First published in 1973, The Free School explores the roots of the educational malaise- sociological, historical, and psychological- and looks at what could be done and what is being done to free education from its rigid and hierarchical nineteenth-century organization. By placing schooling within its larger social context, the author illuminates many reasons behind the troubled situation in our secondary schools. Our mistake has been, he thinks, to confuse education (in its truest sense) with schooling. He concludes his analysis with a valuable account of the ways in which new educational ideas are being tried out in such places as Countesthorpe, Wyndham, the Parkway Program in Philadelphia, and the Open University. This book is a must read for schoolteachers and educationists.
Acknowledgements Part I: A time to recant 1. The absolute paradox 2. A plethora of educationists 3. End of an illusion Part II: What’s wrong with schooling anyway? 1. Schooling conditions everyone to the acceptance of schooling as necessary 2. Schooling is an impersonal process 3. Schooling is lacking in opportunities for worthwhile activity 4. Schooling distorts values 5. Schooling makes nonsense of the concept of equality of opportunity 6. Schooling discourages independent learning 7. Schooling provides an inferior learning environment 8. Schooling is geared to the covert objectives of a technocratic society 9. Schooling creates an artificial demand for more schooling 10. Schooling splits societies into factions 11. Schooling stands in the way of liberal education so long as it remains compulsory Part III: The changing school 1. The objectives of schooling 2. The extent of schooling 3. The structure of schools (from monastic cell to department store) Part IV: Deschooling in action 1. The open school 2. Degrees of freedom: time of one’s own 3. A place of one’s own 4. Day release into life release Appendixes Index
Biography
W. Kenneth Richmond
