In his article (The Money Delusion, May/June 2008), Satish Kumar points out the following: (1) money is not wealth, and (2) instead of money serving us, we are serving money. His argument equally applies to the case of education. First, money is not education. Although some people might think that the more we pay, the more we get, this is hardly true. How many of us would think the skyrocketing cost of higher education is fully justified? Second, while money is supposed to be used to enhance our education, the unfortunate trend is that education is increasingly serving money. That is, commercialism has been creeping into genuine educational opportunities.
By suspending the involvement of money in our learning process (except sharing material cost), free schools are trying to bring back the essence of education in the modern context. We are not denying the benefits of using money. We are just denying becoming its servant.
