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Communal child rearing was the method of education that prevailed in the collective communities in Israel (kibbutz; plural: kibbutzim), until about the end of the 1980s.
Collective education started on the day of birth and went on until adulthood. At the time it was considered a natural outcome of the principle of equality, which was part and parcel of the kibbutz life. The education authority of the kibbutz was responsible for the rearing and well-being of all the children born on the kibbutz, taking care of their food, clothing, and medical treatment. Everybody received the same share of everything. Parents were not involved economically in the upbringing of their children.
Children's lives had three focal points: the children's house, parents' house, and the whole kibbutz. They lived in the children's house, where they had communal sleeping arrangements and visited their parents for 2–3 hours a day.
Non-selectivity was a fundamental principle of collective education; every child got 12 years of study, they took no tests whatsoever, and no grades were recorded. The founders of the kibbutz actually aimed at creating "the 'new man' of a utopian society."[1]
- ^ Gavron, D. (2000). The kibbutz: awakening from Utopia, Lanham. Rowman & Littlefield: 157