School kids have been walking out of school and taking action all over the world in order to protest against the war. In London they went to Whitehall and did not just passively allow the police to tell them what to do, but fought back and tried to climb the gates into Downing Street. In Oxford 500 school kids walked out and took over the town centre, forcing an Army recruitment stall off the streets, trapping soldiers in their van for half an hour, and blocked the roads. At Parliament Hill School the teachers locked the kids in to prevent them from going on the anti-war action.
They are not just protesting against this war, they are fed up with a world where such wars are possible, fed up with the authoritative, stifling, boring factory of school. Fed up with being the victims of muggings then blamed as anti-social. In London 50,000 kids bunk off every day. Now there are hundreds of new initiatives and partnerships designed to control this. The government is introducing an anti-social behaviour white paper so parents of truant kids can be fined up to £8400. They are trying to control an increasingly explosive situation. The widening gap between wages (or dole money) and the cost of living means that young people are having to live with their parents for longer, threatening the autonomy young people have achieved in recent years. In Italy in the 70s students took over schools and universities and turned them into social centres, to create their own autonomous spaces.
Charles Clarke, the Secretary of State for Education speaks of team spirit: Everyone in a school teachers, pupils, parents, classroom assistants, technicians, administration, caretakers, catering staff are part of a team and the school itself is likely to do best where the school is working well. What a great team it is! Frequently kids kill themselves because they are bullied by their teachers or classmates. No government has increased competition in the classroom more than New Labour. Their obsession with tests and tables places more and more pressure on students. Most kids sit at least 30 formal tests before they reach secondary school; some take as many as 43. Even 7 year olds are assessed now! How much longer do they think students will accept this? A team based on competition is a strange thing. Not surprising that another element is needed to get it working. Clarke: Teamwork is crucial. But the grit in the oyster is leadership. This leadership is nothing more than a nice word for oppression.
School is there to prepares for future exploitation. To accept low wages and bad conditions because we failed at school. The system is set so that 80% of people will get less than a good mark, thereby having their self-esteem knocked enough so they will be more resigned to their fate of exploited worker, parent, unemployed reserve workforce. The discipline at school prepares us for obeying the orders of the bosses. School learning is split into single subjects; everything is reduced to answers to be spat out in exams. The division of subjects prepares us for the division of jobs people doing one boring job over and over again for years. Human existence could be a fluid moving between activities, ideas, creativity the beauty of building, the dance of design, the poetry of pottery, the music of maths, the love of languages (not so sure about the lyricism of that one )
Schools are part of a world where creativity, spontaneity and individual expression only count if you can sell them or they help you work profitably. This is why kids are fed up with knowledge they dont really need, which is knowledge for their future bosses. Throughout history there is also a tradition of working class people organising their own education. In prisons, within social movements, organising their own discussion groups etc. This continues to this day and what each person learns in moments of struggle is part of it.
When we act together in struggle we learn more than they could ever teach us. It is in this act that we really find out what real cooperation can be. We are not divided into specified roles, we can think for ourselves, disagree and discuss, act together, plan out practical things and work out how to do it together, get into contact with other groups, break down the separation into generations. We learn languages to communicate with students struggling in other countries, we learn about technology to communication over the internet, we have to work out what we really think, because it matters for once. We read other peoples words to help us understand the present, to inspire us and give us new ideas. This reading feeds into our discussions and decisions it is not cold and sterile as it is in school. This is where we can learn what a better future society could look like. When we see what is possible with each other it makes a mockery of their discipline.