"Children are required to be in school, where their freedom is greatly restricted, far more than most adults would tolerate in their workplaces. In recent decades we’ve been compelling them to spend ever more time in this kind of setting, and there’s strong evidence that this is causing psychological damage to many of them. And as scientists have investigated how children naturally learn, they’ve realized that kids do so most deeply and fully, and with greatest enthusiasm, in conditions that are almost opposite to those of school….
Most people assume that the basic design of today’s schools emerged from scientific evidence about how children learn. But nothing could be further from the truth.
Schools as we know them today are a product of history, not research.
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Research has shown that people of all ages learn best when they are self-motivated, pursuing answers to questions that reflect their personal interests and achieving goals that they’ve set for themselves. Under such conditions, learning is usually joyful.
The evidence for all of this is obvious to anyone who’s watched a child grow from infancy to school age. Through their own efforts, children figure out how to walk, run, jump, and climb. They learn from scratch their native language, and with that, they learn to assert their will, argue, amuse, annoy, befriend, charm, and ask questions.
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They do all of this before anyone, in any systematic way, tries to teach them anything.
This amazing drive and capacity to learn does not turn itself off when children reach five or six. But we turn it off with our coercive system of schooling.”
Thank
“and there’s strong evidence that this is causing psychological damage to many of them.”
real glad we’re just learning this now
information that shocks literally no one who’s under 30
Well shit, I’m over 30 and it doesn’t shock me, I hated school and my school experience fucked me up
Also the dependency schooling places on people considering how much we value the education system.
People get so hung up on it that they’re rarely prepared when it’s time for them to stop schooling. Because before you were going into a most likely secured, factory job.
Now? Jobs aren’t secure and the possibilities are endless and so is the cost for ensuring your success in a field. Sure let’s teach you stuff you’ll never learn and put you in a class and mass teach y’all because everyone learns the same but valuable lessons? Nah, go figure it out yourself when you’re living on the streets because student debt robbed you and there are no jobs left!!!
THe modern american education system is a result of the industrial revolution in which children had to get used to a schedule and the monotony of doing the same thing over and over again to prepare them for factory work.