Books
Ivan Illich: Deschooling Society
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MPH, MSc
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Schools "teach the need to be taught." Although Illich's book is now quite old (more than 50 years), and despite the fact that it was clearly written in a different historical context, the underlying issue he raises could not be more relevant today. Any teacher observes this consequence on a daily basis, not only among young people, but also among adults who have graduated from the most prestigious universities in our society.
For Illich, people's knowledge would improve with deschooling, just as the health of the population would improve with demedicalization (Medical Nemesis, a work that amazes readers familiar with scientific literature on public health and quaternary prevention in medicine). Illich spoke of a hidden curriculum, referring to the hidden motivation of education, which is the institutionalization of thought and behavior. Thus, schools teach above all to be dependent on institutions and on the directed process of teaching that "makes independent achievement suspect." Schools reproduce consumer society, and once the need for school is mythologically accepted from early childhood, the alienated individual is easy prey for other institutions.
"The escalation of schools is as destructive as the escalation of weapons." Illich denounces the existence of a totalizing curriculum that is indifferent to the reality of different communities and cultures. This bureaucratization of the curriculum destroys communities and cultures by expropriating people's ability to actively organize themselves according to their way of life. Educational bureaucratization produces a caste system between countries in which poor countries are inferior simply because of their lower level of institutional schooling. Similarly, social welfare bureaucracies destroy people's active participation in communities. Education loses its meaning of knowledge and active participation in one's own community and culture and becomes a product of mere quantification. As with education, poverty is turned into a positivist phenomenon, institutionalized, and becomes a bureaucratic object. Once bureaucratized, poverty becomes resistant to money, which is never enough to stop the institutionalization of poverty from perpetuating itself, creating institutional dependence in the community. State professionals serve social control, perpetuating problems through the process of institutionalization. The concept of welfare disseminated by Western bureaucracies is another product used as propaganda to legitimize the institutionalization process. Welfare becomes institutionalized, and institutionalization itself supplants welfare, destroying the very well-being of communities, just as the institutionalization of education supplants knowledge, and medicine supplants health.
Illich believes that the separation of state and education is necessary. Like Foucault, Illich considers educators to be primarily watchdogs, and school to be above all a process of indoctrination, selection, and custody: "school has become a place of confinement." Illich already foresaw the growing medicalization of schools: "the teacher as therapist feels authorized to intrude into the private life of his student." Today, educators have practically become diagnosticians of children, undoubtedly contributing to the escalation of overdiagnosis in mental health, a phenomenon widely recognized even by the directors of the DSM diagnostic manual (e.g., Frances). Schools are no longer independent of the ideology of governments and large corporations. Illich speaks of "the myth that bureaucracies guided by scientific knowledge are efficient and benevolent, the myth that greater production will provide a better life." Similar to Foucault's thesis, Illich sees in the process of institutionalization the true ideology of our political systems. And this is true regardless of who governs. With our institutionalization, the freedom of individuals and communities is increasingly reduced to the choice of packaged consumer products.
It is clear that there is a problem of dissatisfaction in the education system, with parents, teachers, and students often blaming the lack of money, the greater need for institutional buildings, the greater need for educators, etc. As Illich pointed out, when things are institutionalized, there is never enough money to solve problems. This is probably because it is in the interest of those in power to perpetuate many of the problems they claim to want to solve.
Cite as: Bordallo, A. Review of Ivan Illich: Deschooling Society. ICNS. Available at https://www.icns.es/en/news/review-book-ivan-illich-deschooling-soc...
Copyright© ICNS Institute
For Illich, people's knowledge would improve with deschooling, just as the health of the population would improve with demedicalization (Medical Nemesis, a work that amazes readers familiar with scientific literature on public health and quaternary prevention in medicine). Illich spoke of a hidden curriculum, referring to the hidden motivation of education, which is the institutionalization of thought and behavior. Thus, schools teach above all to be dependent on institutions and on the directed process of teaching that "makes independent achievement suspect." Schools reproduce consumer society, and once the need for school is mythologically accepted from early childhood, the alienated individual is easy prey for other institutions.
"The escalation of schools is as destructive as the escalation of weapons." Illich denounces the existence of a totalizing curriculum that is indifferent to the reality of different communities and cultures. This bureaucratization of the curriculum destroys communities and cultures by expropriating people's ability to actively organize themselves according to their way of life. Educational bureaucratization produces a caste system between countries in which poor countries are inferior simply because of their lower level of institutional schooling. Similarly, social welfare bureaucracies destroy people's active participation in communities. Education loses its meaning of knowledge and active participation in one's own community and culture and becomes a product of mere quantification. As with education, poverty is turned into a positivist phenomenon, institutionalized, and becomes a bureaucratic object. Once bureaucratized, poverty becomes resistant to money, which is never enough to stop the institutionalization of poverty from perpetuating itself, creating institutional dependence in the community. State professionals serve social control, perpetuating problems through the process of institutionalization. The concept of welfare disseminated by Western bureaucracies is another product used as propaganda to legitimize the institutionalization process. Welfare becomes institutionalized, and institutionalization itself supplants welfare, destroying the very well-being of communities, just as the institutionalization of education supplants knowledge, and medicine supplants health.
Illich believes that the separation of state and education is necessary. Like Foucault, Illich considers educators to be primarily watchdogs, and school to be above all a process of indoctrination, selection, and custody: "school has become a place of confinement." Illich already foresaw the growing medicalization of schools: "the teacher as therapist feels authorized to intrude into the private life of his student." Today, educators have practically become diagnosticians of children, undoubtedly contributing to the escalation of overdiagnosis in mental health, a phenomenon widely recognized even by the directors of the DSM diagnostic manual (e.g., Frances). Schools are no longer independent of the ideology of governments and large corporations. Illich speaks of "the myth that bureaucracies guided by scientific knowledge are efficient and benevolent, the myth that greater production will provide a better life." Similar to Foucault's thesis, Illich sees in the process of institutionalization the true ideology of our political systems. And this is true regardless of who governs. With our institutionalization, the freedom of individuals and communities is increasingly reduced to the choice of packaged consumer products.
It is clear that there is a problem of dissatisfaction in the education system, with parents, teachers, and students often blaming the lack of money, the greater need for institutional buildings, the greater need for educators, etc. As Illich pointed out, when things are institutionalized, there is never enough money to solve problems. This is probably because it is in the interest of those in power to perpetuate many of the problems they claim to want to solve.
Cite as: Bordallo, A. Review of Ivan Illich: Deschooling Society. ICNS. Available at https://www.icns.es/en/news/review-book-ivan-illich-deschooling-soc...
Copyright© ICNS Institute
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