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Does it actually make sense to put all children below a certain age in a big building for the majority of the day, where they spend all their time with other ch
by run4yourlives 17y ago
Does it actually make sense to put all children below a certain age in a big building for the majority of the day, where they spend all their time with other children of the same age, taking classes from teachers who serve as their only consistent contact with the adult world outside their own home?"
Yes, because like it or not, our current set up sees a large secondary function for school: babysitter.
The larger problem when dealing with what to do about school is addressing this issue.
- protomyth 17y agoThe other problem problem is that the current system has a lot of people and organizations invested in keeping the system running as is or adding more days to the system to add to income. Children aren't the issue, paychecks are the issue.
- wtn 17y agoThe other problem is that dumping millions of teenagers into the workforce would decrease wages for older people.
- mmt 17y agoThis is only a problem if one assumes labor and wages are a zero-sum game, which I think most people on HN would disagree with.
- stretchwithme 17y agoexactly. any new worker will add to both demand and supply or save his money for someone else to borrow and add to demand.
- wvenable 17y agoThe schools seem to removing days, not adding them, in order to meet their budget.
- protomyth 17y agoI remember a thread on this very board where there was a article on year-round-schooling.
- InclinedPlane 17y agoI say no where you say yes because school is not a good babysitter. It is perhaps one of the worst babysitters, in fact.