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Is it just me or is 12 years of structured education something that one should have a choice whether or not one experiences it? Schools don't care about children's personal problems, even ones that interfere with the educational process. I personally wish my parents had enrolled me in school at age five instead of age six. Then I would have to endure one less year of school as a growing teen.
The importance of public education depends on what value one places on knowledge. Knowledge to fit purpose is certainly of value, but to pursue useless knowledge is worse than worthless, it is a waste of precious time. See Herbert Spencer, "What Knowledge is of Most Worth," Westminster Review (July 1859). Need public education be compulsory? Yes. But that only begs the question of its value, both individually and for society as a whole. Good schools are scarce, and useful knowledge invaluable. Individually, we are as much as we know; and as a nation, our democratic institutions are dependent on an enlightened citizenry, which justifies placing a premium on education. What form that education takes (i.e., what curriculum our public schools provide) is a matter of primary importance to everyone.
How do you know what knowledge is going to be useful or useless? I don't think any knowledge is useless. Maybe not as useful, but definietly not useless. Learnign anything has value whether you feel you will use it later in life or not.
As to the original question, I do not think 12 years of education should be optional nor do I think it is enough. You do have a choice as to what kind of education you want to recieve be it public, private, homeschooled, wtc. But the best years for learning is when you are young and should be utilized to it's full potential. The solution to having a bad experienc in school is not to get rid of school. That is probably the worse lesson you could learn.
'NOW, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them. This is the principle on which I bring up my own children, and this is the principle on which I bring up these children. Stick to Facts, sir!'
- Charles Dickens, Hard Times (1854)
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There is a great deal of uselessness in public schools. Indeed, much of what passes for education is a waste of time, albeit that now a college education has come to be the ticket to middle-class society. Beyond that, what good is the pursuit of useless studies and advanced academic degrees that only certify learning beyond one’s capacity to think? It seems a tiresome venture with but little prospect for any substantial reward; and yet one sees such masters of arcane knowledge who are good for nothing. Their heads are filled with useless facts. (I am reminded of a noted ichthyologist who prided himself with knowing the Latin names for the entire class Osteichthyes, and whose students joked that the professor was so full of fish that every time he learned of a newly-discovered species another would pop out his backside in an expression of unpardonable French!) One cannot help but think that more useful things might well be learned outside the halls of academe at the local tavern.
Whoever Dickens was having make that speech was an Ass. Too much education, particularly early science teaching, is wasted on FACTS. FACTS can be looked up in a library or an encyclopedia or even wiki. Determining what ‘FACTS” are true and how the facts interrelate is knowledge. Schools should be teaching how to determine if facts are actually fact (separate the wheat from the chaff) and how to relate (think about) them. Science is not just a description of reality it is a manner of figuring out the description of reality not just “facts”.
The schools should also teach how to present your conclusions to the world in a comprehensible manner. Reading “Great Literature” is useful for learning how other people think and live but does not help anyone become a writer themselves. I, for one, never read Moby Dick because I had all the experience with a compulsive obsessed fanatic I needed because I lived with one.
When public schooling of most of the population was limited to producing a person educated well enough to make a living in a seemingly simpler world all 12 years were not for everyone. Most actually dropped out because little more than readin’, writen’ and ‘rithmatic was actually needed to tend a farm or run a grocery store. Later they added more complex studies for the people that would become mechanics and accountants. College was a luxury for the future professionals or for the breeding of future elites.
The great dichotomy in education has been the need for trade schools and the desire for academic knowledge beyond that needed to make a living. Many of today’s education is an extended trade school designed to prove the future employee was immune to total boredom and seemingly useless activity. Do we need 16 years to teach a person how to be a bureaucrat? I do not know the answer.
Okay, so if school should be a "personal decision" it should be your parents' decision, no? I don't know many 6-year olds that would choose to go to school. Imagine your life as an adult with no education thanks to your parents' decision not to send you. Would you not resent them every day that you wallow in poverty and ignorance? And what would all the children be doing all day while their parents were at work? I won't even mention what our nation's economy would be like with such a large, uneducated population.
No, I do not think that basic education should be a choice. I hated school, too. But life also sucks so you have to learn to deal with it somewhere. Toughen up. Learn a few things. Do the best you can. C'est la vie.
'NOW, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them. This is the principle on which I bring up my own children, and this is the principle on which I bring up these children. Stick to Facts, sir!'
- Charles Dickens, Hard Times (1854)
_______________________________
There is a great deal of uselessness in public schools. Indeed, much of what passes for education is a waste of time, albeit that now a college education has come to be the ticket to middle-class society. Beyond that, what good is the pursuit of useless studies and advanced academic degrees that only certify learning beyond one’s capacity to think? It seems a tiresome venture with but little prospect for any substantial reward; and yet one sees such masters of arcane knowledge who are good for nothing. Their heads are filled with useless facts. (I am reminded of a noted ichthyologist who prided himself with knowing the Latin names for the entire class Osteichthyes, and whose students joked that the professor was so full of fish that every time he learned of a newly-discovered species another would pop out his backside in an expression of unpardonable French!) One cannot help but think that more useful things might well be learned outside the halls of academe at the local tavern.
Here's a fact....Dickens was a heavy drinker who was violent and beat his wife and kids.
Here's another fact....the reason most of us can read what you just wrote and probably the reason anyone read Dickens at all is thanks to teachers and school. I don't know of too many people who learned to read at the "local tavern".
I assume that the OP is a High School student who's tired of school. I think a lot of kids would choose to drop out if they could and think that 12 years is way too much. That's why we don't let the kids choose themselves and have made school obligatory. Thankfully society and parents choose for them because, as adults, we understand that kids don't have the maturity and experience to make wise decisions about their future. That's clear by the OP's post.
School IS optional... it's the parent's option. Parents can choose to homeschool their children in every state, and in some states it's very loosely regulated. I don't know of any state that requires homeschooled kids to follow the same curriculum as the public schools, and in many cases, kids don't need to be tested or take certain classes... of course, it's to the parent's and the child's benefit to educate them properly, but "properly" means different things to different people.
I do believe that there is a lot of uselessness in public schools (and hey, I'm not even a spouse-beater or an alcoholic!), and that learning a trade beginning in 9th or 10th grade would be beneficial to a lot of kids... I wish that more kids took advantage of the opportunity to attend trade schools and pursue apprenticeships.
Is it just me or is 12 years of structured education something that one should have a choice whether or not one experiences it? Schools don't care about children's personal problems, even ones that interfere with the educational process. I personally wish my parents had enrolled me in school at age five instead of age six. Then I would have to endure one less year of school as a growing teen.
Buildings (ie, schools) don't care about anything. But plenty of teachers certainly do. I'm married to one, and she is acutely aware of the personal problems of students -- behavioral issues, particularly difficult family situations, illnesses, bullying, and so forth. She cares about them (and I know, because I hear the stress and lament in her voice as she relays the stories behind them to me) and they factor into how she deals with her students.
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