The Other Education - better and possible?

Educational Studies essay Juha Uski (jjou@ruc.dk), HIB May 2007

Introduction Economic neoliberalism, corruption and as a whole, subjection of schooling under performativity criteria serving economic interest groups has driven progressive education systems in a dead end situation in many places. Lack of political will for putting education for all as a priority over private interests is a reflection of disillusionment over centralised planned economies. In the places where the worst effects are felt, the systematic crisis leads to a search for different solutions. In my travels I have visited community schools organised by local volunteers, started from scratch to respond to the needs of the people and to educate them away from their state as the poorest of the poor. I have visited several such schools and educational centers in Zambia and in South India. But in those cases we are still talking of projects that basically are seen as complementary to the official education. Something different happens in Chiapas, Mexico; and therefore I thought the phenomenon of La Otra Educacin (The Other Education) would be an interesting issue to research. I also find it an interesting issue because it is an openly political project, related to a left-wing political project of Zapatism, which began as a guerrilla movement but later apparently abandoned the violent path although it is not certain whether the direction towards nonviolence will be maintained. Today qualitative research, influenced by the postmodern sensibility that doubts all and shuns all kinds of commitments (which might scare potential sponsors of research or are not tolerated by the actual ones), often attempts to study things with a naturalistic approach.1 A naturalistic approach would have some benefits, such as the recognition of diverse voices and ways of life with as little prior judgment as possible. However, in practice I personally find such an approach impossible in the field of social studies and humanities. We human beings are living and acting in and upon the same world or life - and not each of us lost in our separate multiple realities and in desperate need of finding some common ground in minimalistic and rationalistic schemes. Instead of pure (or puritanian!) naturalism, in my opinion social studies and humanities should refer to human projects with open commitments or at least aspirations in one or another direction. My storytelling2 is related to the narratives that I believe in, even when I also believe in being critical towards them and striving to constantly deepen the meaningfulness of those projects as well as to improve their implementation.
1 Denzin, N.K. & Lincoln, Y.S.: Introduction: Entering the field of qualitative research, in Denzin, N.K. & Lincoln, Y.S. (eds.): The Landscape of Qualitative Research: Theories and Issues, page 2. Thousand Oaks / Sage, 1998. 2 Ibid., page 3.

That said, I'm obliged to make a short definition of what I am looking for. As a participant in a thought current known as New Humanism, originating in Latin America, my interest is in advancing these proposals: (...) considering the human being as the central value, affirming equality of opportunities for all, recognizing diversity and opposing all discrimination, promoting freedom of thought, and struggling against violence in all its forms (...)3 It is with this agenda and point of view that I will consider the efforts of the Zapatists in the field of education the motivation for directing my look to this particular case has to do with learning: aspiring to learn new ways and examples of fulfilling the above mentioned proposals. I have stated the aspirations that I subscribe to, but these will not provide the actual theoretical background against which to consider the Zapatist education. The theoretical background applied in this essay originates from the reading material of the course and consists of chapters from two different books: chapters 5 to 8 from D. Hamilton's Learning About Education and chapter 3 from John Dewey's Experience and Education. These writings contain observations and proposals which will be used to reflect upon the meaning and scope of the Zapatist paradigms and practices. To finish this introduction, I have to apologize that some of my sources are from the internet, and in general based on statements from people who are perhaps too involved in the issue to be able or willing to give a balanced view, and thus the validity of my sources can be doubted. This is partly due to that there simply isn't yet many studies about the case (if any?). The lack of empirical data also makes it difficult to be more critical and therefore this essay only touches the surface of the case. The Zapatist curriculum In Learning About Education, D. Hamilton differentiates between education and schooling, and discusses about the history of schooling. Hamilton describes the weaknesses of the earlier systems of schooling and notes more recent tendencies where administrators are creating new systems which channel, rather than contain, human reactivity.4 He claims that for years the proposals for reform of schooling have emanated from production-related agencies and government departments related to employment, trade and industry.5 This means that schooling is still usually basically a tool
3 Silo: Speech at the Commemoration of the 30th Anniversary of the Humanist Movement, in http://www.silo.net/PuntaDeVacas-1999/VACAS99_eng.rtf (28.5.2007) 4 Hamilton, D.: Learning About Education: an unfinished curriculum, page 73. Milton Keynes, Open University Press, 1990. 5 Hamilton 1990: 73

