5 ms·

Personally, I’ve always felt that schooling is a waste of time, money, and resources. The default model of civilization is that children are absent from life. T

Personally, I’ve always felt that schooling is a waste of time, money, and resources. The default model of civilization is that children are absent from life. This means that kids are missing out on seeing adults interact, so they mature more slowly, and it also means that their life experiences are limited to what happens in a building. Importantly, after 18 years, people in the USA leave school in debt and are no better suited to professional life than when they entered school at 4 or 5. If I could wave a wand and changing things, I’d restructure civilization to expect children to be present everywhere with their parents or other family members, learning by being part of civilization as every young adult currently does.

op00to 3y ago
I’m confused. Are you suggesting children should be working?
- A4ET8a8uTh0 3y ago
  As I read the parent's point, I think he is advocating for kids seeing their parents work more often. As it is, kids in US don't experience the reality often. More than that, parents shield them from the reality as long as it is possible, because the reality mostly sucks. I would think of it as 'take your kids to work', but more often. I am not a big fan. I was coming to my dad's car shop after school and I can't honestly say that I learned anything useful ( I could have, but did not ).
  - Mezzie 3y ago
    They probably expect the kids to be involved/help, but that depends a lot on the parents' jobs. Like I was of some help to my dad in elementary school (helped him with basic IT/networking/data stuff), but my mom worked with biohazards that had very good reason for not wanting children around so any time we had to go to mom's work we were locked in a break room for hours.
    - op00to 3y ago
      Back when my dad had an office job, I would visit him in his office. We'd be locked in a room with a (fancy for the time) IBM PS/2 for 8 hours. It blew.
    - mrguyorama 3y ago
      My mom was a teacher and for some reason I ended up the entire school's IT dept as a preteen, despite the school's IT dept being acceptable, just not staffed 100% of the time. I did pretty well at running a photocopier and stuff, though when I was older I eventually realized that letting a ten year old run and DIAGNOSE AND FIX the photocopier was not something that should have happened. My mom was single and poor so I also got to spend from 3pm to 7pm most evenings sitting in her classroom, which for some years was an actual server closet, desperately trying to note die of boredom while my mother had meetings and graded papers. This was so useful, important, and necessary for my future /s
  - teeray 3y ago
    > I would think of it as 'take your kids to work', but more often. I think these were called apprenticeships at one time
  - titanomachy 3y ago
    Works pretty well if you're a landscaper or something. What if you have some soul-crushing dead-end office job? How long do you think a 6-year-old would last in an airline customer support call center?
    - doubled112 3y ago
      That teaches the 6-year-old something too.
  - op00to 3y ago
    I thought this was only me! For me, my dad was self employed as an "accountant" of sorts, and specialized in what might be called forensic accounting of Medicare reimbursements. He dragged 12 year old me into hospital data processing centers at 3am to print records so he could do his work. In this case, he had a certain amount of records to print in the time allotted, and he needed two operators to make the window. I learned a lot of useless knowledge about which medical procedures qualify for extra reimbursement for Medicare, and also what Sunset Park, Queens looked like at 3am. Nothing really useful in life. I think if my dad had hired someone and let me sleep and play on the computer instead, that probably would have turned out better for me.
- burkaman 3y ago
  Not just that they should be working, but they should only be exposed to their parents' social circle. There should be no opportunity for children to meet people from different social backgrounds.
  - avani 3y ago
    One of their parents' social circle. The other is too busy feeding them and making sure they don't run into traffic or disappear somewhere to play video games. So you've suddenly halved the number of people who can get real work done.
  - baanlox 3y ago
    [flagged]
lotsofpulp 3y ago
My parents do not speak fluent English, they have zero grasp of the sciences or even basic math (they still have trouble grasping percentages and fractions), and are very susceptible to scams by cult leaders from their country of origin. Same for almost all of my aunts and uncles, who lives hundreds or thousands of miles away. I would have been doomed without an external setting where I got to interact with much more qualified people.
- Fricken 3y ago
  Well, yes, the adage that "It takes a village to raise a child" still holds.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - burkaman 3y ago
    Yeah, and the best way to do that is to have the village organize a central location where everyone's kids can go learn a variety of skills and subjects from a variety of well-educated adults. Otherwise you're asking every individual adult to meet people very different from them and develop such good friendships that they are willing to spend significant time with your kids.
