Most school years seem to start with the same question: What is the purpose of education? For many anarchists, we recognise that education is really important in developing the core of how social values are shared throughout our societies. Those of us working in currently existing education systems often find ourselves frustrated by a range of issues, namely the overly restrictive rules that are enforced on all people within the school ‘ecosystem’, the conflation of education with schooling, the hyper-focus on choosing the ‘correct’ educational path in order to achieve a career, and the lack of community inclusion in the development of any educational programs.

Sitting through a number of meetings taking place throughout the school year, it’s hard to figure out exactly how to function within current education systems and whether or not it’s even beneficial. There are a lot of questions that run through my mind when I’m participating in these meetings:

Why isn’t the school run in such a way that more voices are heard? These meetings are often run by someone who holds a title like ‘coordinator’, ‘principal’, ‘school manager’, or ‘educational director’; many of these people give presentations that tell teachers what they will do, even though they will never be responsible for implementing those programs or policies. It’s unclear to me what their purpose is when they refuse to collaborate and only wish to dictate, especially when they seem to hide in their offices away from everyone else. Read more…