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Texts :: culture |
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Paideia: 24 Years of Anarchist Education in South-West Spain |
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by Fiona Taylor |
29 Aug 2005
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"My observations, including a lot of discussion with the adult collective, and some group interviews with ex-students � is that Paideia turns out lovely, thinking people. People who are super sensitive to other people's needs and feelings. I think they are often a little shocked by how disrespectful, unjust, conformist etc people who haven't been to Paideia are. In this way � the school is a kind of microcosm for how our communities might be, how we might relate to each other and enact a just system of self-management and direct democracy . . . except they're kids, and we all live in (and go home at the end of the day to) a world which is very different to this. The revolutionary potential of Paideia then, might be that the kids go home, and at 15 go out into the world with a way of living which influences all they come into contact with. To an extent I think this is true." |
In 1977 a collective of anarchiststeachers, child psychologists, pedogologists (roughly people who study the art and science of teaching) and others founded an Anarchist school "Paideia" (Greek for Education) in Merida, a town of around 50,000 people in the province of Extremadura, South-West Spain. The school began as a pre-school, and in the mid-80's extended; it's currently for kids from 2-15 years.
Logistics.
The school has an Œevolving' approach and every year (if not every day) adapts its techniques based on experience. The school is operated by a collective of adults about half of whom are qualified teachers who work full time at the school and half who visit and teach sometimes, come often in the evenings to help around the school and who contribute financially, from their outside incomes. This money pays the (on the basis of need) salaries of the teachers. The families are charged about AU$200 a month which includes all materials, books, food, a bus each way and the schooling. No kids are refused because their families can't pay however some wealthier families pay extra to cover this and sometimes a family works out a payment schedule.
There are currently about 80 kids at the school:
# the 2 and 3 year olds have pretty free play and sleep time. Everyone in the school loves the infants to bits and showers them with affection and hugs and kisses, however the development of their autonomy is emphasised: rooms are set up to facilitate this and they are rarely carried or held in laps. Greivances are usually solved with the question "would you like them to do that to YOU?" asked in various ways or acted out till they admit that they wouldn't and so "shouldn't".
# The 4 and 5 year olds choose the activities they want to do and are guided through it. They have a weekly assembly with one kid facilitating and the rest expected to respectfully air greivances and offer opinions on what they want to do/study. They prepare morning tea and afternoon tea for everyone and set and clear their own table for lunch.
# Group 3 are roughly 6-9 year olds so they're learning to read and write and do basic mathsŠsome of them don't really want to study and want to play all the time and if they want to they can leave the group and wander a fair bit though they can't come and go and be disruptive. Usually they choose to come though, because their friends do and the necessity of learning the basics becomes obvious in daily life when they can't read the notice board or work out how much stationery their group can choose, for example. And because the school has a culture of respect for, and excitement about, learning. A lot of the time they come to classes but chat and doodle and mess around. The teachers make photocopied workbooks which go very slowly and repetitiously through the basics. They work through them at their own pace with guidance and help from the adult or from older kids. At the end of each term they choose what topics they want to study (when I was their they studied Euro conversions, geography including a unit of globalisation/industrialisation/multinationals, world religions, reading, writing, art and botany which was mostly outdoors). They participate in all other parts of the school with the older kids.
# Group 2 are roughly 10-12 year olds
# Group 1 are the oldest kids 12- 15. Generally in the last two terms at the school the kids stay back until 9pm doing extra study which is specific to the high school curriculum they'll have to study the next year. Most of the kids do very well academically when they attend the state school though often have problems adjusting to social stuff esp. finding the kids to be immature
Day to Day Stuff.
The school day works like this:
9:30-10am school bus does a loop of town picking up the kids.
10-11am physical work time in a rotating system kids (6-15 years) are placed in groups with one student co-ordinating (all age groups have a go) each day they do one of: garden work, yard work, inside tidying or kitchen duty.
11am morning tea.
11:15 first workshop/class or on Fridays Assembly.
1pm kids in the kitchen duty group finish making lunch, set tables, serve first sitting (the infants, littlies, Group 1&2) at 2:30, clear tables and serve second sitting of Groups 3, the Adults and visitors (often past students). Everyone else does independent study till 1:30 then has free time though competitive play is discouraged and often the subject of assembly debates
4pm workshop/class
5pm independent study
5:30 afternoon tea, tidying up and play time
6pm school bus picks up all the kids
6-9:30pm the adult collective stays at school doing any work that needs to be done, preparing, discussing, socialising
The schedule changes pretty often for example when one school building needs painting the kids might do that in the mornings for a week. When an extra assembly is needed it replaces the morning class. Twice a term (for about 2 weeks) the morning session is Presentation assemblies where the Group 1, 2 and 3 students present what they've learnt in the previous 2 weeks and answer questions on it.
