Have you ever read Ivan Illich's (1971) book Deschooling Society? Stop what you are doing now and add this book to your reading list.
(Deschooling Society was book #4 of my Ten Book Challenge. Only 6 more reads to go for this!)
Deschooling Society is a philosophical overhaul emphasizing how we have put ourselves in a situation in which we always opt for more schooling as the solution to pretty much anything. Instead, Illich suggests we ought to consider less schooling (deschooling) as a better alternative in terms of approaching an education from a societal standpoint.
In this post this week, I will reflect upon some quotes that really struck me within the text.
The Radical Alternative
"The most radical alternative to school would be a network or service which gave each man the same opportunity to share his current concern with others motivated by the same concern." - Ivan Illich
Bear in mind, this book was written in the 1970's, so the methods in which he provides to go about sharing one's current concern while motivated by the same concern... wasn't nearly as easy. How did you find this in a phonebook?
The lesson from this is simple. Find the others.
Enter the internet.
Looking to learn more about crypto? Music production? Fashion? Baking?
A simple search on your search engine, and you more than likely can find a forum, message board, discord server, Facebook group or perhaps even a slack channel filled with others concerned about your niche topic here. Join these groups, start a conversation, make friends and meet collaborators. Discuss your findings, share additional educational resources and learn in public.
Better yet, if this group doesn't exist yet, start it!
Learning Webs
My favorite part of Deschooling Society was the sixth chapter entitled Learning Webs. This part was fascinating, considering yet again the simple ideas expressed by Illich in the early 1970’s and the lack of innovation within the educational space still to our present day.
"People who want to discuss specific books or articles would probably pay to find discussion partners." - Ivan Illich
I love the simplicity of this quote and the idea it represents.
By all means, if there is a specific reading… say for example a textbook on starting a business, reading this bulky thing by yourself can be very challenging. So, you decide to construct a reading group around this. Individuals should pay for this organizational effort. There is this bias that I think a lot of us have of wincing if something isn't free (especially online).
Yet, if you recognize each time that we have to bypass an advertisement or two to engage with the content we are looking for, this is not a free product. Worst of all - there typically is no live human behind it. Paying an actual human behind the curatorial work of organizing resources to learn about a given topic and setting up ways to meet both asynchronuosly as well as synchronously is WELL worth it.
It is time for us to start recognizing this and rightfully compensating individuals for creating a dedicated learning experience while online.
P.S. the best part about this is I can guarantee the price will not be anywhere near as high as the typical graduate school course expense.
Peer-Matching Network
"The operation of a peer-matching network would be simple. The user would identify himself by name and address and describe the activity for which he sought a peer. A computer would send him back the names and addresses of all those who had inserted the same description. It is amazing that such a simple utility has never been used on a broad-scale for publicly valued activity." - Ivan Illich
Emphasizing that very last line of this quote is important.
“It is amazing that such a simple utility has never been used on a broad-scale for publicly valued activity.”
Why is there such a lack of a thing in existence? It shouldn’t be this hard to find others interested in the same topics as we are.
And that is the thing, there are ways. It is just a matter of filtering through the noise and having patience in finding the signal. Over the span of the past year and a half, since I really started to get serious about my independent education, I have found great communities dedicated to very-niche topics.
This has ranged from learning more about the theories of Marshall McLuhan with the Center for The Study of Digital Life as a fellow, learning about Complexity Science with the Santa Fe Institute, and Digital Wellbeing from the University of York through the FutureLearn platform.
These topics touched on above, served as a light post in helping myself discover/meet individuals whom I have gone on to be intellectual correspondents with.
This then led to me having amazing conversations about alternatives for higher-education with the wonderful people I have met online.
I am grateful to have found hyperlink.academy as an online solution for putting out something that I would like to learn, and to see if others would be intrigued to learn with me as well. Running a Newsletter Creator Club was only the very beginning of how I see hyperlink playing a role in my independent education.
This is why I am the most confident I have ever been, in terms of going down a learning rabbit hole, and finding the existing communities out there built around this specific topic. As well as having the confidence to create a community dedicated to something in which having a thriving community seems to be lacking.
Bringing it in-person
What about bringing all of the various ideas we are intrigued by for better organizing self-education with an extended group… in person?
What about a new institution where you create your own learning program? A learning program where you are the one that gives yourself assignments.
Now how about a gathering space for self-educated individuals seeking to find community with others in their locality? To share their best practices? Find collaborators, you know the same thing I have hammered on, about the best ways to learn together online… just transferring it into the offline world.
Where can this take place?
The public library? Co-working spaces? Community centers?
Do these places have a structure in place to facilitate individuals in person to craft an exquisite online education?
Increasingly, my thought is that this is a place that does not exist. Better yet, it is a place that needs to exist.
It could take the form of a subscription, akin to the way a gym does.
I think having access to mentors who have also taken the self-educational journey, and can help craft a detailed “curriculum” or moreso an educational action plan could be extremely benefical.
The exciting part about this all, is that it such a new thing.
Literally, we can start creating this right now.
An in-person educational/learning center that places emphasis on self-education empowered by the educational resources made available by the internet. This could be the first lifelong educational institution that isn’t a church.
Attacking your self-education can be an intimidating task, and yet, having the opportunity day-in and day-out to attack it with other individuals looking to hone in on their topics of niche they would like to become experts in, would be damn contagious.
Passion is infectious. True dedication to learning is inspiring.
Here is my favorite part about the process of a well meaning self-education.
We teach ourselves. Then we teach others.
Let’s start the next wave of self-educational institutions empowered by the internet and bring them in-person, the time has never been better to do so.
Thanks for the inspiration Mr. Illich.
Cheers to lifelong learning,
Adam Bartley
Parting Note
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