us. They see atrocities committed across the globe, and then are told to “focus on your academic work” and to only think about helping humanity in their fleeting free time.
I came to the above provocation through many months of discomfort about the world, our Western institutions, and my role in all of it.
It all started with my summer plans.
“It sounds like you’re having an amazing summer!”
This sentiment has been said to me by colleagues, friends, and family over the last few weeks.
By a traditional account, that’s true- I spent 10 days in Japan and participated in the Hakuba Forum, and I’m now at the Grove School in Redlands, CA, where I am working in community with my cohort for the Association Montessori Internationale Adolescent Diploma.
I’ve spent my days biking to school, my evenings reading Montessori’s Education and Peace, and my weekends taking trips to the beach. I am surrounded by others who have a similar view of education and the world, and we are a thoughtful and supportive community.
So why do I feel an unshakable dissonance when others assume that I’m having a great time?
Allow me to explain a few distinct but interconnected threads.
The Paradox of July 4th
I am writing this on July 4th, which is Independence Day in the USA.
On Instagram, I read a post from an influencer which read “the fact that a group of people "declared independence" from the most powerful kingdom in the world and then literally fought and died so they could have their own country is astonishing to me. What's even more astonishing is that they WON.”
July 4th is a great example of the common phrase that the only good revolutions are the ones that happened in the past. When we take a critical lens on American history, it becomes clear that the Founding Fathers fought a war against Britain because they wanted to solidify their power through creating a white supremacist state in which only property-owning white men had any influence. Never mind the fact that they did not "die" for the land, they killed for it. There were already people here, and the land only became available because of the continuing genocide of indigenous peoples in what is now the US.
Throughout US history there have been movements to right the wrongs of our past and make this a country for, and by, all of the people. These are not revolutions, but rather reforms of the state and society. Each time these movements form in response to violence and oppression, the establishment which is upheld by white supremacy, paints these resistance movements as anti-American, terrorism, or otherwise inappropriate.
Take any social change movement and you will see the same response: from abolition, to women’s rights, civil rights to LGBTQ rights, and especially anti-war protests, the immediate response is always the same. The farther removed we are from a particular social movement, the more favorably we tend to view it. The easiest example is Martin Luther King Jr, who is generally respected by a majority of the modern American population. Yet, at the time of his death, polling showed that he was strongly disliked by the majority of the American people, who did not agree with his aims or tactics. It's an important point of reflection for us all: which side would you have been on during the Civil Rights era?
What do we mean by "freedom?"
The purpose of July 4th is to celebrate American freedom.
But what do we mean by "freedom?"
On my drive through Orange County, California, I saw a dam which read "1776-1976: 200 YEARS OF FREEDOM." But are we really "free" in a country in which a major medical emergency could put someone into life-altering debt? Where we exist in a state of wage slavery, meaning we do not have a choice but to sell ourselves on the labor market?
Such a system of wage slavery, a hallmark of neoliberal capitalism, is what separates each person from the web of human solidarity that would allow us to create a more equitable world.
The advent of technology has allowed humans to become more connected in the sense that we can see, hear, and communicate with each other in ways which were previously not possible. While that has had implications for our ability to engage in human solidarity around the world, this has not happened to the scale which is necessary, precisely because the system of wage slavery seeks to keep us disconnected from each other and our collective struggle for liberation.
Take the current genocide in Gaza, which is being livestreamed across social media, and which our government is providing unconditional funding and support for. Or, take any example of police brutality which we can learn about through democratized forms of communication like social media. This is only the tip of the iceberg. These are the kind of keep-you-up-at-night things which, in a humane world, should push people to stop in our tracks and do everything we can to right these wrongs.
How can "normal life" possibly go on when our government decides it's the right thing to do to fund a genocidal regime, or murder innocent people of color in the streets?
And yet, the system of wage slavery does not allow for such a break in "normalcy."
The system pretends that we all have a "choice" to work or not, but it's a false choice: we either carry on our tasks which keep the economic machine running, or we opt out of it, and starve, because human solidarity will not be funded.