The Assembly is where the self-management of the school occurs, and where kids raise grievances and learn/find ways to handle them. Over the years the expectations on each kid increase so that everyone is expected to participate in facilitating, minute taking and active discussion of issues in the assemblies. Votes do occur but a close vote would always mean more discussion was needed. Items for the assembly are placed in a box during the week usually if the item is felt by everyone else to be petty or bitchy the person raising it is told so. Otherwise very heartfelt, honest and manytimes harsh discussion of problems occurs. The expectations on the kids seemed high to me but I came to realise that the expectations are very individual and derived from very close knowledge of each child. Whilst the criticisms may be harsh it is all delivered in an incredibly loving environment in which behaviour is rejected and never the child. At one point or other everyone is subject to criticism. There are various ways of dealing with a kid who won't try and change in response to problems these change over time and are far from perfect. They include "mandar" which is a system of orders whereby a kid (at some point everyone, from what I was told) is deemed irresponsible and incapable of dealing with freedom they are thus told what to do by the adults until the assembly agrees they can rejoin the collective. I'd like to add here that this point was very contentious amongst the anarchists I was living with and meeting outside school hours. The school collective are well aware of the issues. My Spanish really wasn't ever good enough to get a 100% explanation and may be misrepresenting or misunderstanding it a little.
Philosophy.
The founders and current adult collective of Paideia (there are 2 remaining original members) have studied, thought about and experimented with just about every stream of libertarian pedagogy you could come across. Their current practice is part of the evolving process and is considered to be quite unique to the current collective ie. the group of people involved in the experiment. They do not actively preach anarchism but rather operate the school according to anarchist values. The older kids have a very deep understanding of the school's conceptions of freedom, respect, justice etc and aim to live by these values freely because they see how well they work and experience how good it can feel.
Critiques.
The Paideia adult collective came to the conclusion at the end of the last school year that they were producing young people who were very freeŠvery good at being free but not good at taking responsibility or at respecting others. They brought this to the first assembly this year and the collective agreed to try to live according to the following which is displayed on the main notice board:
General Commitment of Responsible Freedom for all the Collective
September 2001
For one person to be free, requires the capacity to co-exist with other different people with a sentiment of EQUALITY, SOLIDARITY, JUSTICE, MUTUAL AID, NON-VIOLENCE, RESPONSIBILITY AND FLEXIBILITY.
If a collective doesn't practice these kinds of relations IT ISN'T FREE.
For this, we consider:
THAT FREEDOM MUST BE FOUGHT FOR, NOT "GIVEN".
If it is given, if will build people who are:
EGOISTS
DISRESPECTFUL
INTOLERANT
DISCRIMINATING
UNJUST
LACKING SOLIDARITY
INSENSITIVE
UNAFFECTIONATE
IRRESPONSIBLE
IRRATIONAL
VIOLENT
Thus each person who wants to practise freedoms of:
MOVEMENT
CHOICE
RELATIONS
DECISIONS
SELF-MANAGEMENT
Must learn to LIVE and RELATE to others in a free manner and most of all they can't enjoy the advantages of a "given" freedom.
Whoever truly wants "to be free" must live conforming to this idea, when they feel they possess these values, they can manifest themselves freely.
Whoever desires to be free must struggle to achieve their liberty.
Whoever doesn't desire to be free lives conforming to a collective dependancy and submission.
My observations, including a lot of discussion with the adult collective, and some group interviews with ex-students is that Paideia turns out lovely, thinking people. People who are super sensitive to other people's needs and feelings. I think they are often a little shocked by how disrespectful, unjust, conformist etc people who haven't been to Paideia are. In this way the school is a kind of microcosm for how our communities might be, how we might relate to each other and enact a just system of self-management and direct democracy . . . except they're kids, and we all live in (and go home at the end of the day to) a world which is very different to this. The revolutionary potential of Paideia then, might be that the kids go home, and at 15 go out into the world with a way of living which influences all they come into contact with. To an extent I think this is true.
Another revolutionary potential might be the kids themselves leaving the school as revolutionary anarchists without all the baggage most authoritarian-educated anarchists carry round with them. If we're serious about community (and about rejecting the nuclear family!) then we need some age-structure . . . we need to keep people active in our movement after they have kids, need to include the kids and give and receive with them the joys of community. Need to be creating second generation anarchists. Imagine these kids coming into our communities with an expectation (and lifetime of experience) of truly democratic and respectful decision-making, an abhorrence of authority and a capacity to be free. However very few, if any of the Paideia kids go on to struggle in a political or activist sense. Somehow the sense of responsibility they have towards their collectiveŠand later perhaps towards their families, friends, workmatesŠdoesn't extend to the rest of the world. The adult collective at Paideia is well aware of this, their only explanation is that happy, fulfilled children don't usually grow up to struggle against injustice in the world because they have little personal experience of injustice. Instead many end up trying to maintain the happiness and freedom of their time at Paideia.
I wouldn't argue that an Anarchist school should be like a production line for young activistsbut I guess I would probably pro-actively arrange visiting workshops from activists and people from various struggles. I would probably also use more radical texts and videos in the school and continually emphasise how hollow your desire for justice is if you limit it only to your personal sphere.
But as the people at Paideia kept saying to me "Nadia es perfecta!" (Nothing is perfect!) and anyway, that Paideia should never be mimicked or replicatedit is very much of it's time, place and people.
I hope to find people somewhere in Australia to start the planning for some kind of Anarchist or Libertarian school. I wonder whether an informal Free School (maybe in a squatted Social Centre?) for both kids (maybe homeschooling network, afterschool stuff) and adults (workshops, skillshare, reading groups, alterna-uni) might be a starting point especially to establish a collective of committed people who could work together towards something bigger. If you're interested get in touch.
Fiona Taylor
amagi74/at/yahoo.com |
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