Reconceiving high school education.

If we want to develop a truly progressive education, one oriented around building a student's ability for genuine autonomy, then we can no longer afford the luxury of neglecting the student's material autonomy.

Meaning, we know that the real problem of education lies in its subservience to the economy. The idealists among educators focus on developing critical thinking, exposing students to higher values and ideas than crass materialism. Yet at the end of the day, the student is still forced into a corporate role in one form another. Very little can change this, and most students understand exactly how little is offered them in terms of chances for genuine expression or community or dignified working and living.

To reorient education such that it creates the grounding of a free citizenry, we need only tailor schooling towards skills necessary for autonomous economic existence.

To say it simply:

Teach high school students the skills necessary to maintain small businesses, independent organizations and clubs, and, especially, cooperatives, worker and consumer.

This primarily affects a few subjects- economics, civics, home economics, trades education, etc. It can also be effectively incorporated into training in applied math and science, in humanistic efforts, and in arts education.

If this becomes a focus in high school and college education, we will generate tremendous numbers of independent firms and cooperatives.

I would further claim that the skills necessary to prosperously maintain these types of organizations are precisely those skills and values that we attempt to capture in the tradition of humanistic education.

Loose possibilities:
-science education tailored around small farming and small manufacturing, keeping fact/theory and practice interwoven in the students' experiences.
-civics education oriented primarily around teaching the skills needed in participatory democratic groups; and with units on how to form nonprofit organizations and community groups
-liberal arts education focused on critical thinking and incorporating some of the principles of project management and development
-economics focused on small business accounting and markets, internal perspective
-arts education with some incorporation of the business of arts, i.e. forming labels, distribution, hosting shows and events, etc.
-a general course, elective, currently nonexistent, on the principles of democratic, egalitarian management- incorporating some philosophy, some practice, a shared class project, reflective writing, etc.

rhetorical pitches, honest ones: Jeffersonian education; independent education; anti-corporate education

develop a variety of syllabi, advertise em, boom.