Orexis-Vexatii 3y ago
Would that not utterly stratify social classes? Upward social mobility would be near impossible if not for general education? Children would have no approaches other than what their family already has access to. The son of a smith becomes a smith, the son of a carpenter becomes a carpenter, the son of a lawyer becomes a lawyer and so on. And schools also function in part as day care. Parents can devote hours of the day to work, focused and without worry for their child. If all parents had to bring their children to work, would that not diminish their ability to work? Can an electrician focus on his work when a young child is with him? How can he teach the child the theory of electrophysics that is necessary to understand if one is to become an electrician? Do others at the site watch the children and explain the theory? Would you then not end up with teachers again? Edit: This is also a rather amerocentric take. What of other countries educational systems where you can choose more directional high schools. Where the final year of highschool IS an apprenticeship in some vocation? Where you leave school, with no debt and with experience on the job. And all the countries where education is free. Countries where relevant experience is a part of the degree? Where courses in teamwork, leadership and other skills are a part of higher education? To discard educational systems because of the defects of a single country's defects seems poorly thought out.
- dfxm12 3y ago
  Would that not utterly stratify social classes? Yes. This is one of the outcomes the anti-school crowd is after.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - benji-york 3y ago
    Is there a name for this tactic of projecting motivations on others in order to explain their behaviors?
    - barry-cotter 3y ago
      Normal
hardware2win 3y ago
Thats crazy imo You are limited to your sorroundings with less ways to move up due to lack of awarness I bet it would increase inequality hard
lordnacho 3y ago
I love this idea. It's done a teeny tiny bit in the form of work experience, but actually we should make a scheme where workplaces get some kind of incentive to let the kids come and hang around, maybe even do some work depending on what it is. I would sprinkle this around the school calendar so that you had a few weeks a year where you could sit at various places of work and see what was going on, instead of little weeklong academic breaks plus a mega long summer holiday. Not everyone loves the academic side of things and this could be a good break, plus it might provide some motivation for the question of "why am I learning this" that everyone has at various points in their education.
SketchySeaBeast 3y ago
Isn't this how we end up with a lineage of uneducated blacksmiths? I am from a rural town focused on oil and gas and some agriculture. There were no software developers were I was from and the internet was only dial-up before I left. A lack of schooling would see me in a O&G work camp right now because I would have been exposed to nothing else.
- nancyhn 3y ago
  Anyone who is interested in programming will learn about it regardless. It's especially easy today with things like Google and Youtube.
  - SketchySeaBeast 3y ago
    OK, how about becoming a doctor? Software development is a bad example for today, but was an excellent example for when I was growing up because Youtube and Google both did not yet exist and the personal computer had just started appearing in everyone's home. The resources weren't there. How would this new setup allow me to become something other than what is immediately around me?
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
slothtrop 3y ago
> The default model of civilization is that children are absent from life. There's nothing "default" about Civilization, which entailed intentional centralization and creation of bureaucracy. We don't live in a society where 80% of people farm shitty land to survive, and no one of sound mind wants to turn back that dial. We're not bringing our kids to roam sheepishly around oil rigs, mines, labs, sales floors, whatever. I think everyone has an opinion on how education could improve, but there's no superior (or viable) substitute for it at scale. Notwithstanding, this isn't zero sum in the first place: parents can teach their kid at leisure, and they do. They expose them to their interests and their work, to some extent. And lastly, there's no such thing as "absent from life". Even if this is only meant to convey the idea that schooling shelters kids away from any and all interesting things in society, this is untrue (and by extension, it would suggest that you're "absent from life" if your shit job doesn't meet some arbitrary criteria, or otherwise that your shit job is "full of life" but school isn't).
CSMastermind 3y ago
> Importantly, after 18 years, people in the USA leave school in debt and are no better suited to professional life than when they entered school at 4 or 5. I'm not aware of anyone in the US going into to debt for school before the age of 18. Are you confusing the free public education that's offered throughout the US with the optional college education that some, though definitely not most, take out loans to attend?
- abecedarius 3y ago
  18 years of school, not age

op00to 3y ago

I’m confused. Are you suggesting children should be working?

