Steemit & Decentralised Education: Revisit Ivan Illich thoughts

Ivan Illich, (born September 4, 1926, Vienna, Austria—died December 2, 2002, Bremen, Germany), Austrian philosopher and Roman Catholic priest known for his radical polemics arguing that the benefits of many modern technologies and social arrangements were illusory and undermined humans’ self-sufficiency, freedom, and dignity.

On of his main target of critics is mass education institution, in his best-known and most influential book, Deschooling Society (1971). Drawing on his historical and philosophical training as well as his years of experience as an educator, Illich presented schools as places where consumerism and obedience to authority were paramount and genuine learning was replaced by a process of advancement through institutional hierarchies accompanied by the accumulation of largely meaningless credentials.

Image credit of Global Freedom Movement.

We tend to see the links of exploitation between corporation and schools in simple connection: by getting children hooked, through advertising and other forms of school sponsorship, on brands while they are young. However the fact is, it was more deeper than that. Illich wrote, “School initiates the Myth of Unending Consumption. This modern myth is grounded in the belief that process inevitably produces something of value and, therefore, production necessarily produces demand. … The existence of schools produces the demand for schooling. Once we have learned to need school, all our activities tend to take the shape of client relationships to other specialised institutions.

It is ironic, in the most advanced and complex technology nowadays, the more dependent we are toward layers of professional and goods and services industries. Thanks to schooling system, people easily believe in the value and necessity of channeling autonomous, community activities into monetary commodities provided by professionals. Bury the dead? You need a funeral company. Feeling isolated and needing someone to talk to? You need a psychiatrist. Feeling sick? You need a doctor. Feeling unsafe? You need a police department. Want to help people? You need to join a social worker agency. Need a haircut? You need a professional that cuts hair.

In brilliant words, Illich say: "… degradation is accelerated when nonmaterial needs are transformed into demands for commodities."

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The school not only produce the dependence, but also obedience to authorities which is relying at the heart of schooling system, in form of curricula instructions. As warned by Illich, "Once a man or woman has accepted the need for school, he or she is easy prey for other institutions. Once young people have allowed their imaginations to be formed by curricular instruction, they are conditioned to institutional planning of every sort.” To keep schools position into community, “The public is indoctrinated to believe that skills are valuable and reliable only if they are the result of formal schooling.”

And what can we say about an education system that really doesn’t value critical thinking? In fact it teaches obedience. According to KnowledgeToday.org quoted by Newswire, “school is about memorizing what you are told short term and then repeating it. The bulk of how you are graded is by completing daily work. Obedience is, in fact, work force's most important quality in a worker bee.”

Stanley Milgram’s famous book, Obedience to Authority, as a reminder of just how easy it is for good, educated people to do bad, horrible things to other people simply because they are told to do so by an authority figure.

Image credit of Pinterest.

New learning system & steemit roles

Ivan Illich proposes the new learning system called "educational web" that should have serve three purposes:

1. It should provide all who want to learn with access to available resources at any time in their lives — The learnings process shouldn't depend on schools and teachers. The knowledge of facts and the understanding of life and work may come from friendship or love, while viewing TV, or while reading, from examples of peers or the challenge of a street encounter. Pupil can depend on self-motivated learning instead of employing teachers to bribe or compel the student to find the time and the will to learn.

2. Empower all who want to share what they know to find those who want to learn it from them — Someone who wants to learn knows that he needs both information and critical response to its use from somebody else. Criticism can also come from two directions: from peers or fellow learners whose immediate interests match mine, or from those consultant who will grant a share of knowledge in their superior experience. Consultants can guiding the learners the right questions to be raised among peers and to the deficiency of the answers they arrive at.

   A "skill model" is a person who possesses a skill and is willing to demonstrate its practice. Modern inventions permit us to incorporate demonstration into tape, film, or chart; even personal demonstration. I see no reason why other complex skills, such as the mechanical aspects of surgery and playing the fiddle, of reading or the use of directories and catalogues, could not be learned in the same way.

3. Furnish all who want to present an issue to the public with the opportunity to make their challenge known — Allow everyone to present an issue to the public, and supply them with anything they need

Steemit can support the above idea of Illich's new learning system that believe in technology may use to develop independence learning and teaching. With blockchain technology at the backbone, the freedom of speech and anti-plagiarism policy, any steemit users can act to share their knowledge to other, and vice versa.

Read the full text of Deschooling Society here!