Haworth Robert H. (ed.) Anarchist Pedagogies: Collective Actions, Theories, and Critical Reflections on Education

PM Press, 2012. — 352 p. — ISBN 978-1-60486-484-7.Education is a challenging subject for anarchists. Many are critical about working within a state-run education system that is embedded in hierarchical, standardized, and authoritarian structures. Numerous individuals and collectives envision the creation of counterpublics or alternative educational sites as possible forms of resistance, while other anarchists see themselves as “saboteurs” within the public arena — believing that there is a need to contest dominant forms of power and educational practices from multiple fronts. Of course, if anarchists agree that there are no blueprints for education, the question remains, in what dynamic and creative ways can we construct nonhierarchical, anti-authoritarian, mutual, and voluntary educational spaces?Contributors to this edited volume engage readers in important and challenging issues in the area of anarchism and education. From Francisco Ferrer’s modern schools in Spain and the Work People’s College in the United States, to contemporary actions in developing “free skools” in the U.K. and Canada, to direct-action education such as learning to work as a “street medic” in the protests against neoliberalism, the contributors illustrate the importance of developing complex connections between educational theories and collective actions. Anarchists, activists, and critical educators should take these educational experiences seriously as they offer invaluable examples for potential teaching and learning environments outside of authoritarian and capitalist structures. Major themes in the volume include: learning from historical anarchist experiments in education, ways that contemporary anarchists create dynamic and situated learning spaces, and finally, critically reflecting on theoretical frameworks and educational practices.Introduction. (Robert H. Haworth).
Anarchism & Education: Learning from Historical Experimentations.
Alejandro de Acosta. Dialogue 1 (On a desert island, between friends).
Justin Mueller. Anarchism, the State, and the Role of Education.
David Gabbard. Updating the Anarchist Forecast for Social Justice in Our Compulsory Schools.
Saku Pinta. Educate, Organize, Emancipate: The Work People’s College and The Industrial Workers of the World.
Joseph Todd. From Deschooling to Unschooling: Rethinking Anarchopedagogy after Ivan Illich.
Anarchist Pedagogies in the “Here and Now”.
Alejandro de Acosta. Dialogue 2 (In a crowded place, between strangers).
Matthew Weinstein. Street Medicine, Anarchism, and Ciencia Popular.
Isabelle Fremeaux, John Jordan. Anarchist Pedagogy in Action: Paideia, Escuela Libre.
Jeffery Shantz. Spaces of Learning: The Anarchist Free Skool.
Sara C. Motta. The Nottingham Free School: Notes Toward a Systemization of Praxis.
Jeffery Shantz. Learning to Win: Anarchist Infrastructures of Resistance.
Elsa Noterman, Andre Pusey. Inside, Outside, and on the Edge of the Academy: Experiments in Radical Pedagogies.
Caroline K. Kaltefleiter, Anthony J. Nocella II. Anarchy in the Academy: Staying True to Anarchism as an Academic-Activist.
Philosophical Perspectives and Theoretical Frameworks.
Alejandro de Acosta. Dialogue 3 (On a mountaintop, between two who are in fact one).
Alex Khasnabish. To Walk Questioning: Zapatismo, the Radical Imagination, and a Transnational Pedagogy of Liberation.
Lucy Nicholas. Anarchism, Pedagogy, Queer Theory and Poststructuralism: Toward a Positive Ethical Theory, of Knowledge and the Self.
Curry Stephenson Malott. Anarcho-Feminist Psychology: Contributing to Postformal Criticality.
Nathan Jun. Paideia for Praxis: Philosophy and Pedagogy as Practices of Liberation.
Alejandro de Acosta. That Teaching Is Impossible.
Abraham P. DeLeon. Against the Grain of the Status Quo: Anarchism behind Enemy Lines.
Afterword. Let the Riots Begin. (Allan Antliff).
Contributors.
Acknowledgments.
Index.