School no place for children

People's Lawyer David Adelman concludes his interview with Richard House

Richat use RH]: In part one of this interview issue 35), we focused more on what’s wrong with the existing schooling system see Resources, below). Parents reading this will also want to know what they can do to give their children a better start in life. Before we look at practical initiatives, what general principles would you say are essential?

David Adelman DA]: First and foremost, all education is selfe-ducation. In order to develop fully, we must ultimately take personal responsibility for our own learning. The first myth of education is that we can be taught anything at all by other people.

From the age of about eight, we learn by repetition. What is repeated at school? Essentially, exercises in compliance and obedience, as summed up in the generalised school mantra, here we cannot say no and we cannot ask why!’

When we add to the toxic mix an attention deficit not the label used as an excuse to medicate boys and girls) in which 30 children get to share about 10 per cent of class air-time, we find that each child therefore gets only about 12 seconds each hour to express him/herself. Not a recipe for growth or critical, independent thinking, but for humiliation and erosion of the sovereign self. In such a hostile, sterile environment, the ability to question things, develop common sense and a moral compass are simply annihilated, or massively compromised.