When we teach authoritarianism what do we expect?

Why schools and homes should be democratic.

Hello friends,

one of my new things is that I want to gradually move all my social media writing over to Substack, so that it can live in a place without algorithms and censorship (I know Substack isn’t a perfect platform, but here we are in this equally imperfect world.)

One of the most glaring parallels that I’ve observed in parenting and educating, is our continued reliance on hierarchy and power imbalances to get children to do what we want.

‘What we want’ is often framed as ‘what is best for them’ or ‘what we think they should do’. We are loathe to just admit that often, what children are made to do, is dependent on our own misconceptions, agendas and preferences, and so we call it ‘in their own best interest.’

Because children often don’t want to do what’s ‘in their own best interest’ (which in itself might be a red flag), we need to find ways to make them do it.

And that’s where hierarchical structures, which already exist, are utilized to allow us to do ‘what is best for our children’.

In 1990, while accepting New York Teacher of the Year award, John Taylor Gatto said, “The truth is that schools don’t really teach anything except how to obey orders. This is a great mystery to me because thousands of humane, caring people work in schools as teachers and aides and administrators, but the abstract logic of the institution overwhelms their individual contributions.”

When I critique schools, I am often not talking about individual educators but about the way the system is set up to enable and sometimes force educators and staff to comply with it, regardless of how they might feel or the change they might be trying to effect.

radical.mothering

A post shared by @radical.mothering

I wrote this post in July 2024, well before we knew the broligarchy was coming - and now here we are: we are being confronted with a huge proportion of people who chose to go out there and vote for authoritarianism over democracy, for patriarchal, white supremacist hierarchy over partnership, for individualism over collectivism.

This is no surprise.

If you raise chidlren in a dictatorial, hierarchical and coercive system, how can you expect them to understand, protect and practice democracy and collectivism?

How can we expect a young person raised in a family where they were dominated by those with more power, or educated in a school with a strict hierarchy, lack of democratic representation and a focus on competition and comparison, to grow into an adult that notices the active erosion of democracy?

If school is a preparation for life, as many parents are led to believe, what life are we actually preparing children for?

Schools are not democratic institutions. There is usually a pretty solid hierarchy among the adults, and the children are usually at the bottom of it (often with older children given a small degree of power over younger ones.) Most of the rules and compulsory requirements are not up for democratic debate.

Young people do not have much of a choice about where to go to school, or whether to go. Even though children’s right to have a say in decisions about their daily lives is enshrined in the UNCRC, this is not the case in the vast majority of schools. Children have a limited choice around what to learn, how to learn it, and when to learn it. Young people have to follow specific schedules, curricula and school rules that may or may not be arbitrary.

If we were to place an adult in a similar environment, and expect them to go there every day without the ability to push back, it would be a violation of their human rights.

As Alfie Kohn points out, many “political progressives” who want more funding and resources for public education, are not also “educational progressives” - in other words, they aren’t willing to also take a long hard look at how the way education is implemented is actually part of the problem.

We cannot raise children in coercive, undemocratic, competitive environments and expect them to become adults who are able to think critically, to hold multiple truths, to work in partnership with others, to recognise violations of power and to use their own power wisely, to prioritise equality and justice, and to be able to collaborate over shared values.

None of the above is practiced in school. And sometimes it is not practiced at home either.

It is not enough to teach it. You can teach about social justice and accurate history and civics all you want, but if you don’t practice the very things you are preaching about, then it is all just words.

We need to recognise that if we parent in an authoritative or authoritarian way, we are, to a degree, modeling that those with power get to make decisions and enforce them.

We need to recognise that the way schools are structured is preparing children to live under, and perhaps practice, authoritarianism not democracy.

We need democratic education and democratic parenting. The methods our parents used aren’t going to cut it. As Akilah S. Richards says, “We cannot keep using tools of oppression and expect to raise free people,” which echoes Audre Lorde’s truth that “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.”

We cannot raise children with disrespect, violence and coercion and expect them to co-create a just, equal world.

It doesn’t work - the world we live in is proof.

Photo by Duy Pham on Unsplash

We need education that is liberatory, that centres children as people, questions power and prioritises collaboration and reciprocity. We need to see learning as joyful rather than a means to an end. We need parenting that looks more like partnership and solidarity than authoritative ticking of boxes.

I know people might be like, “But humans are just like that. We will hoard power if we can,” and to an extent, I think that is true (yes, I’m a little more jaded than I used to be!). I think it’s true in the sense that I think humans have a huge capacity for love and collaboration, and also a huge capacity for violence and domination. Neither one is necessarily going to express itself, and they are not mutually exclusive.

And I think that’s why we can’t rely on individual people to make a million individual choices while living under capitalism - we’ve got to work to change the material conditions that make it easier for humans to lean into their more collaborative, caring instincts. We can’t do this alone. We need structures that actually make it desirable for us to collaborate rather than compete against one another. Our current school system, and our current view of childhood and education, are not it.

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Tell me your thoughts on this!

And if it resonated, please share it with a friend :) It is free to read and my free posts will always remain free.

I would love this post to reach more people, especially during these bleak times.

I hope your week is as un-bleak as possible!!

Fran x