The People's Republic of Neverland: The Child versus the State

by Robb Johnson

There once was a time when teachers and communities were able to exercise democratic control over their schools. Now that power has been taken away, both centralized and privatized, under the guise of "reform." Robb Johnson entered the classroom as a new teacher in the 1980s and has spent a lifetime alongside his pupils encouraging both creativity and a healthy distrust of authority. In The People's Republic of Neverland, Robb Johnson details how we ended up with the contemporary mass education systems and explains why they continually fail to give our children what they need. Combining practical experience as a teacher with detailed pedagogical knowledge and a characteristic playful style, Johnson is both court chronicler and jester, imparting information and creatively admonishing the self-important figureheads of the reform agenda. This book shows that schools and education are contested spaces that need to be reclaimed from the state and turned into places where people can grow not up or old, but as individuals. 

Genres: Education, History, Politics

288 pages, Paperback

Published June 1, 2020

Reviews

[Eric Arnold · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm a substitute teacher in 2020's Florida, and Robb Johnson's account of the UK school system of recent years has startling resemblances to Ron DeSanctimonious' efforts to chaoticize, undermine and privatize the state's schools, down to the effort to allow veterans with no educational background to teach, ubiquitous standardized testing, and endless squabbles about mythical marxist indoctrination kept going by busybodies and right wing loons. Mr. Johnson makes a strong case that schooling should focus on, and include , the child rather than focusing on test scores and statistics (ultimately a profit-making scheme by those in power and a case for education as a part of the class struggle) and offers the viewpoints of people such as Paulo Friere, Emma Goldman, A.S Neill, Francisco Ferrer, and Ivan Illich. He documents experiments in progressive education, both those he participated in and earlier examples. If you work in the field of education and/or are critical of neoliberal meddling in education, read this.

[Daniel T · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lost a star because I am not British. Even so, a great book for anyone, teacher or not, who struggles with state intervention in education and arm chair educators from the state telling teachers how best to teach children.