In this book Joel Spring traces the long tradition of libertarian opposition to established forms of schooling from Rousseau and William Godwin to A.S. Neill and Paulo Freire. He illuminates the central questions that have concerned radical educators: How can teaching encourage independence and self-reliance? Can rigid ideas and ideologies be avoided by radical educators? What is the contradiction between "schooling" and "education"? How does truly libertarian child rearing challenge the family structure? How can real learning free people so they can begin to change the world around them? Spring also discusses the ideas of several figures whose relevance to education is just beginning to be appreciated, including Max Stirner, Franciso Ferrer, Wilhelm Reich, and Tolstoy. Spring concludes with suggestions for what directions radical educational change might now take.
A revised, updated, and retitled edition of David Boaz’s classic book Libertarianism: A Primer, which was praised as uniting “history, philosophy, economics and law—spiced with just the right anecdotes—to bring alive a vital tradition of American political thought that deserves to be honored today” (Richard A. Epstein, University of Chicago). Libertarianism—the philosophy of personal and economic freedom—has deep roots in Western civilization and in American history, and it’s growing stronger. Two long wars, chronic deficits, the financial crisis, the costly drug war, the campaigns of Ron Paul and Rand Paul, the growth of executive power under Presidents Bush and Obama, and the revelations about NSA abuses have pushed millions more Americans in a libertarian direction. Libertarianism: A Primer, by David Boaz, the longtime executive vice president of the Cato Institute, continues to be the best available guide to the history, ideas, and growth of this increasingly important political movement—and now it has been updated throughout and with a new title: The Libertarian Mind. Boaz has updated the book with new information on the threat of government surveillance; the policies that led up to and stemmed from the 2008 financial crisis; corruption in Washington; and the unsustainable welfare state. The Libertarian Mind is the ultimate resource for the current, burgeoning libertarian movement.
A. S. Neill was probably the most famous school teacher of the twentieth century. His school, Summerhill, founded in 1921, attracted admiration and criticism from around the world, and became an emblem of radical school reform and child-centred education. Neill claimed that he was a practical man, but this book reveals that Summerhill expresses a comprehensive and distinctive set of ideas. Whether he wanted to be or not, Neill was an important educational thinker with a powerful influence on current educational approaches and philosophy. A. S. Neill is the first book to examine this philosophy of education in detail. It begins by showing how Neill's fascinating life story gives clues to the origin of his ideas, and why they mattered so much to him. It goes on to explore the main themes of his philosophy, showing how they relate to the work of other great educational thinkers, and how they are novel. It also discusses whether there are lessons that could and should be learned by other schools from the original, alternative 'free' school of Summerhill.
Starting with the 1972 publication of his seminal work, Education and the Rise of the Corporate State, Joel Spring has been documenting and analyzing the politics of knowledge and education. Throughout his work he has explored the attempts to use education to advance the economic and political interests of dominant groups. The general term he uses for the relationship between schools and power is "ideological management." His scholarly work first looked at the influence on American schooling of business and economic doctrines embodied in human capital theories and consumerism. The next step in his exploration of the politics of knowledge was to examine these issues in the context of globalization, leading to a proposed educational rights amendment to national constitutions and a new paradigm for education, both of which might ensure that schools are protected from ideological management by economic and political elites. Spring’s indigenous background has strongly shaped his interest in the political and economic goals of schooling, particularly the attempts of those in power to use schools to destroy indigenous languages and cultures. In this collection, Spring brings together 10 of his key writings, providing an overview not just of his own career but the larger contexts in which it is situated. In the Introduction he reviews the evolution and scope of his work and his earlier arguments and reflects on its central themes, which are reflected in the writings selected for this volume. In the World Library of Educationalists, international scholars themselves compile career-long collections of what they judge to be their finest pieces – extracts from books, key articles, salient research findings, major theoretical and/practical contributions – so the world can read them in a single manageable volume. Readers will be able to follow the themes and strands of their work and see their contribution to the development of a field, as well as the development of the field itself. Contributors to the series include: Michael Apple, James A. Banks, Stephen J. Ball, Elliot Eisner, Howard Gardner, John Gilbert, Ivor F. Goodson, Peter Jarvis.
From the early cinema of Griffith and René Clair, to the work of Godard, Lina Wertmuller and Ken Loach, this book offers a comprehensive survey of anarchism in film.