for the economic interests. It is this kind of a model that the Zapatists criticize: The educational model of the government only serves to destroy Mother Earth and all of humanity, to develop studies which favour the interests of the powerful.6 Another aspect that the Zapatists criticize in this connection is that financial resources are not used to guarantee a decent education for the poor sectors of the society.7 The above described critical attitude led the Zapatist movement to begin constructing their own schools in 1998.8 Since the beginning of the Other Campaign in 2005, the Zapatists have talked of their autonomous schools as The Other Education. The Other Campaign is the first step for the extension of the Zapatist movement for indigenous and poor peoples' autonomy and direct democracy beyond the borders of Chiapas and to entire Mexico.9 The curriculum of the Zapatist schools focuses on four principal areas of study: history (local, Zapatism, Mexico and world); languages (local indigenous and Spanish); mathematics; and agroecology,10 or life and environment, which actually includes healthcare and related issues as well.11 There are primary and secondary schools and some further courses in the areas of healthcare, commercialization and ecological agriculture, as well as basic courses of literacy for adults.12 The actual practical curriculums are formed in the training period of the teachers, who are not called teachers, but education promoters (this will be elaborated on later).13 Within the schools, there is no separation in classes and no exams of any kind. The older or more experienced students also teach the younger ones. This is related to one of the central principles of Zapatism: collectivism. We want that our children (...) wake up to the value of life and to the place that they occupy in the world. The children lose their culture when they go to the (government) school and learn things which are not compatible with their way of life.14
6 El modelo educativo del gobierno serva solo para destruir a la madre tierra y toda la humanidad, para desarrollar estudios que favorecan los intereses de los poderosos. Lucio and Magdalena, representatives of Caracol II, according to Amber Howard in the article Otra Educacin, mejor y posible, dated 18.1.2007 and published in http://www.rebelion.org/noticia.php?id=44993 (30.5.2007) 7 http://www.nodo50.org/cedoz/basicos/docusbasicos/articulos/demandas.htm (30.5.2007) 8 El gobierno no nos dio nuestras escuelas, nosotros mismos tuvimos que construirlas, desde 1998. Estas escuelas no son reconocidas por el gobierno. Gustavo from La Garrucha, Caracol III, according to Howard 2007 9 Sixth Declaration of the Selva Lacandona, english translation in http://enlacezapatista.ezln.org.mx/especiales/2/ (30.5.2007) 10 Howard 2007 11 Svendsen, Maj-Britt: Uden uddannelse ingen Zapatist-bevgelse, in: Gaia tidsskrift for international solidaritet, nr. 56, may 2007, page 16 12 http://www.schoolsforchiapas.org (30.5.2007) 13 Creative and innovative educational plans are conceived and solidified during these self-directed explorations of actual classroom and community practice. www.schoolsforchiapas.org 14 Queremos que nuestros ninos (...) despierten al valor de la vida, y al lugar que ocupan en el mundo. Los ninos pierden su cultura cuando van a la escuela y aprenden cosas que no van con su forma de vida. Jess from Caracol IV, according to Howard 2007

D. Hamilton describes how the curriculum has been made modular or even entirely discarded for the sake of individualization, so that learners can follow their own interests through the storehouse of human experience.15 The Zapatist education, in its principle of collectivism, differs strongly from the individualist system. One could argue that individualization does happen to some degree, as in practice the Zapatist system is a loose kind of a system, where students are encouraged to find their own place. But individualization is seen as a secondary value and collectivism together with personalization seems to be put before it. Hamilton points out that in the individualistic systems personalization does not necessarily happen and an individualized curriculum may treat the learner as a cipher rather than as a person,16 which is exactly the critique that the Zapatists have towards the governmental educational system in Mexico: (...) the Mexican State promotes peculiar educational politics, (...) which foment a technical, partial, individualistic and competence-based kind of formation, which is harmful to an integral and universal formation, which includes insights about social problems.17 Although one could perhaps refrain from making technology and culture seem like opposites to each other, the critique addresses serious issues. Zapatism arises from and works with especially the indigenous communities of Chiapas. The autonomous movement is also a movement against racism and against assimilation policies. One of the most important aspects of the Other Education is the recovery of cultural values, forms of speaking and understanding others within the communities.18 For the macroeconomic interests, diversity of languages means lack of efficiency. From the point of view of integral and personalized education, however, diversity is an essential characteristic that cannot be ignored. Zapatist schools therefore teach Mayan mathematics and Zapatist songs,19 and the language used at the school depends on the communities that the children come from; Tzotzil, Tzeltal, Tojolabal, Chol, etc.20 From the pedagogical point of view this language policy seems coherent because it builds on what the children already know and encourages a healthy self-esteem: this leads us to the thoughts of Dewey about the value of continuity and interaction in education. Continuity and interaction John Dewey differentiates between traditional and progressive education.21 Zapatist education in
15 16 17 18 19 20 21 Hamilton 1990: 70 Hamilton 1990: 71 http://www.nodo50.org/cedoz/basicos/docusbasicos/articulos/demandas.htm (30.5.2007) Howard 2007 www.schoolsforchiapas.org Howard 2007 Dewey, John: Experience and Education, page 40. New York, Macmillan, 1938.