I recall when the Gaza genocide began, I was caught in such an uncomfortable dissonance: How could I possibly go into work and go through the motions when such horrible atrocities are occurring across the world? And yet, what other choice did I have? I can’t afford to quit my job, because I would lose everything. Therefore, the choice really is not a choice: I had to go into work and engage in the “normalcy” that neoliberal capitalism demands.
For more on critical ideas around wage slavery, see Noam Chomsky’s On Anarchism.
For those who need to work to maintain their safety and health, and the safety and health of others, there are a few fleeting hours before and after the work day during which, if we are not too exhausted from our work, we can begin to address such systemic wrongs: a very limited window of time to make meaningful change or to engage in human solidarity and liberation with oppressed peoples around the world.
I am being blunt in my observations because I believe we have taken the status quo for granted. We often believe that things must be this way because that's the only way we have experienced them in our lifetime.
I am also taking a page out of Maria Montessori's writings: she often used blunt and stark language in order to highlight the injustice she was seeing in a world much like today: one in which we have "progressed" technologically yet have not made meaningful progress toward human solidarity and collective liberation.
It does not have to be this way!
Humans only organized themselves in stratified, capitalist societies for a small fraction of our existence. In The Dawn of Everything, authors Graeber and Wengrow argue that the question is not why is inequity inevitable, but why did humanity get stuck on this particular form of social organization when the historical record shows a variety of forms of social organization- not perfect, but markedly different from what exists today.
An Education Capable of Saving Humanity
Maria Montessori observed a unique phenomenon with young children, which has been seen across the world for over a hundred years: when children are given an environment where their fundamental needs are met, they independently develop social cohesion and work together interdependently. They seek no hierarchies; they are concerned with the wellbeing of the group.
Let me say this again, because it's powerful:
When we place children in environments where their fundamental needs are met, they develop social cohesion, they strive for human solidarity, they live in collective liberation.
This is why Montessori wrote that we require "an education capable of saving humanity." Social cohesion and human solidarity are in our nature, but they must be experienced.
I experienced collective solidarity recently and it was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. I spent many days at the George Washington University Pro-Palestinian protest encampment and witnessed social organization which sought to meet the fundamental needs of all members. First aid tents and medics were visible and available. Food was plentiful and free to all, as much as you needed, no matter who you were, or where you came from. Signage and announcements in multiple languages, including American Sign Language, were present. Students and community members sat together, sang together, read together, cried together. Families brought their children. Elderly Holocaust survivors joined to share their experiences and encourage the students. The social cohesion could be felt in the air. It was a microcosm of what could be if we meaningfully shifted our priorities.
And then, in the middle of the night, the encampment was violently cleared by police because this living example of human solidarity was considered disruptive by a university administration that would rather fund genocide than protect its students.
For a reasonable take on these encampments, and a path that GWU could have taken to support productive free speech on campus, see this from Wesleyan University president Michael Roth: https://roth.blogs.wesleyan.edu/2024/04/30/on-protests-encampments-freedom-of-expression/
Beyond Peace
In my reading of Montessori's Education and Peace, I believe that in order to live in interdependence with other humans and with nature, we need to go beyond peace.
Our planet is dying and the institutions built by the West are crumbling all around us, and not just in the United States. A colleague from Australia remarked to me this summer that "the West seems to be in free fall but no one wants to admit it."
The United Nations has been proven utterly hopeless in stopping war and promoting peace among nations.
Western countries are being taken over by nationalism and far-right politics, which merely serve to protect the power-holders who benefit from the neoliberal system of wage slavery.
We cannot simply rearrange the deck chairs anymore. The Titanic has hit the iceberg.
What we need is a real social revolution which revolves not around capital, but around human solidarity and collective liberation.
We must reject the lies we were told about the inevitability of social stratification and step boldly toward this new world.
This must come from all sides of human society, but I believe education has an integral part to play.
We must reject the factory model agenda which seeks to turn young people into good workers to fit into their machine and instead foster true collective liberation in our educational environments.
We can't overthrow the entire system today, but we can begin to take small, radical actions to move toward that change.
I call on you: Do not be lulled into inaction by the false sense of rugged individuality that our system feeds us. Experience collective liberation and you won't be able to turn back.