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> What is the point of school? Why do children have to spend 12 years of their lives learning basically nothing and coming out anything but well formed adults.
by sofixa 1y ago
> What is the point of school? Why do children have to spend 12 years of their lives learning basically nothing and coming out anything but well formed adults.
So that every kid has a uniform and common base of knowledge that helps them understand the world around them, and enables them to go further by learning more or starting to work.
With no mandatory schooling, most kids would be illiterate and ignorant. A lot of countries, even developed ones, already struggle with the second (antivaxers, flat earthers, voting for dumb populists, etc.). Which indicates the need to improve, not remove.
If there was no schooling, how would kids becoming young adults even know what they're interested in to do? Would they know that e.g. chemistry or physics are things that exist if nobody explained the basics to them? Or would they just continue doing what their parents did, condemning them to a vicious cycle and almost zero social mobility? From history, the latter.
- constantcrying 1y ago>So that every kid has a uniform and common base of knowledge that helps them understand the world around them, and enables them to go further by learning more or starting to work. Oh, I must have missed that class.
- tekla 1y agoI'm guessing you skipped it
- constantcrying 1y agoI "skipped" like two days in my entire school life by pretending to be sick. If that was taught in those two days I will obviously apologize.
- graemep 1y ago> antivaxers, flat earthers Generally people who went to school. > With no mandatory schooling, most kids would be illiterate and ignorant. School is not mandatory in a lot of countries. In the UK education is mandatory but school is not and educating kids out of school leads to much better results in my experience.
- Nux 1y agoWere you home schooled, on what are you basing your statement? I'm not in disagreement, I'm just curious, please elaborate.
- graemep 1y ago> Were you home schooled, on what are you basing your statement? I was no. My kids were home educated from about eight or nine to 16 (when they did GCSEs and IGCSE - British exams taken at that age). Overall I think they got a better education than I did (and I sent to a school that was one of the top 10 in the UK academically). The older one is now an adult, will shortly finish a degree in electronic engineering and is working for jaguar Landrover. She thinks she benefited a lot. The younger one is at sixth form college (school for 16 to 18 year olds) as her older sister did, and I can compare them to the typical kid at that stage. My older daughter puts her interest in engineering very much to home ed - more time with a dad with science and technology interests, and not picking up gender stereotypes from school about male and female jobs (she was the ONLY girl in her A level electronics class). Other advantages: 1. study at your own pace - more time for something you are finding hard, can go fast through easy stuff without boredom 2. flexibility in how to study (self teaching, tutors, online courses, parental teaching for things I know well). 3. flexibility in what to study: my kids did subjects most schools do not offer. Both did Latin GCSE, and the younger one did astronomy, for example 4. more motivation, self discipline and study skills as a result of the above.= 5. more time for hobbies and interests 6. more time to spend in settings out for school so meeting a wider range of people (pursing 5, but also just meeting up with friends)
- pandemic_region 1y agoI don't know the concept of home education that well. Is it something the parents do, or do you get private teacher(s) to do it ?
- Nux 1y agoWell done! Wonder how well tgey did/do socially, given they didn't have school mates. Any thoughts?