My experience in school was similarly miserable, for similar reasons (though I don't think I had as much self-awareness about it; at the time I just thought tha

My experience in school was similarly miserable, for similar reasons (though I don't think I had as much self-awareness about it; at the time I just thought that was how things were, that most people felt similarly) The problem with the anti-school rhetoric ([cough] Peter Thiel) is that learning is still very important. And not just learning the skills you need to make money: even the people who drop out (or skip college) to start a successful company miss out on a huge amount of important, formative learning. We've got a growing number of powerful people who lack crucial life experience, which affects the decisions they make about what they do with that power. That's an issue. The core problem is the way school currently works in our society; what I don't know is where to find the will and the funding to change it. The school system is already on life-support; it hobbles along with barely enough funding to continue the status quo. And the main things that need changing, IMO, are a) higher teacher-student ratios (so that the only way to manage the students isn't treating them like prisoners), and b) more multifaceted curriculums (that allow different students with different learning styles to learn in different ways). Those are expensive changes to make, no matter how you slice it. Just spitballing here: maybe what we need is an increase in online courses/self-teaching materials for non-STEM subjects? Humanities, etc. Maybe book clubs or experts/mentors that you can ask questions of on a case-by-case basis instead of having them read off a whole lecture several times a week. Force-multipliers for teaching, enabling a person can get a real education, and not just technical skills, without the help of a failing institution?