I think you're making a connection between "if you're focusing on open-ended stuff at school you aren't learning X, Y, Z." I can empathize and to an extent I a

I think you're making a connection between "if you're focusing on open-ended stuff at school you aren't learning X, Y, Z." I can empathize and to an extent I agree that this is a concern with "fitting into the real world." As someone who never ever even remotely had the grades to get into an engineering program and has spent his entire career as a robotics engineer, experiencing a lot of terrible engineers with advanced degrees (among a ton of incredibly brilliant ones!), I'm just not sold on it being that big a deal. I think the larger harm is a parent applying that kind of pressure. All that being said, everything in moderation. I don't think it means, "hey let your kid do whatever." But it also doesn't mean, "force your child to study the violin and load them up with an entire childhood of structured programs until they hate you."