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Education absolutely is trauma in a hierarchical society. The whole point of education is to beat children into the mold that fits society's expectations and ne

Education absolutely is trauma in a hierarchical society. The whole point of education is to beat children into the mold that fits society's expectations and needs, not their own. You can't expect anything else out of institutions based on domination and authority. > Public school teachers are in much the same position as prison wardens. Wardens' main concern is to keep the prisoners on the premises. They also need to keep them fed, and as far as possible prevent them from killing one another. Beyond that, they want to have as little to do with the prisoners as possible, so they leave them to create whatever social organization they want. From what I've read, the society that the prisoners create is warped, savage, and pervasive, and it is no fun to be at the bottom of it. > In outline, it was the same at the schools I went to. The most important thing was to stay on the premises. While there, the authorities fed you, prevented overt violence, and made some effort to teach you something. But beyond that they didn't want to have too much to do with the kids. Like prison wardens, the teachers mostly left us to ourselves. And, like prisoners, the culture we created was barbaric. - Paul Graham, Why Nerds are Unpopular

tomp 11y ago
> The whole point of education is to beat children into the mold that fits society's expectations and needs, not their own. I'm not sure I agree. I think I grew up as an emotionally mature, successful (so far), yet quite unusual person, despite having been schooled for a long time and acing most of the formal requirements of the institutions. My parents always said, "trust us, you need to go to school" even though I didn't want to (I mean, obviously, I had a computer and games and a compiler!), but now I agree with them - back then, I couldn't imagine the perspective, breath, width, emotional maturity and social development that further years of schooling would give me, and I couldn't appreciate the extent to which schooling, vocation and other long-term choices that we make (or are guided towards) as completely inexperienced adolescents will shape the future 60-80 years of my life (I'm only about 10 years down the road so far, but the signs and directions are much more obvious now). Sure, some amount of authority is necessary, but that's mainly because people, especially children, will otherwise go for short-term pleasure without thinking about the longer term. But saying that school molds children in any way is quite a stretch in my opinion - a better way of putting it would be that it shows them different possibilities and enables them to be better informed before choosing which direction to take in life.

tomp 11y ago

> The whole point of education is to beat children into the mold that fits society's expectations and needs, not their own. I'm not sure I agree. I think I grew up as an emotionally mature, successful (so far), yet quite unusual person, despite having been schooled for a long time and acing most of the formal requirements of the institutions. My parents always said, "trust us, you need to go to school" even though I didn't want to (I mean, obviously, I had a computer and games and a compiler!), but now I agree with them - back then, I couldn't imagine the perspective, breath, width, emotional maturity and social development that further years of schooling would give me, and I couldn't appreciate the extent to which schooling, vocation and other long-term choices that we make (or are guided towards) as completely inexperienced adolescents will shape the future 60-80 years of my life (I'm only about 10 years down the road so far, but the signs and directions are much more obvious now). Sure, some amount of authority is necessary, but that's mainly because people, especially children, will otherwise go for short-term pleasure without thinking about the longer term. But saying that school molds children in any way is quite a stretch in my opinion - a better way of putting it would be that it shows them different possibilities and enables them to be better informed before choosing which direction to take in life.