Paul Goodman
Paul Goodman (September 9, 1911 – August 2, 1972) was an American writer and public intellectual best known for his 1960s works of social criticism. Goodman was prolific across numerous literary genres and non-fiction topics, including the ...
and published by Horizon Press in 1964. Already established as a
social critic
Social criticism is a form of academic or journalistic criticism focusing on social issues in contemporary society, in respect to perceived injustices and power relations in general.
Social criticism of the Enlightenment
The origin of modern ...
of American society and the role of its youth in his previous book ''
Growing Up Absurd
''Growing Up Absurd'' is a 1960 book by Paul Goodman on the relationship between American juvenile delinquency and societal opportunities to fulfill natural needs. Contrary to the then-popular view that juvenile delinquents should be led to re ...
'' (1960), Goodman argues in ''Compulsory Miseducation'' against the necessity of schools for the socialization of youth and recommends their abolition. He suggests that
formal education
Education is the transmission of knowledge and skills and the development of character traits. Formal education occurs within a structured institutional framework, such as public schools, following a curriculum. Non-formal education also fol ...
lasts too long, teaches the wrong
social class
A social class or social stratum is a grouping of people into a set of Dominance hierarchy, hierarchical social categories, the most common being the working class and the Bourgeoisie, capitalist class. Membership of a social class can for exam ...
values, and increasingly damages students over time. Goodman writes that the school reflects the misguided and insincere values of its society and thus school reformers should focus on these values before schools. He proposes a variety of alternatives to school including no school, the city or farm as school,
apprenticeships
Apprenticeship is a system for training a potential new practitioners of a trade or profession with on-the-job training and often some accompanying study. Apprenticeships may also enable practitioners to gain a license to practice in a regulat ...
, guided travel, and youth organizations. Reviewers complimented Goodman's style and noted his deliberate
contrarianism
{{Short pages monitor. Barr considered Goodman "extraordinarily sensitive to children and adolescents" and complimented his "brilliant authenticity" when describing how children learn "defiance and embarrassment". However, Barr found Goodman's "purblind resentment of all authority" to obstruct his points and to leave his readers skeptical. Children, Barr wrote, are lost if they cannot find the limits they serve to test, and "partisan" Goodman was unable to parse the wickedness of continually "yielding, ... tolerating, understanding" children who must feel resistance against their transgressions to develop the respect they seek.
Legacy
The book influenced the free school movement of the late 1960s. Nigel Melville (''
Fortnight
A fortnight is a unit of time equal to 14 days (two weeks). The word derives from the Old English term , meaning "" (or "fourteen days", since the Anglo-Saxons counted by nights).
Astronomy and tides
In astronomy, a ''lunar fortnight'' is hal ...
'') placed Goodman alongside
Herb Kohl
Herbert Hiken Kohl (February 7, 1935 – December 27, 2023) was an American businessman, philanthropist, and Democratic politician from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He served 24 years as a United States senator from Wisconsin, from 1989 to 2013, and ...
,
Neil Postman
Neil Postman (March 8, 1931 – October 5, 2003) was an American author, educator, media theorist and cultural critic, who eschewed digital technology, including personal computers and mobile devices, and was critical of the use of personal com ...
,
Jules Henry
Jules Henry (November 29, 1904 – September 23, 1969) was an American anthropologist.
After studies at the City College of New York, Henry earned his Ph.D. in anthropology from Columbia University in 1935. His classmates included Irving G ...
as part of an education anti-orthodoxy, or new orthodoxy under
Ivan Illich
Ivan Dominic Illich ( ; ; 4 September 1926 – 2 December 2002) was an Austrian Catholic priest, Theology, theologian, philosopher, and social critic. His 1971 book ''Deschooling Society'' criticises modern society's institutional approach to ...
and
Paulo Freire
Paulo Reglus Neves Freire (19 September 1921 – 2 May 1997) was a Brazilian educator and philosopher whose work revolutionized global thought on education. He is best known for ''Pedagogy of the Oppressed'', in which he reimagines teaching ...
. Bill Prescott (''Instructional Science'') said the book was "among the most influential" in education circles in the early 1970s. He wrote that Goodman pioneered advocation for
deschooling
Deschooling is a term invented by Austrian philosopher Ivan Illich. The word is mainly used by homeschoolers, especially unschoolers, to refer to the transition process that children and parents go through when they leave the school system in ord ...
and the disestablishment of schools, which was later popularized by Illich and Reimer (though Goodman's thoughts were less articulate in comparison). In a 2006 retrospective of Goodman's work for ''
Teachers College Record
''Teachers College Record'' is a monthly peer-reviewed academic journal of education that was established in 1900. It is published by EdLab at Teachers College, Columbia University. The journal also "pre-publishes" papers online, and curates speci ...
'', James S. Kaminsky said that Goodman's four book-length critiques of American education together made Goodman a prominent intellectual and educationist.