this differentiation falls close to Dewey's idea of progressive education, but it is not clear whether it fulfills all of its aspects. It also seems to me that Dewey's aspirations are very close to what I quoted about the aspirations of New Humanism although here I need to make the reservation that the text used here is so far the only text by Dewey which I have read and therefore this convergence cannot be confirmed here. Dewey calls for a value-oriented instead of performativity-oriented education he talks of inherent values of different experiences and refers to regard for individual freedom and for decency and kindliness of human relations.22 Progressive education is related to the value of democracy and humanism. In the same way the principle of continuity of experience is a characteristic of progressive education, which is related to the formation of attitudes. Such formation is not possible without continuity.23 (...) every experience affects for better or for worse the attitudes which help decide the quality of further experiences (...)24 The Zapatist argument here would probably be that collectivism can better guarantee continuity and permanence in the process of formation of attitudes than individualism. Individualized and without personalized care, the individualistic subject is out of touch with continuity. Dewey considers that it is the business of the educator to see in what direction an experience is heading,25 whereas the Zapatists refer the responsibility not only to the individual educator and the parents, but also to the entire surrounding community. In any case it is unavoidable that the educator needs to at least try to judge what attitudes are actually conducive to continued growth and what are detrimental,26 as Dewey writes. I do not know how the Zapatist promoters manage with this in practice, nor how they regulate the objective conditions of the education - therefore that part of Dewey's concerns cannot be addressed in this essay. On the other hand I can here point out that there is another dimension to the question of the direction the experience is going: especially in the collectivist model this has also a lot to do with the direction of the entire autonomous community their ideological and administrative direction and their relation with other communities and institutions. Any student or other individual can of course react against the attempt of an educator or a collective to try to influence the direction that the experience of the student or other individual is heading, as Dewey notes.27 Both individualists and collectivists are prone to suspect the other camp of
22 23 24 25 26 27 Dewey 1938: 35 Ibid. Dewey 1938: 37 Dewey 1938: 38 Dewey 1938: 39 Dewey 1938: 38

hypocrisy, and in practice hypocrisy is equally possible in both individualism and in collectivism. In any case, pure individualism does not seem realizable in the classroom setting because from purely individualistic point of view the concept of education itself would mean that the educator imposes his/her own view on the others. Only reference to collective values can give direction to collective action. The collective community is not an abstract being. Therefore the Zapatist schools are teaching making products and food, sowing, art, healthcare, what the people of the area need, and not what might be needed in a remote future.28 This pragmatic idea of immediate application is also expressed by Dewey: The ideal of using the present simply to get ready for the future contradicts itself.29 He criticizes traditional schools for tending to sacrifice the present to a remote and more or less unknown future,30 almost with same words as Amber Howard is using in her article about the Zapatist education. Dewey also applies the same idea to the personal level: bad education is such where the individual loses his appreciation of things worth while, of the values to which these things are relative (...) loses desire to apply what he has learned and, above all, loses the ability to extract meaning from his future experiences as they occur31 and good education is such which helps that the individual gets out of his present experience all that there is in it for him at the time in which he has it.32 Dewey's concern on the personal dimension of being educated leads him to point out an important notion: (...) experience is truly experience only when objective conditions are subordinated to what goes on within the individuals having the experience.33 The point of view thus is from within and towards the conditions and the social situation, though in the social situation it is from within each of the participants. In any case this point of view claims that the collective cannot be placed above the individual without falsifying experience. Dewey criticizes the collective sacrifice of the present to a collective image of the future. But each individual also makes plans about their life and asks themselves existential questions which go beyond the immediate pragmatic realities. And these individual life plans need to converge with each other or otherwise they are not realisable. As we cannot live without collective plans, the issue is not the existence or not of collective plans but the manner in which they are decided upon and carried out.

