The Free Child
AS Neill
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COMMUNIST EDUCATION
People are tired of reading about Communism. It is impossible to think
about the system without emotion in these days of the cold war. Argument
about Communism is in the main political, but I want to approach the creed
from another angle, that of education in the school. I want to answer the
questions: Has Communism given us anything new and good in the educational
field? Has the new society given up the old world patriarchal authority?
Are children in the U.S.S.R. being educated so that they will be free people,
free from imposed adult standards in morals and behaviour, free from repression?
My outlook is not political. Years ago when urged by enthusiasts to join
the Communist Party I never did join, because I was waiting for evidence
that Communism would go the new way in education,the way of freedom. It
did not go that way, or rather it did not keep to that way.
In the years following the October Revolution Russian education was
free; children could choose to learn or play; they had self-government
in their schools. Some of us rejoiced in the belief that, at last, humanity
in Russia was to be given the opportunity to get away from the patriarchal
governance, and to develop naturally, biologically without repressions
and characterforming. Today we see our hopes shattered.
A booklet entitled
Hungary Builds a New Education says: “Free activity is frowned on, as a
method arising from a curriculum based on the subjective interests of the
pupils, and not directed by the teacher as a planned and conscious progress...
In the early days of the Soviet Union the schools were given over to the
progressives, and freedom was the educational watchword. But the development
of Soviet pedagogy led to the rejection of these methods after a criticism
of their failure to achieve the necessary high standards and social discipline.”
One disturbing factor about this is that thousands of teachers in Western countries would approve of this Hungarian statement.
I quote again, this time from Notes of a School Principal, by Ivan Novikov (Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1950):
“To us, education means moulding the human being, systematically and thoughtfully influencing his mentality and character... Our aim is the communist education of the youth.”
When I quote that to Communists who believe in Summerhill freedom they usually answer that Russia is surrounded by enemies, and must protect herself by having disciplined youth, to me an odd reply, for no one has ever argued that boys from schools like Summerhill were inferior as soldiers to-say-the boys from disciplined schools like our Public Schools.
The Communist defence of character smoulding is often apologetic . . . “Yes, I don’t think it a very good idea, but in this transition stage it is necessary. When real cornmunism comes everything will be different. Then we’ll get real freedom for children.” I wonder how. For generations we have had a paternal moulding of children, and the results are far from pleasing. Our sex morality alone is enough to damn our patriarchal system. And if children in Communist countries are being moulded in character, they will assuredly mould their children tomorrow, and the patriarchal pruning of young life will go on and on. Minorities, so far, are not much in evidence in the East, and what chance there will be for minorities to preach their gospel in the future no one can say. True, one hopeful sign recently is given in U.S.S.R. reports of teachers’ conferences about coeducation. Some expressed themselves strongly, condemning the abolition of coeducation after the age of ten or eleven. Personally I thought they gave the wrong reasons for supporting coeducation, one or two explaining how it can be “safe,” but certainly they discussed the question as freely as their view of education allowed, a view that, to judge by literature on Soviet schools, leaves out child psychology, child love, child freedom, child play, in short a view that is widely accepted by teachers in Britain and U.S.A. and Continental countries like Sweden and France.
This is a shattering thought. You cannot teach children with authority without suppressing instincts and traits in a child’s character.
Rules
for School Children, adopted by the Soviet of People’s Commissars for the
RSFSR in 1943, gives inter alia these rules
To obey without question the orders of school director and teachers.
To rise as the teacher or the director enters or leaves the classroom.
To obey his parents and assist in the care of little brothers and sisters.
Other rules include being respectful to teachers (boys removing their
hats), to abstain from bad language, smoking, gambling. At the end is a
warning: For violation of these rules the pupil is subject to punishment,
even to expulsion from school (The quotations are from the appendix of
I Want to be Like Stalin, an anticommunist book to be sure, but likely
to be factual in translating documents that others can read in the original.)
When I quoted these rules to a headmaster he exclaimed: “Damme, I hate
Communism but their schooling system seems to me to be very good.”
My point
is that every one of these rules has been practised in this country for
a few generations, and one would have expected to find that a new system,
in these days of depth psychology, would shoot far ahead.
One man may be against Communism because he fears to lose his profits, another because he wants to retain the right of free speech, another because he is an individualist who cannot shout with the crowd. I am against it simply because it shows no promise of a better world for youth ... oh, yes, it may have its crèches and playing grounds, its exams and chances to learn; the outer things, the material things, the things that matter for a career but not for the inner freedom of mankind. Visitors sympathetic to Russia say to me: You are all wrong to judge Russian education by its printed rule. You should see the happy faces of the children, the comradeship they have with their teachers.”
