If it had not been for a secret schooling system, we would not have had Marie Currie or Janusz Korczak (born Henryk Goldszmit).
If it had not been for secret schooling, Japanese immigrants and their decedents would have lost their language and culture in Brazil.
If it had not been for secret schooling in a South African prison, the man that would become of the first elected black leader of the country, Nelson Mandela, would probably have not been.
If it had not been for secret schooling at the Golden Needle Sewing School in Herat, Afghanistan, women would have attended an actual sewing school.
If it had not been for secret schooling spies would not be very secretive. You might not have heard of the Andropov Institute, but you have heard of the KGB. This
name (Andropov Institute) was one of the many names the secret school out in the woods was called. And while the KGB might be no more, the Academy of Foreign Intelligence school is.
But then again, if Camp X had not been in school several German targets would not have been hit by Allied troops. So, the spying thing swings both ways.
In other words, secret schooling has taken many forms. Some to help keep a people’s language and culture, some to help enslaved people to learn how to help themselves become free, to find ways to keep children off the dangerous ghetto streets, some underground schools even were formed to help show the students how wrong they felt their government rulers where, not to mention a certain billionaire’s school for his sons and few other children, and some to create a meaning of not-so-legal-learning of the “enemy.”
These schools are from all times of history and wonderfully explored in Secret Schools: True Stories of the Determination to Learn by Heather Camlot. And Erin Taniguchi adds unique illustrations that are not cartoonish, but not “real” either.
