Rethinking And Criticizing The Educational Concept Of "Non-School Society"

Ivan Illich is a social critic,a radical educationist,the founder of the educational concept of Deschooling Society,and an outstanding leader of the Deschooling Movement.The “deschooling society” proposed in Deschooling Society is the core concept of his educational thoughts.This concept provides a special perspective to reexamine education for people.However,this thought-inspiring concept contains both logical and explanatory insufficiency,which cannot be ignored but has not been fully explored in extant literature.As a result,it is necessary to critically examine the concept of “deschooling society” to get a better understanding of Illich’s ideas.The special international and American background of the United States in the 1960 s and1970s constitutes the background of Illich’s “deschooling society” education concept.The theoretical basis of “deschooling society” lies in the theory of educational conflict,the theory of social criticism,the theory of anarchism,and the theory of lifelong education.Based on the theory of educational conflict,Illich put forward his doubts on the existence of the school.Rooted in the social criticism theory,anarchism and Rousseau’s Romanticism,Ililch’s strongly appealed to solutions that respect human nature,and he advocated abolishing schools to eliminate alienation and realize human freedom and autonomy.The theory of lifelong education also provides a theoretical foundation for Ililch’s view of denying school and advocating the idea of “deschooling society”.Illich’s exploration of “deschooling society” contains three themes: why abolishing the school,abolishing what kind of school,and how to carry out education after school abolition.Illich advocates that the excessive institutionalization of schools,the attention of invisible curriculum together with the pursuit of academic certificates lead to the impoverishment of modern education and the dilemma of the achievement of educational equity.Therefore,he insists on abolishing the schools which are full of false myths.These schools,including modern religious schools,schools with false public utilities and schools full of institutionalized mythology,can not promote but impede human health growth.After the abolition of all these types of schools,the development of educational activities would be replaced by what he calls the learning network,mainly through four services,such as Reference Services to Educational Objects,Skill Exchanges,Peer-Matching,Professional Educators.The educational concept of “deschooling society” reveals some serious shortcomings and defects of traditional school education,which is of great significance for promoting the reform and development of school revolution.But objectively speaking,there are some theoretical defects in this concept,and many Illich’s views are over radical.The concept,on the one hand,contains some imperfect and unreasonable ideas from the education conflict theory,the theory of social criticism,and the anarchism theory;on the other hand,he may be misunderstand the theory of lifelong education,and he lacks a good understanding of “childhood”.Illich exaggerates personal subjectivity and ignores the advantages of public schooling in his writing.In terms of practice,it is hard to put into practice Illich’s theory and it may encounter many practical difficulties to abolish school and to create a learning network to achieve a non school-based society.