Education is a challenging subject for anarchists. Many are critical about working within a state-run education system that is embedded in hierarchical, standardized, and authoritarian structures. Numerous individuals and collectives envision the creation of counterpublics or alternative educational sites as possible forms of resistance, while other anarchists see themselves as “saboteurs” within the public arena—believing that there is a need to contest dominant forms of power and educational practices from multiple fronts. Of course, if anarchists agree that there are no blueprints for education, the question remains, in what dynamic and creative ways can we construct nonhierarchical, anti-authoritarian, mutual, and voluntary educational spaces? Contributors to this edited volume engage readers in important and challenging issues in the area of anarchism and education. From Francisco Ferrer’s modern schools in Spain and the Work People’s College in the United States, to contemporary actions in developing “free skools” in the U.K. and Canada, to direct-action education such as learning to work as a “street medic” in the protests against neoliberalism, the contributors illustrate the importance of developing complex connections between educational theories and collective actions. Anarchists, activists, and critical educators should take these educational experiences seriously as they offer invaluable examples for potential teaching and learning environments outside of authoritarian and capitalist structures. Major themes in the volume include: learning from historical anarchist experiments in education, ways that contemporary anarchists create dynamic and situated learning spaces, and finally, critically reflecting on theoretical frameworks and educational practices. Contributors include: David Gabbard, Jeffery Shantz, Isabelle Fremeaux & John Jordan, Abraham P. DeLeon, Elsa Noterman, Andre Pusey, Matthew Weinstein, Alex Khasnabish, and many others.
In his latest book, Joel Spring covers major political, economic and social issues affecting US and global education policy today. Crafted to evoke classroom discussion, this book explores contemporary issues such as the pandemic, institutional racism, religious controversies, nationalism and immigration, increased reliance on online instruction, climate change, economics of education and the deep state in education. Giving students the opportunity to engage in critical thinking and explore the growing sense that US and global education is in distress and in need of fundamental transformation, this book forces readers to examine their own values and how they might apply this thinking to their own education policy and practice.
The Journal of School Leadership is broadening the conversation about schools and leadership and is currently accepting manuscripts. We welcome manuscripts based on cutting-edge research from a wide variety of theoretical perspectives and methodological orientations. The editorial team is particularly interested in working with international authors, authors from traditionally marginalized populations, and in work that is relevant to practitioners around the world. Growing numbers of educators and professors look to the six bimonthly issues to: deal with problems directly related to contemporary school leadership practice teach courses on school leadership and policy use as a quality reference in writing articles about school leadership and improvement.
When I refer to schools in the five essays on education that comprise While Theres Time, I have elementary and secondary schools in mind. I approached this writing from the perspective of an insider, so to speak, as I have worked extensively in the field of education, first as a high school teacher and now as a professor of education in a university. These essays were prompted by dissatisfaction and a desire. Increasingly over the last few years, I have felt uncomfortable with the conventional wisdom in my field about how students ought to be educated. It just didn't set right with me. Labels vary for the mainstream thinking in the profession, but let's call it a progressive or neo-Deweyian (after the philosopher John Dewey) approach. Some might refer to it simply as modern education. Even though its advocates marshal compelling arguments in support of this set of ideas and practices (what they are will be spelled out in the essays), I was finding in my work in schools that it wasn't getting good enough results with students in the classroom, and that in any case it simply didn't fit me as a person or as a professional: my values, my hopes for schools and students and this society. So I felt an inner push to find an educational orientation that I could believe in more than the one that currently dominates in the field of education to the point that it could be called an orthodoxy, or at least find something that complements it, adds to it. These essays represent the results of my quest. I have concluded that the philosophical orientations that we most need to affirm and employ as bases for constructing school programs in our time are the very ones which are most often dismissed by professional educators, namely, conservatism and individualism. In these essays, I go into the specifics of conservative and libertarian orientations to education, explore what all the talk about teaching democracy in the schools is about, contrast sports and schools as settings, and use the concept of personal authenticity in a discussion of the work of teaching. What holds these five essays together is that they all are grounded in a conservative rather than liberal and individual-centered rather than collectivist frame of reference. These essays are self-contained enough to be read out of order, although I did line them up in the way that I think best presents my argument. I hope what I offer here informs the debate in this country over the best route to take in educating our children. I wrote this book with both general readers and professional educators in mind. For general readers, I hope what is here will provide them with a better understanding of how professional educators come at their work, and thereby enable them to deal with school people more effectively and give them some things they can take into account when determining what ought to go on in their children's education, or in schools generally. For people in the profession who read this book--teachers and administrators, those in training to become teachers, and so on--I believe these writings will provide them with a clearer understanding of the predominant thinking in their field; a good way to understand anything is to compare it with something that contrasts with it. I would presume, and hope, that for some educators and educators-to-be this book will provide them with ideas they can use to guide their work. Much of what follows is expressed in the first person. I thought that if I brought myself into this book it would encourage readers to bring themselves into it. I would like readers to see these writings as my half of a conversation. I want them to respond critically to what I have written and extend it, take it farther than I have been able to--and I don't think they have to be active in the field of education to be able to do that. I want readers to decide how, if at all, what I write changes the way they look at things, and what they a
