> Letting teens run wild > because they will be more interesting adults? because they have a right to? That's just belittling and avoiding the serious issues.

> Letting teens run wild > because they will be more interesting adults? because they have a right to? That's just belittling and avoiding the serious issues. Very teenager-like! :) First, nobody said healthy teens can't study. But it's essential they question and push back against what they study. If they don't learn that, their education has failed on a basic level - that is where all that knowledge came from; that's what will prepare them to be adults who can utilize and produce knowledge themselves, rather than relying on others. What more is the source of SV - or the entire scientific and business enterprises - than those skills. Also, there is far more to learn than schoolwork for growing into fully self-actualized, mature, free people in a free society. Most critically, the most important knowledge is self-knowledge, and that is not learned by studying authorites, but mostly by experimenting and studying yourself. > I also underutilized my capacity for learning during that time None of us know what would happen on the road not taken. You wouldn't be the same person. For one thing, it's not realistic to compare anyone to some image of perfection and then say they could have done better.