In her racy and humbly excited nature Cindy invites the audience into her idea of a better world. As she talks, describing hers and other’s projects, one really does begin to imagine the possibilities. Ideas of a better, richer, more fulfilling life, dedicated to actively and simultaneously deconstructing the oppressive systems of he current world and replacing them with healthier, anarchistic ones.

“Education is about empowering people in a disempowering time”- Cindy Milstein

In a talk entitled “Education for Freedom”, part of the unSchooling Oppression conference, Cindy Milstein builds a model of anarchism through education and education through anarchism. Personally, a deep proponent and practitioner of both, she comes from a self-made community, operating without hierarchal structures and concentrating on continual learning and action.
“Much of what anarchists do is education but it’s not obvious because it doesn’t look like what we have been taught education looks like.” She explains by listing skill-shares, free schools, speaking tours, infoshops, and independent media as examples.
Bringing complex ideas to their roots, she defines both concepts of her talk. “Anarchism is a form of social organization without exploitation, domination, or hierarchy.” A critique of vertical power which endorses the notion one must practice today the better world one fights for. A practice requiring significant self-education. A free society of free individuals cannot depend on external motivations to unlearn.
“Education helps shatter the hegemonies of the present. It is there to provide a historical and world context for the present.” This continual movement forward to expand the understanding of societies of the past works to “create an interconnected society that fights hierarchal systems by making spaces for critical and reconstructive thought.”
On a down-to-earth, grassroots level these ideas have a very real, comprehensible look. From freeing the self of consumerist mentality and becoming actively involved in the shaping of one’s own community to fighting the existing oppressive powers. Working in collectives, utilizing the full capacity the spaces around us, and continually educating ourselves we materialize ideas into graspable actions. Cindy continues listing successful and failed examples of people working together to produce something better and more powerful.
Beyond the idealistic and political reasons, people working together to produce such spaces produces a strong personal context. “Most of us feel unseen in the world. Collectives are places where people get to know each other intimately, love each other, and really see each other.”

For More Info:
Exile Infoshop
The Deschooling Society
Institute of Anarchist Studies

Institute of Social Ecology
Renewing Anarchist Traditions Conference
Free Societies Collective
Midnight Notes Collective
Catalyst Collective