Compulsory school is bad for life
This is a very controversial subject as the opinions about it differ like night and day from one person to the next.
In the following lines I will present my viewpoint of the situation.
A school is an institution where students (or “pupils”) learn while under the supervision of teachers.
I’ll begin by saying this: the current public school system is destroying many lives. Of course, there are schools that make an exception from this, but the general system is designed to do just that, to destroy lives and to create mindless servants. I know this first hand, because I’m young and I’m part of the public school system.
What determines me to have such a negative opinion about it? There are a couple of reasons:
1. The current school system forces children to grow absurd.
“It is absurd and anti-life to be part of a system that compels you to sit in confinement with people of exactly the same age and social class. That system effectively cuts you off from the immense diversity of life and the synergy of variety, indeed it cuts you off from your own part and future, scaling you to a continuous present much the same way television does. [...] Schools are intended to produce through the application of formulae, formulaic human beings whose behavior can be predicted and controlled.” - John Taylor Gatto
2. It doesn’t teach the children anything about themselves. And self-knowledge is the only knowledge with a long lasting value.
“‘Self-knowledge’ is commonly used in philosophy to refer to knowledge of one’s particular mental states, including one’s beliefs, desires, and sensations.” - Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy
The absurdity of the schooling system
I’ve been a “good” student for only 4 years out of the total of 12 years of schooling that I’ve followed until now. Only for four years I’ve obeyed the system and did my best to achieve a high “rank” in it. Then it came to me that what the system was teaching was irrelevant for me. Worse than that, it was irrelevant for my whole life. And school is supposed to help children do good in life. How can it do that when it is irrelevant to it’s purpose? Scientists aren’t trained in science classes, politicians aren’t trained in civics classes, writers aren’t trained in English classes. School has become a big mechanical institution without a conscience. I see it as a big swamp through which many are forced to pass in order to end up many steps behind their starting point. When a child goes to school he’s at the A point in life and heading towards B. After getting out of the compulsory schooling system, he’s at -A.
Before a child goes to school it has an ability that is more valuable than anything he could learn in there. The child has his imagination, his most prized possession which Einstein considered to be more important than knowledge. What happens after the child enters the compulsory school system? His imagination is punished, restrained, slowly replaced with filler knowledge. He is taught to obey rules and orders, memorize facts that make no sense in the world unfolding around him and then graded for his ability in those disciplines.
What do grades represent? They represent that a certain unique child had his mind in a certain place at a certain moment of a certain day. This is just as relevant as drawing a conclusion about my personality from the way that I pressed some key on my keyboard while writing the second character of the third sentence in my 50′th post on this blog. It’s both irrelevant and absurd.
“It is absurd and anti-life to be part of a system that compels you to listen to a stranger reading poetry when you want to learn to construct buildings, or to sit with a stranger discussing the construction of buildings when you want to read poetry.
It is absurd and anti-life to move from cell to cell at the sound of a gong for every day of your natural youth in an institution that allows you no privacy and even follows you into the sanctuary of your home demanding that you do its “homework”.” - John Taylor Gatto
Regarding the invasion of privacy I must say that I’ve done my homeworks only until the fifth grade. After that I almost never did my homeworks again. I know, I was a “bad” student, but as strange as this may sound, now I’m happy that I was that way! My life would have been completely different if I chose to be the obeying type. It may have been different for better or for worse, I don’t know that, but considering that I love what I am doing right now I think I’ve made the right decision and chose the right path.
Everything that I’ve learned about life, universe and pretty much about everything, isn’t knowledge gained in school. It has been a self teaching process, I did it because I enjoyed it, because I chose to engage in it. And it is this self teaching process that really educates and adds to the value of an individual. This makes you independent.
The lack of opportunities to gain more self knowledge
All my years in the compulsory school system haven’t taught me a thing about myself. I needed to break free in order to discover and learn what I truly liked. I believe that the children who do good in school and manage to discover themselves are exceptions of the school system. The main purpose of the school isn’t that, it is to mechanize thinking and leave the children without a sense of self - which derives from self-knowledge.
Robots think mechanically, they don’t have a sense of self and are easy to control. School children are programmed much the same way.
I always loved what Mark Twain had to say about schooling and education:
“Don’t let schooling interfere with your education.”
Instead of a conclusion
The purpose of this post is to try and raise yet another small alarm signal in the world. As much as some of you might respect the school institution, so far I think it has created more useless and dependent individuals than performing and independent ones.
These are only a few of the effects of the poor schooling system worldwide.
However, it’s a good thing that today many private schools have emerged and people have the possibility to send their children to school systems based on other beliefs, with different values than the ones “experts” agree on.
For more information about the topic you should read the “Why Schools Don’t Educate” speech held by John Taylor Gatto while accepting the New York City Teacher of the Year Award on January 31, 1990.
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Thank you for echoing my sentiments. This is why I took my daughter out of school during middle school and have been homeschool/unschooling her. It gives her a chance to learn the things that she is interested in, to rediscover the fun of actual learning and to develop self confidence based on actual achievement rather than the letters on her report card.
Being smart and confined to a school all day can be so damaging to a child. You don’t get to work at your own pace, and are forced to just regurgitate facts rather than learning to ask why and how to find the answer to that question.