28 A los estudiantes se les ensena a generar productos y comida, dndoles trabajo en la siembra, las artes, la salud, lo que necesite la gente del rea, y no lo que se necesitar en un remoto futuro. Howard 2007 29 Dewey 1938: 49 30 Ibid. 31 Ibid. 32 Ibid. 33 Dewey 1938: 41

The Zapatist collectivism supposedly works with democratic principles and thus in practice it should not put any abstract collective above the individual experience. This cannot be confirmed here, but it seems that the idea is to avoid imposing anything from outside, as it is exactly things being imposed from outside that Zapatism fights against. As we will see further below, this also means a critical stand towards the indigenous communities themselves. Again, without empirical research it is not possible to evaluate to what extent such ideals are actually being implemented. In the Zapatist education there are no teachers but instead education promoters. The promoters are trained by professional teachers, but once they become promoters, they can train new promoters, and keep on learning while they are teaching.34 According to the Californian humanitarian organisation Schools for Chiapas there exists an ancient Mayan idea of being in charge of something in the community, meaning to provide essentially unpaid service that is for the good of the community.35 The community in turn provides upkeep for the promoter, but due to lack of resources (apparently basicly because of the limits of the commitment of the communities towards the education project) it is usually quite ascetic. Here we see that the collectivism-principle is not always that easy to realize in practice. The education promoters have to sacrifice their own life conditions for the wellbeing of the villages where they work voluntarily. If there is not enough support from the villages, the task may become not only frustrating, but even difficult to actually carry out.36 Apart from difficulties and challenges in the implementation, what is significant here is that the Zapatists consider teacher as a more hierarchical label and promoter as a more egalitarian term.37 There are other promoters as well health promoters, agro-ecology promoters, etc. The website of the Zapatist secondary schools of the Chiapas Highlands zone says: We can educate students who educate us so that those of us who are in favor of life can educate each other mutually and so construct those many worlds of which we all dream. We can say that we know how to educate those who educate us, that is why our school is for the entire world and is why we say for everyone everything, nothing for us.38 This spirit of sacrifice is what distinguishes these autonomous rebels from the young anarchist autonoms who choose rioting in the streets of Europe and USA. Interaction with the immediate surroundings is important for the Zapatists and that is why they stopped the guerrilla war and are working to better their communities autonomous from the government and corrupt politicians. As considered above, it is a work that is
34 35 36 37 38 Howard 2007 www.schoolsforchiapas.org Svendsen 2007, p.18 Ibid. http://www.serazln-altos.org/eng/index.html (30.5.2007)

not completely realizable, and the slogan nothing for us is not a realistic one. On the other hand, it appears not to be meant to be taken literally but is a manifestation of an idealistic attitude. If that attitude is coupled with realistic tactics, it is possible to move in the wished direction. Although it is clear that the ideal of direct democracy is important to the Zapatists, I have not been able to confirm whether they fulfill or are clearly seeking to fulfill the demand of interaction set by John Dewey: interaction with immediate internal states, where both objective and internal conditions are assigned equal rights.39 This demand could also be misunderstood without reference to chapter 5 of Dewey's book, which talks of the nature of freedom. In that chapter Dewey explains that there is no freedom without inhibition of impulse, but there is no freedom either, if the inhibition is simply imposed from outside. Freedom is based on inhibition through an individual's own reflection and judgment.40 Therefore collectivism and freedom can be compatible, if participation is based on the individual's own judgment. That way objective and internal conditions would stand on equal footing. Non-Western educational traditions and Zapatist education Although it cannot be confirmed here, it appears to me that the localized collectivism of the Other Education does motivate the desire to learn in a more liberating way and towards broader horizons than for example the education offered by the Mexican government schools. Learning is seen in a different framework and the treatment of the students is more personalized. It is interesting to note that the Zapatist education is actually not a very exceptional case in its aspirations on the contrary, many of the methodological aspects and intentions discussed here are shared by the majority of non-Western educational traditions. Professor Timothy Reagan from Conneticut University has written a study about many of the major non-Western traditions and describes their difference.41 Firstly Reagan notes that the Western society's tendency to be concerned with formal certification and degrees rather than with competence per se42 reflects a tendency to conflate formal schooling and confuse it with education. According to him, this tendency has not been so common in non-Western traditions. Reagan also writes that this without a doubt is due to the kind of social organisation that education functions in. Thus, as seen in Hamilton's article, earlier on the Western societies also used to educate their new generations with
39 Dewey 1938: 42 40 Dewey 1938: 64 41 Reagan, Timothy: Non-Western Educational Traditions: Alternative Approaches to Educational Thought and Practice,Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., Mahwah, New Jersey, 1996. 42 Reagan 1996: 142

