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Busywork in sports and nutrition are all in obvious service of a more important goal (increase performance in sports). There's a clear incentive and reward to y

Busywork in sports and nutrition are all in obvious service of a more important goal (increase performance in sports). There's a clear incentive and reward to your performance. The same is not true for busywork in school. It is disconnected from life outside of school in a very fundamental way, in that there are no inherent rewards for being able to complete busywork--all of the rewards come from social cleverness, competitive instincts, networking, etc. If you behave like a good student in the professional world--keeping your head down, getting your work done on time, following all the rules--your friends who go out drinking with your boss will blow past you in your career, and you'll be pigeonholed as a drudge-work guy. People treat school as if it's training for real life. But it is real life. Why is everyone so completely convinced that it's got to be boring, miserable, and institutionalized?

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ryandrake 4y ago
Most jobs in the real world don’t benefit from social cleverness. They don’t even offer the opportunity to schmooze with the boss. They are: “Drive this exact route and deliver boxes, within a time precision of plus or minus 30 seconds.” and “Repeat this physical motion on this part 7000 times while keeping yield over 99%.” and “Ensure TPS reports are filled out exactly using the correct template and are on Lumbergh’s desk every Friday morning 8:30.” I would argue the repetition, rule-following and drudgery of school adequately prepares workers for this adulthood.
- quacked 4y ago
  First, I don't believe you're correct about social cleverness not helping drivers, line workers, or office drones. If anything, the more basic the work, the bigger the rewards for social cleverness are, as you use your relationship with your superiors, peers, and inferiors to influence the work day. (This could be becoming less true with fully metrics-driven establishments like Amazon warehouses.) Second, is that society (where a huge number of people are consigned to that type of labor) a society that you're interested in continuing to build? If so, continue to support the methods used in modern school.

deleted 4y ago

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ryandrake 4y ago

Most jobs in the real world don’t benefit from social cleverness. They don’t even offer the opportunity to schmooze with the boss. They are: “Drive this exact route and deliver boxes, within a time precision of plus or minus 30 seconds.” and “Repeat this physical motion on this part 7000 times while keeping yield over 99%.” and “Ensure TPS reports are filled out exactly using the correct template and are on Lumbergh’s desk every Friday morning 8:30.” I would argue the repetition, rule-following and drudgery of school adequately prepares workers for this adulthood.

quacked 4y ago
First, I don't believe you're correct about social cleverness not helping drivers, line workers, or office drones. If anything, the more basic the work, the bigger the rewards for social cleverness are, as you use your relationship with your superiors, peers, and inferiors to influence the work day. (This could be becoming less true with fully metrics-driven establishments like Amazon warehouses.) Second, is that society (where a huge number of people are consigned to that type of labor) a society that you're interested in continuing to build? If so, continue to support the methods used in modern school.