The CIDOC Documenta: Alternatives in Education, Nos. 75, 76, 77, and 78 are four collections of papers, reports, and source materials for discussion, consisting of “original and reprinted materials used in Centro Intercultural de Documentación (CIDOC) related seminars.” More than one-fourth of the articles are by CIDOC’s director, Ivan Illich. Other contributors range from articles by John Holt to Chief Justice Warren Burger.
This potpourri is of special interest to those concerned with examining Illich’s unique and provocative views. Although Illich’s recent books, Deschooling Society and Tools of Conviviality present the ideas developed in these four volumes, the CIDOC Documenta are most useful as a vivid demonstration of the development of Illich’s ideas over a period of time. One also has at hand several of the key documents he has cited in his books.
In such articles as “Why We Must Abolish Schooling” (No. 75, 222/pp. 1-15) and “Retooling Society—a Draft” (No. 78, 369/pp. 1-53) he attempts to go beyond writers like Holt, Feathersone, and Friedenberg. He suggests, in keeping with his radical stance, that the school in both industrialized countries and poorer countries is the major factor in creating and preserving the consumer society. In schools the “hidden curriculum” preserves the power and privilege of the schooled.
Two centuries ago the U.S. led the world in a movement to disestablish the monopoly of a single church. Now we need a constitutional disestablishment of the school, and thereby of a system which legally combines prejudice with discrimination. The first article of a bill of rights for a modern, humanist society would correspond to the first amendment to the U.S. Constitution: “The state shall make no law with respect to the establishment of education.” There would be no ritual obligatory at all.
Thus, the schools are the single source of society’s ills. Even Cuba will not succeed, he states, as long as it aims for universal schooling.
At the grammar school and high school level, however, Cuba, like all other Latin American countries, acts as though passage through a period defined as the “school age” were an unquestionable goal for all, delayed merely by a temporary shortage of resources . . . the mere existence of school discourages the poor from taking control of their own learning (Illich, No. 75, 222/pp. 4-5).
It is ironic that the weakness of Illich’s arguments becomes apparent from careful readings of two articles in CIDOC Documenta—one on Chinese education (Paul Bady, “The Educational Revolution in China,” CIDOC, Cuaderno No. 76, 286/pp. 1-22) and especially the reprint from the Harvard Educational Review (Samuel Bowles, “Cuban Education and the Revolutionary Ideology,” No. 77, 343/pp. 1-54).
Bowles in a lucid, well-documented article, based on data he gathered during a trip to Cuba, argues that “the boundaries between school and society are never distinct; in revolutionary Cuba, they have been blurred beyond recognition. Revolution and education are inseparable facets of the process of social transformation,” (Bowles, No. 77, 343/p. 2).
An examination of education in prerevolutionary Cuba and in prerevolutionary China indicates that the peasants and workers had already experienced “deschooling.” Yet for Illich current Cuban and Chinese efforts have failed because they have not abolished the sacred cow, the school.
At a conference on “Deinstitutionalization of Education” in 1971, Illich was asked “Do you see any signs of the disestablishment of schools?” He responded: “The awareness that schools are not feasible will become clear by the end of next year. I’m certain that the disestablishment of schools will quite suddenly move to the agenda,” (Ivan Illich, Everett Reimer, John A. Wilkinson, Richard Bellman, y otros, “A Center Conference: Toward a Society Without Schools,” from Center Report, No. 76, 295/p. 2).
His failure as a prophet does not stem from an inability to describe the failure of schooling. He has done this eloquently, attacking the astronomical costs, the authoritarianism, the bureaucratic processes, the inhibition of creativity, the consequences of credentialism and licensing, and the frustration of the poor. However, Illich and his supporters do not go beyond the analysis and description of the negative aspects of school and some guidelines for reform, such as peer matching and reference services. Ian Lister (“The Concept of Deschooling and the Future of Secondary Education,” No. 77, 349/p. 3) suggests that Illich and his allies share two major weaknesses: “They are lacking in convincing evidence—particularly empirical evidence—and their programmes of alternatives tend to be speculative paper proposals.”
In the case of Latin America, it is not primarily the schools that block the development of the potential of the rural and urban masses. The failure to provide educational opportunity is another symptom; it is an example of what Bowles calls the “correspondence principle,” i.e., the correspondence between education and the capitalist economy (Bowles, No. 77, 347/9). The Illich papers and writings by Illich supporters are fascinating critiques of schooling, but they will continue to remain “speculative proposals” as long as they fail to consider the crucial variable—the relationship between the military-industrial-large landholder complex and all institutions, including the schools.
