The kibbutz system in Israel is known as being one of the few ‘utopian’ experiments that have succeeded in establishing a radically different way of raising children through collective education. However, its collective child rearing philosophy presented an acute shift in its original idealistic objectives, since as Bettleheim remarks in his book, Children of the Dream,1969, the kibbutz started out as a society that had no interest in children and no room for children in its life. Nevertheless, once families began evolving, the kibbutz members devoted much of their efforts into creating an ideal care and education system. Since they considered individuals as a product of their education, they soon realised that their larger dream depended upon this new generation.
Israel - Kibbutz Idealism and Logistics Replaced the Nuclear Family
In the past, the most crucial aspect of kibbutz society was the unique nature of the family within the kibbutz structure. Families could not be defined as functional economic units nor could they socialise and control the children as a right of the family. Therefore the kibbutz formed a system where the larger community became an extended family that replaced the nuclear family unit.
Idealistic values and logistics helped encourage the adoption of collective education.
The following are some of the practical reasons for forming collective care and education.
- The women also had to work to advance the economic success of the kibbutz.
- It was more cost effective to have the children centralised.
- It was thought the children were safer if concentrated together.
According to Melford Spiro, in his book, Children of the Kibbutz, 1965, four other motives fuelled the founding of the collective education system:
- The abolition of the patriarchal authority of the father.
- The emancipation of the female.
- The desire to perpetuate kibbutz values.
- The concern with achieving democratic education.
Kibbutz - Deconstructing the Patriarchal Authority of the Father
Patriarchal authority was felt by the kibbutz community to be symbolic of the Western family. As family structure was to be revolutionised, so were the roles of the parents. Hence, the father lost his ruling privileges and, as a result, his formal authority which was thought to result in the ambivalence and hatred attributed to the traditional family and their dysfunctions. The members thought that one way in which a child could be released from an authoritarian father was by physically separating him and entrusting him to some other person.
Kibbutz - Fathers and Children become Peers
Spiro also notes that the community members rationalised from their own experiences in Europe and Russia that the father is the greatest source of authority due to his traditional role of being the provider, thus the child feels economically dependant on him. This dependence was eliminated in the community since the kibbutz as a whole becomes responsible for satisfying the child's needs. Instead of an authoritarian-submissive father-child relationship being formed, the kibbutz aimed to establish an egalitarian relationship in which fathers and children were peers.
Kibbutz - Parents had no Formal Authority Over their Children
Besides patriarchy, given that it was considered that ambivalence generally characterises the attitude of the child toward his parents because the latter adopt conflicting roles of loving and caring on the one hand, and disciplining and punishing on the other, the kibbutzniks decided that the only relationship that parents and children would have was an emotional one; the kibbutz parents would have no formal authority over their children.
The concept was that the new society led to a reinterpretation of family roles; however they did not consider that physical boundaries do not necessarily make for less authority.
The Emancipation of the Female in the Kibbutz System
One of the original and primary goals of the kibbutz was equality. Equality could only be achieved if the women were emancipated from economic dependence on their husbands and their role of child rearing and domestic service. If women were to become providers, they had to be freed from these factors and be fully absorbed into the work system. The arrangement of collective care and education provided women with that freedom. (Spiro)
Identification with Kibbutz Ideals
The kibbutz was perceived as more than an agricultural commune: it was also a social revolution. An important aim of the kibbutz educational system was to rear children to identify with the values of the society which reflected the kibbutz movement’s entire revolutionary way of life; therefore, the whole kibbutz, not just the parents had to educate the children. Only if the children were reared communally could they be ‘trained’ to live communally. Only by identifying with the communal idea could the children draw closer to internalising its values. In this way, the children would perceive the whole kibbutz as their primary group, their significant other, rather than just their parents.
Kibbutz - Democratic Model
As Spiro mentions, the principle of equality is a primary value in the kibbutz culture; one of the ways in which children could be assured of equality was through a system of collective education. All the children would be reared by the same day carers. There would be no material inequalities; every child would receive the same clothes.
Kibbutz Collective Education Psychological Deprivation
Although practically and idealistically, collective caring and education seem efficient and viable, yet, the early kibbutz founders did not take into consideration the possibility of the extent of the maternal and infant psychological deprivation and the lack of socio-emotional and verbal learning. Nor did they take into consideration that the caregivers' focus may have been solely on satisfying the children’s basic requirements at the expense of the youngsters' needs for true emotional interaction with the adult environment on a one-to-one basis.
Find this article interesting? Read: Israel's Kibbutzim Ideological or Anthropological Experiment
Sources:
- Aviezer, O.V., et al Psychological Bulletin: 'Children Of The Dream Revisited'. Vol. 116, No. 1. The American Psychological Association, 1994. 99-116.
- Bettleheim, Bruno. Children of the Dream. London: The Macmillan Co.,1969.
- Spiro, Melford E. Children of the Kibbutz. Harvard University Press, 1965.
Lesley Lanir - Freelance writer, lecturer and teacher trainer Lesley Lanir, writes on foreign language learning disorders, linguistics, and literature.