A4ET8a8uTh0 3y ago
As I read the parent's point, I think he is advocating for kids seeing their parents work more often. As it is, kids in US don't experience the reality often. More than that, parents shield them from the reality as long as it is possible, because the reality mostly sucks. I would think of it as 'take your kids to work', but more often. I am not a big fan. I was coming to my dad's car shop after school and I can't honestly say that I learned anything useful ( I could have, but did not ).
- Mezzie 3y ago
  They probably expect the kids to be involved/help, but that depends a lot on the parents' jobs. Like I was of some help to my dad in elementary school (helped him with basic IT/networking/data stuff), but my mom worked with biohazards that had very good reason for not wanting children around so any time we had to go to mom's work we were locked in a break room for hours.
  - op00to 3y ago
    Back when my dad had an office job, I would visit him in his office. We'd be locked in a room with a (fancy for the time) IBM PS/2 for 8 hours. It blew.
  - mrguyorama 3y ago
    My mom was a teacher and for some reason I ended up the entire school's IT dept as a preteen, despite the school's IT dept being acceptable, just not staffed 100% of the time. I did pretty well at running a photocopier and stuff, though when I was older I eventually realized that letting a ten year old run and DIAGNOSE AND FIX the photocopier was not something that should have happened. My mom was single and poor so I also got to spend from 3pm to 7pm most evenings sitting in her classroom, which for some years was an actual server closet, desperately trying to note die of boredom while my mother had meetings and graded papers. This was so useful, important, and necessary for my future /s
- teeray 3y ago
  > I would think of it as 'take your kids to work', but more often. I think these were called apprenticeships at one time
- titanomachy 3y ago
  Works pretty well if you're a landscaper or something. What if you have some soul-crushing dead-end office job? How long do you think a 6-year-old would last in an airline customer support call center?
  - doubled112 3y ago
    That teaches the 6-year-old something too.
- op00to 3y ago
  I thought this was only me! For me, my dad was self employed as an "accountant" of sorts, and specialized in what might be called forensic accounting of Medicare reimbursements. He dragged 12 year old me into hospital data processing centers at 3am to print records so he could do his work. In this case, he had a certain amount of records to print in the time allotted, and he needed two operators to make the window. I learned a lot of useless knowledge about which medical procedures qualify for extra reimbursement for Medicare, and also what Sunset Park, Queens looked like at 3am. Nothing really useful in life. I think if my dad had hired someone and let me sleep and play on the computer instead, that probably would have turned out better for me.
burkaman 3y ago
Not just that they should be working, but they should only be exposed to their parents' social circle. There should be no opportunity for children to meet people from different social backgrounds.
- avani 3y ago
  One of their parents' social circle. The other is too busy feeding them and making sure they don't run into traffic or disappear somewhere to play video games. So you've suddenly halved the number of people who can get real work done.
- baanlox 3y ago
  [flagged]

lotsofpulp 3y ago

My parents do not speak fluent English, they have zero grasp of the sciences or even basic math (they still have trouble grasping percentages and fractions), and are very susceptible to scams by cult leaders from their country of origin. Same for almost all of my aunts and uncles, who lives hundreds or thousands of miles away. I would have been doomed without an external setting where I got to interact with much more qualified people.

Fricken 3y ago
Well, yes, the adage that "It takes a village to raise a child" still holds.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- burkaman 3y ago
  Yeah, and the best way to do that is to have the village organize a central location where everyone's kids can go learn a variety of skills and subjects from a variety of well-educated adults. Otherwise you're asking every individual adult to meet people very different from them and develop such good friendships that they are willing to spend significant time with your kids.