less focus on formal schooling. In the case of the Zapatists the proposal is exactly to change both education and social organisation at the same time. As we have seen in this essay, the Zapatist education is community-based. This is the second characteristic of non-Western traditions according to Timothy Reagan. The whole community participates in educating the new generations, it is seen as a social responsibility and the division into teachers and non-teachers is not so prominent. The idea of teachers engaging in a profession, with specialized knowledge and expertise not held by others, appears to be a Western, and indeed relatively recent, innovation.43 Zapatist education is also ideological, socially oriented. It does not mean that the learner should not be taught to be critical, but that social norms and objectives are being taught; a certain kind of a civic education is given, to quote Reagan, who says that this civic education is common to the different cultures. In some cases it is clearly political and in other cases more spiritual. (I don't know exactly how big a role religiosity plays in the Zapatist education, but it seems likely that some of the old Mayan practices are brought up in the process.) The civic education aspect differs from the Western system because the Western system places weight on individualism and pragmatism instead of social conscience. From the point of view of the humanist attitude which I described earlier as my intention, and within that framework especially from the point of view of the aspiration towards equality this is a very problematic tendency in the Western education system. However some of the aspects that Reagan finds common in the traditional non-Western education systems are not entirely compatible with the humanist attitude and to some extent that criticism would seem to apply to the traditional social system in Chiapas as well. The vocational education encompassed by the traditional education systems in most non-Western societies is highly stratified in terms of gender. This goes against the recognition of personal diversity and constitutes a form of discrimination based on sex. The anthropologist Hector Daz-Polanco, who acted as a consultant in the dialogue between the government and the Zapatists in 1996, says that The autonomy of the indians should not 'conserve' the traditions and values of the indians, but it should for example which the Zapatists also are fighting for involve women in the decisionmaking processes and open spaces for political participation and discussion for all.44 Considering Daz-Polanco's comment and the traditional education systems, it is also important to be attentive of discrimination towards the youth and their rights to decide their vocation themselves.
43 Reagan 1996: 143 44 Svendsen 2007: 18

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This is a problematic and very much education-related issue because as Maria from the Northern zone of Chiapas explains,45 nowadays participation in the government education system which is more or less the same as what is described as the Western system by Reagan makes the youth lose respect towards their roots. The value of the culture in the villages needs to be recognized for a greater self-knowledge and self-worth besides its contributions to learning and wellbeing as tradition but coherent identities cannot be formed through forcing or dogmatism. However, the difference between serving the macro-economic or the micro-economic systems is an obvious dividing line between the traditional and the Western educational systems and clearly from the humanist attitude the micro-economic is more valuable because it is closer to the concrete human beings instead of other, externally imposed values and systems. On the other hand, neither is the micro-economic system more important than the intention and the conscience of the individual youth. This point of view can also be extended to the smaller micro-economy called family. The idea is to become independent from the government, says Maria,46 and after bad experiences with federal governments it is an understandable standpoint. Separatism cannot solve problems in itself, however. Today's world with its problems of ecology, its communication systems and technologies, is not compatible with a separatist view. Integration of different zones is based on necessities and what needs to be changed is the negative characteristics of that integration. Hector Daz-Polanco explains that just as the basic reasons for the conflict in Chiapas are not a local issue, the request for autonomy is not either a local issue, and it cannot be solved without basic transformations in the entire Mexican society.47 The Zapatists appear reluctant to enter fully into power politics and instead they see themselves as outsiders to the current political system, building a parallel world. This distance between them and the government was deepened in the guerrilla war and there is still a low level warfare situation brewing. The progressive Zapatist schools have been funded from outside Mexico, through international solidarity (even Denmark the drawing on the wall in the cover page picture of this essay features the Danish flag because the Danish Operation Dagsvrk has funded the Zapatist schools with 5,6 million Danish crowns collected in 2001).48 But today the essential question for the Zapatists is how can they extend the amount of autonomy that they and their communities have and this inevitably entails the question of how to enter into civilian political processes in order to democratize the entire country. There is no doubt that it is a difficult task since it is related not only
45 46 47 48 Svendsen 2007: 17 Svendsen 2007: 18 Ibid. Svendsen 2007: 14

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to national but also to international politics. In any case I'm convinced that violence will not lead to the liberation of the people of Chiapas. The Zapatist education is an interesting positive example in many areas and there is a lot to learn from it and from other education systems that give an alternative to the hyper-individualized and mechanical, hyper-competitive and dehumanized marketplace of data packages that Western education at its worst can be and toward which the pioneers of Western education such as John Dewey would be highly critical. On the other hand, it is necessary to appreciate also the positive possibilities and contributions of technology, as it can also contribute to the liberation of the human potential. But all technological progress is meaningless without both personal growth and community development and that is the reason why so much of technology today is used for destruction instead of creation. That is the critical reason for calling attention on alternatives like the Zapatist collective value -oriented education.

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