Hello Melissa, I really am glad to see that there are mothers who are on the same “wave-length” with me.
A smart kid trapped in school is like a dolphin at an aquarium. He survives, he’s applauded, but he doesn’t live like it should and so his natural instincts fade away, he becomes dependent of the system and unable to manage his life on his own.
But that’s not all negativity and sadness. It forces people to find alternative solutions - such as homeschooling - and offers them the opportunity to strengthen their bonds!
While school is difficult for some and if you have the right situation home schooling is a very good thing, for most they need to learn how to listen to their teachers and have respect. Without school most would get into trouble and learn little if nothing. The many valuable things that you mention are to be learned at home, church or by yourself in addition to the formal education you get at school. Sorry but I can’t agree with you here!!!!
It seems to me that the things you say would happen without school are already happening: “most would get into trouble and learn little if nothing”.
“The many valuable things that you mention are to be learned at home, church or by yourself in addition to the formal education you get at school.” It’s possible in theory, but here’s some math done by John Taylor Gatto:
“Out of the 168 hours in each week, my children sleep 56. That leaves them 112 hours a week out of which to fashion a self.
My children watch 55 hours of television a week according to recent reports. That leaves them 57 hours a week in which to grow up.
My children attend school 30 hours a week, use about 6 hours getting ready, going and coming home, and spend an average of 7 hours a week in homework - a total of 45 hours. During that time, they are under constant surveillance, have no private time or private space, and are disciplined if they try to assert individuality in the use of time or space. That leaves 12 hours a week out of which to create a unique consciousness. Of course, my kids eat, and that takes some time - not much, because they’ve lost the tradition of family dining, but if we allot 3 hours a week to evening meals, we arrive at a net amount of private time for each child of 9 hours.”
9 hours (raw time) *per week* to gain the most useful knowledge for life… not too much time is it? Other than that, it’s not a secret that schools are intended to produce predictable (and controllable) individuals. Robot people: good at work, useless in life. Of course that there are exceptions who thrive in the school enviroment, but the vast majority of children (which is the main target of compulsory school) aren’t.
The main and most important downside of the compulsory school system is that it doesn’t educate - at all.
There are plenty of other not-so-good facts that I could tell you about school (a few positive ones too), but you’re free to believe whatever suits you best. I’m not trying to convince anyone of anything here!
I have to admit that when I was first thinking about unschooling my daughter, my first thought was that if she didn’t go to school she would just do nothing and get into trouble. Then I realized that everyday she goes to a place filled with violence, has to pass through metal detectors, isn’t allowed even a backpack because it might contain a weapon or something and after she got suspended for bringing 2 advil to school in her pocket. (she didn’t want to have to bring in a doctors note to the nurse for cramps) This is the reality for kids across America. Kids are being shot, beat up and bullied and the teachers are forced to be referees, surrogate parents, social workers as well as teach.
So, after taking her out of school, she spent a couple months doing nothing. Staying up late, sleeping in, chatting with friends on the internet etc. After almost 3 months, she got tired of doing nothing, and started to look for things to do. I started to understand that the things we do are how we learn. I asked myself what would I do if suddenly I didn’t have to work. Not if I were rich, but if suddenly I didn’t have to worry about rent or bills. I would be so lazy for a few months, and then I would look for things to do with my time. I would develop more hobbies, devote time to voluntering, rent old movies and have classic movie marathons, visit museums and so on. I would learn a lot doing this sort of thing, and this is exactly what she started doing.
The basic purpose of high school is to teach certain things, to prepare for college and give student a love for learning. All of these things can be done better at home. For example, high schoolers learn Shakespeare by the teaching saying “ok, we are going to learn Macbeth, it is hard, there will be a test.” While at home, we rent all the movies like Romeo and Juliet and Othello. You can get a better feel of the writing through the movie, because Shakespeare was, in fact, a playwright. Not only that, you can learn to appreciate his writings without the idea that this is hard and there is an exam.
Every week, my daughter goes to an art class at a local museum. We live outside of the city, so she has to take the subway. She gets time to be alone, to realize that she can get where she needs to go, to explore independently and to learn art at the museum. It is a good deal, and yes I am afraid she might get hurt out by herself, but odds are higher of getting beat up or shot at public high school.
It is a personal choice, but one I think that needs a lot more conversation about. Once we get past the knee jerk reaction of “all kids must attend school” and start looking at the reasons why, we can make a more informed choice based on what is right for the individual.
[...] From a psychological point of view, I believe that work fills the need within us to conform to the now social cloud of the pack. A need is developed greatly by the school system. [...]
[...] long ago I wrote an article explaining - shortly - why compulsory school is bad for life. If you haven’t read it, here are the two main points of the article: 1. The current school [...]
“Don’t let schooling interfere with your education.”
Right on.
Mark Twain, what a great mind!
Here are some other witty quotes about education from the same man:
“Education consists mainly of what we have unlearned.”
“Ideally a book would have no order to it, and the reader would have to discover his own.”
“It’s no wonder that truth (about school in this case) is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense.”
School is a necessary evil that must be avoided (adapted from “work is a necessary evil to be avoided”).
[...] uttering a new word, is what people fear most. It is people whose minds were severely damaged by compulsory state education, who easily succumb to authority. The cognitive connection between their behavior and the [...]