Orexis-Vexatii 3y ago

Would that not utterly stratify social classes? Upward social mobility would be near impossible if not for general education? Children would have no approaches other than what their family already has access to. The son of a smith becomes a smith, the son of a carpenter becomes a carpenter, the son of a lawyer becomes a lawyer and so on. And schools also function in part as day care. Parents can devote hours of the day to work, focused and without worry for their child. If all parents had to bring their children to work, would that not diminish their ability to work? Can an electrician focus on his work when a young child is with him? How can he teach the child the theory of electrophysics that is necessary to understand if one is to become an electrician? Do others at the site watch the children and explain the theory? Would you then not end up with teachers again? Edit: This is also a rather amerocentric take. What of other countries educational systems where you can choose more directional high schools. Where the final year of highschool IS an apprenticeship in some vocation? Where you leave school, with no debt and with experience on the job. And all the countries where education is free. Countries where relevant experience is a part of the degree? Where courses in teamwork, leadership and other skills are a part of higher education? To discard educational systems because of the defects of a single country's defects seems poorly thought out.

dfxm12 3y ago
Would that not utterly stratify social classes? Yes. This is one of the outcomes the anti-school crowd is after.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- benji-york 3y ago
  Is there a name for this tactic of projecting motivations on others in order to explain their behaviors?
  - barry-cotter 3y ago
    Normal

hardware2win 3y ago

Thats crazy imo You are limited to your sorroundings with less ways to move up due to lack of awarness I bet it would increase inequality hard

lordnacho 3y ago

I love this idea. It's done a teeny tiny bit in the form of work experience, but actually we should make a scheme where workplaces get some kind of incentive to let the kids come and hang around, maybe even do some work depending on what it is. I would sprinkle this around the school calendar so that you had a few weeks a year where you could sit at various places of work and see what was going on, instead of little weeklong academic breaks plus a mega long summer holiday. Not everyone loves the academic side of things and this could be a good break, plus it might provide some motivation for the question of "why am I learning this" that everyone has at various points in their education.

SketchySeaBeast 3y ago

Isn't this how we end up with a lineage of uneducated blacksmiths? I am from a rural town focused on oil and gas and some agriculture. There were no software developers were I was from and the internet was only dial-up before I left. A lack of schooling would see me in a O&G work camp right now because I would have been exposed to nothing else.

nancyhn 3y ago
Anyone who is interested in programming will learn about it regardless. It's especially easy today with things like Google and Youtube.
- SketchySeaBeast 3y ago
  OK, how about becoming a doctor? Software development is a bad example for today, but was an excellent example for when I was growing up because Youtube and Google both did not yet exist and the personal computer had just started appearing in everyone's home. The resources weren't there. How would this new setup allow me to become something other than what is immediately around me?
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]

slothtrop 3y ago

> The default model of civilization is that children are absent from life. There's nothing "default" about Civilization, which entailed intentional centralization and creation of bureaucracy. We don't live in a society where 80% of people farm shitty land to survive, and no one of sound mind wants to turn back that dial. We're not bringing our kids to roam sheepishly around oil rigs, mines, labs, sales floors, whatever. I think everyone has an opinion on how education could improve, but there's no superior (or viable) substitute for it at scale. Notwithstanding, this isn't zero sum in the first place: parents can teach their kid at leisure, and they do. They expose them to their interests and their work, to some extent. And lastly, there's no such thing as "absent from life". Even if this is only meant to convey the idea that schooling shelters kids away from any and all interesting things in society, this is untrue (and by extension, it would suggest that you're "absent from life" if your shit job doesn't meet some arbitrary criteria, or otherwise that your shit job is "full of life" but school isn't).

CSMastermind 3y ago

> Importantly, after 18 years, people in the USA leave school in debt and are no better suited to professional life than when they entered school at 4 or 5. I'm not aware of anyone in the US going into to debt for school before the age of 18. Are you confusing the free public education that's offered throughout the US with the optional college education that some, though definitely not most, take out loans to attend?

abecedarius 3y ago
18 years of school, not age