FAQ: Ban on school coercion

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End to compulsory schooling

When we stop forcing kids to attend school, the world will be more beautiful (see: Compulsory schooling must end).

Coercion will end when we universally adopt the Declaration of Educational Emancipation (supported by Dr Peter Gray).

We plan to begin in Poland to inspire the rest of the world.

In Poland, we came up with the following initiatives:

This file is to provide simple answers to questions about the world without coercion in learning.

See also: This text in Polish

Sign the petition

  • Q: Where can I sign your petition?
  • A: You can sign here. The petition is worded in Polish, but you do not need to reside in Poland or be Polish. Success in Poland will help success everywhere

No more learning

  • Q: If we ban coercion, everyone will stop learning
  • A: Lifelong learning is a natural quest of the human brain. Lethargy is the result of school coercion. See: Pleasure of learning

Illiterate society

Socioeconomic implications

  • Q: What about economic and social implication of the change
  • A: When we fought to end slavery, we used human rights as the prime motivation. The fate of cotton farms was secondary. Modern societies adapt well to change. We do not need to prove it, but social and economic benefits will be fantastic. Statistics that demonstrate the value of school are skewed by the survivorship bias

Violence

  • Q: End of slavery resulted in the worst war in the US history. You are brewing serious trouble
  • A: End of coercion will change little in how society is organized. Many children will go to school the next day. Rapid cultural change is possible, and those with vested interest in coercive schooling will need to adapt

Teachers

  • Q: What about the teachers?
  • A: Teachers will be free to adapt to their best ability. They make their classes more attractive to retain students. Good teachers will benefit from a thriving market of individual tutoring. Teachers are strongly represented among the original backers of the petition (Stiburski, Durrie, Hannam, Ostrowski, etc.)

Neglected children

  • Q: What about children of pathological families
  • A: We can use specialized agencies to assist families in trouble. These will be analogous to resolving other forms of abuse in family. Note that enslavement by school or rejection by the school are major contributors to pathologies (e.g. addictions)

Abused children

  • Q: How will we make sure children do not get abused at home?
  • A: We can use specialized agencies. We can invest more in hotlines for abused children

Controlling society

School duty

  • Q: What about "school duty" for parents?
  • A: Parental obligations in providing conditions for education are not different from the obligations to feed and clothe children. They can be handled in similar manner

Conspiracy theories

All social experiments should be introduced gradually

Poverty

  • Q: Countries that have no compulsory schooling are poor and dumb. Do you want us to revert to the level of Papua New Guinea?
  • A: Correlation is no causation. The correct interpretation is the opposite of yours. Compulsory schooling is costly and hard to implement. It might have arrived a century earlier if it was easy to sustain. The correlation between poverty and "educational freedom" is reverse. Poor countries cannot afford universal schooling. The first developed country that will ban coercion in schooling will experience a rapid boost in the well-being of the population. As wealth, well-being, creativity, and productivity feed of each other, the change will generate a stronger feedback loop between developing brains, economies, and cultures. See example of Oman (rich country with no coercive laws in education)

Futility of strikes

Futility of petitions

Why change?

Human rights

Pacification of the strike

  • Q: School strike will be easily pacified by the adults. The authorities can speed-legislate a law to penalize parents for truancy
  • A: Here are some reasons why we are optimistic:
    • Climate strikes prove otherwise. Large protests can paralyze the school system and trigger the educational round table
    • There were many other strikes that were treated with reasonable respect and patience. Student strike has many properties that might actually keep it alive for longer. For details see comment in this post (Polish)
    • Truancy is difficult to penalize in individual students. Massive protest would be the best defense. An authoritarian reaction might actually fuel the determination of students (and parents)
    • The demands of students imply little cost to the government. A round table debate with only one precondition: predetermined set of experts known to respect student freedom

Amending the Constitution

  • Q: Do you have any proposition on how to change the constitution? Your petition sounds childish. Did you consult lawyers?
  • A: Our petition was voiced and formulated primarily by children. The language must reflect that. It is addressed to an excellent expert on human rights and the constitution. We have many plans and ideas, but the addressee will know best how to take the grievance further

Hashtags

 #StudentSpring2022 #WiosnaUczniow #SchoolSlavery #LexFreedom

Picture

Picture courtesy Obozy demokratyczne and Pixabay:

Student Spring 2024

This text explains the reasons and strategies behind a school strike "Student Spring 2024" aimed at ending compulsory schooling

Hashtags: #WiosnaUczniow, #StudentSpring2024

More information:

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