Against School - How public education cripples our kids, and why

@Zoyawildwolf said in #19:
> I think Im the youngest person over here and don't understand half the words in the paragraphs...
I an young than you

@heckerboy said in #21:
> I an young than you
how do you know?

@Rainbow_Pink_Lover said in #22:
> how do you know?
Just joking, I don't really know hhhh

@ChessMental that is why you are a 1200 rated chess player my friend

@iheartbbws said in #24:
> @ChessMental that is why you are a 1200 rated chess player my friend

I don't have much interest in chess.

One easy thing to learn in school is that your legs hurt after sitting for a long time.

@Horsdesages said in #6:
> No, but this gruesome system isn't merely redundant for kids to learn things, it's parasitic, toxic, restrictive and septic. Did I mention carcinogenic?

I suppose it is not even vegan?

@ContrabassFlute said in #15:
> 1. Some things are useless- why do we need to learn how the roman empire fell?? if you're going into that field, can't you learn it then? (personally I think literacy should be abolished, but shh...)

History is not useless. Humans for some reason think the world will stay EXACTLY like it was when you were young. It means people always don't believe stuff can change and refuse to prepare for stuff that randomly didn't happen when you were 16-24.

Lile my parents grew up without computers, so their brains tell them "computers were not important when I was 24, therefore they will never be important because the world stays as t was then 24." And thus they wasted the 20 years they could have learned to use them, and now it is too late.

So i they had understood that stuff can change and it is possible that EVEN IF computers were not important in 1970 when they are young, they can in fact be important 50 years later in 2023. Then their life would have been easier now.

This goes for everything. Like there were no wars in Europe since Yugoslavia in the 1990ies, so everybody that grew up since then sort of believes that "war simply cannot happen in Europe because the laws of nature forbids it" or whatever.

And that's part of the reason we're badly prepared for Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Having history in school is trying to deprogram out stupid brains that think change doesn't happen. Off course, most people think that the world they learn about in history and the world they live in are two different worlds despite them being the same, but what you gonna do?

Here's my stance on the article:

Bad take.

The primary objective of public schools is some sort of education. Now, if you want to make the case that the curriculum is questionable or biased, that's harder to argue against. I probably would still disagree, but it's much easier to defend that stance than one in which public schools are a cabal.

Social stratification is not caused by public schools. Assume a society where all school is privatized. There would be greater competition for more effective schools, resulting in either rent seeking or in more strict admission requirements. Those who fail to get into the most effective schools then are faced with less prestigious schools or no schools.

This is not conjecture, by the way. This happens already with higher education and magnet schools.

Now imagine a society in which there are no schools, private or public. Most children are educated by their parents, typically in whatever trade their parent's conduct. This means that the children will almost certainly pursue similar careers to their parents, ending up in the same social level as their parents.

This is, if I'm not mistaken, how things used to happen before the Renaissance.

Inequality is a weakness inherent in the concept of education itself. If anything, lower inequality is a STRENGTH of the public school system. Both private and home schooling would be more impacted by the parent's social status, wealth, etc. than their public counterparts.

One interesting note is that point number 2 is incompatible with other points. If children are as alike as possible, then there would be no need for point 3 (their social roles would be as alike as possible), point 4 (which is essentially the opposite of point 2), and point 6 (which is just point 3 again). Number 5, meanwhile, might've made sense back in 1918, but cultural shifts have long since made the idea of school discipline relating to reproduction laughable.

And that brings me the biggest problems of all-- the article is based on outdated assumptions, and the article is fundamentally reliant on a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. The Inglis article is from 1918, the supposed revolution ended in the 30s, Conant's essay was written in the 50s... and then nothing changes for 60 years? No big changes in social consciousness in the 60s, for instance? No decline in nationalist sentiment and government trust following Vietnam? Just because an influential guy was influenced by a text 60 years ago doesn't mean that it is the basis for all related decisions. And the author never connected his ideas to the present.

EDIT: FWIW, I'm in favor of privatized education.

@heckerboy said in #21:
> I an young than you

As an infant, I am certainly the youngest participant of this discussion. Goo goo gah gah, &c.