Street Education Is Better Than Formal Education?

HOW EDUCATION IS PERCEIVED IN OUR SOCIETY

Education is an important tool in our
society. It has a huge influence on the rest
of society, which is why businessmen,
educators, clergymen and government attempt to
capture it by controlling schools. But knowledge
can be accumulated from various institutions in
our complex society, for example church, family,
economic, scientifi c and educational institutions,
and even on the street. The street includes all
the practical infl uences of the other institutions.
Institutions are the organised systems in society
that infl uence behaviour through which norms are
practiced.


Schools may offer a standard curriculum to all
children but the reaction of students depends on
many factors outside the control of the educational
institutions. Business and labour associations
attempt to infl uence the schools by propaganda in
the guise of free “educational” materials. Politicians
investigate these materials to ensure that they
conform to the current standards of nationalism.
Some churches operate schools of their own in an
effort to guarantee that education will support
religious indoctrination. But education can create
attitudes which infl uence the acceptance or rejection
of religious dogma.


Formal education is used to support and sustain capitalist institutions and thus the need for social movements to come up with a rival ideology which promotes revolution and attacks entrenched capitalist institutions.

EDUCATION AND IDEOLOGY


The main purpose of the dominant ideology
in our society is to sustain loyalty to capitalist
institutional norms. Intellectuals are those who
devote themselves to analysing and explaining
social developments in terms that are harmonious
with institutional norms that refl ect the interests of
the capitalist class. Today, that means manipulating
ideas to force or infl uence society to be submissive
to neo-liberal policies. Therefore most intellectuals
cannot be fully trusted because their training equips
them to defend the ideology they represent.

STREET EDUCATION

The working class faces unfavourable balance
of forces and the social movements either resist or
promote change. There are migratory, expressive,
utopian, reform, revolutionary and resistance
movements. Social movements do not just happen
as they arise wherever social conditions are
favourable and these conditions produce many
people who are ready and willing to promote
them. In the course of struggle, intellectuals from
the working class may develop a rival ideology
which promotes revolutions and attacks entrenched
capitalist institutions.


In a nutshell, it is in the streets that you will learn the rudiments of how to use your money to work for you and how to be financial literacy