marjaerwin

Through bullying, through high workloads, and through indifference to the needs of different children. Classrooms may be a good teaching environment for some kids, mediocre for other, and downright destructive for some. Bullying was an epidemic when I was in school, and I understand it has grown worse yet. Calling for more discipline will only deepen the problems - some teachers and some administrators are bullies, and they target the same victims, for the same reasons, as those students who are bullies:

Too short.

Too weak.

Too weird.

Too geeky.

Too queer.

Too nonconformist.

Too much of a problem with positional authority.

Calling for kids to be sent to the same schools earlier in their lives, and confined there - exposed to the abuses of bullies - for longer, is only going to mean more kids killing themselves, and sooner, and more kids scarred for life. Essays like Legend's are asinine at best and callous at worse. To link:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-legend/wake-up-we-know-how-to-fi_b_748608.html

Let's remember that positional authority is false authority. Authority does not come from positions, and morality does no come from laws. Bakunin said it well:

"In the matter of boots, I refer to the authority of the bootmaker; concerning houses, canals, or railroads, I consult that of the architect or engineer. For such or such special knowledge I apply to such or such a savant. But I allow neither the bootmaker nor the architect nor the savant to impose his authority upon me. I listen to them freely and with all the respect merited by their intelligence, their character, their knowledge, reserving always my incontestable right of criticism censure. I do not content myself with consulting authority in any special branch; I consult several; I compare their opinions, and choose that which seems to me the soundest."

I may disagree with much of the remainder of the essay. It does not matter. I agree with the above passage, among others, not because of Bakunin's authority, but because of that of my own reason and experience. To link:

http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bakunin/godandstate/godandstate_ch1.html