They know what schools do to them.

Many students, especially those who are poor, intuitively know what the schools do for them. They school them to confuse process and substance.

Once these become blurred, a new logic is assumed: the more treatment there is, the better are the results; or, escalation leads to success. The pupil is thereby "schooled" to confuse

teaching with
_______learning,
grade advancement with
_______education,
a diploma with
_______competence, and
fluency with the
_______ability to say something new.

His imagination is "schooled" to accept service in place of value.

Medical treatment is mistaken for
_______health care,
social work for the
_______improvement of community life,
police protection for
_______safety,
military poise for
_______national security,
the rat race for
_______productive work.

Health, learning, dignity, independence, and creative endeavour are defined as little more than the performance of the institutions which claim to serve these ends, and their improvement is made to depend on allocating more resources to the management of hospitals, schools, and other agencies in question.

--- Ivan Illich, Deschooling Society (1973, p. 9)
http://www.amazon.com/Deschooling-Society-Open-Forum-Illich/dp/0714508799

Comments

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Kip Austin Hinton

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