Apparently the author's grade school was on the moon?
At grade school, the rest of us learned: to read and write, a little arithmetic, some biology, some physics, some history, maybe a second language, and much more.
What a blessing it would be, as an adult, to have free access to a tutor for such a variety of courses.
The point of school is to grow up not to be an ignoramus.
partially to guarantee a base level of competence and knowledge, partly to condition a society of good workers.
the modern public school system was designed during the height of the industrial revolution to pump out laborers. by adulthood it seems natural to show up in the morning, complete tasks assigned by authority figures, receive discipline or praise, then go home for dinner.
Given that schools totally fail at these, can't we consider making children do something else. Something which does not involve sitting in classrooms for 8 hours a day and learning nothing?
I learned plenty in primary and secondary school. So has my son, who is about to graduate high school and attend university in the fall. Perhaps you went to bad schools, or the school's environment just didn't fit you. That's an argument for better and more adaptable schools, not a condemnation of the concept of mandatory public education.
The foundation you needed to even attend university was set during basic schooling. As much as you think you "learnt nothing" I don't think there's a way for you to have gone through university by learning absolutely nothing in basic schooling.
Should schools be reformed to better align to contemporary ways of living? Of course, I'm all onboard to have a better education system, finding ways to foster kids inherent curiosities in a less strict and authoritarian way, finding new systems that are both scalable while being more free for kids to pursue their interests at their own rate, and finding a way where every kid might have a decent shared baseline of knowledge to go on into their adult lives.
It doesn't mean tearing down all education, or that current education is useless and teaches nothing. It's inadequate but it's the most valuable asset any society can have, finding better ways to do it is a natural progression to improve it.
I wish the education system had allowed me to not waste countless hours in classrooms listening to lectures that I either had already learned through autodidacticism, or that I wasn't interested in at that moment in time, I had to "re-learn" a bunch of material that was presented in classrooms but I was too uninterested to focus on it at that moment. Still, I don't think it was a total failure, just an education model with flaws that needs to be fixed.
But how do you even judge that? You have a dataset of n=1 with no control. Besides, wouldn't you expect to learn 'more effectively' with a young adult's brain than a pre-adolescent one, particularly if you were getting the right level of attention from a teacher and the pace of study was being accelerated as you moved through primary and secondary school?
The point of schools is an attempt to provide uniform education to all pupils that are funneled through the system. Whether or not they succeed on this is irrelevant for the point. Also forcing kids of an age cohort to socialise with each other, which can be used for things like networking and forcing social interactions across class boundaries, which is why home schooling for example isn't regarded that well here in Finland.
In other comments you've made the point that we could have children do something else other than 12 years of schooling. And so I want to turn the question to you instead. What would be an example of an alternative to schooling? What would you have preferred, especially since you seem to have gotten what you need from university education.
I think day care for comprehensive education is main goal. Then with secondary education is to make them somewhat useful in work life. As a lot of truly unskilled labour does not do well in modern economy.
Copying my answer from the other message where you state this:
Are you implying we should school them the Spartan way rather then? Would that prepare them for life in a better way? Or, what do you think would be valuable then to do (purposely not saying learn) during those twelve years?
I took my kids out of school from when they were about nine until they were 16. They went back into school with a better education and better prepared for life than those who stayed in school, exams (UK GCSEs and IGCSEs) passed with high grades as as evidence, and obviously better than good social and life skills, and excellent study skills and self-discipline.
There are definitely better alternatives to the current school system.
> 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.
> 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.
> 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)
>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.
