Running Out of Children, a South Korea School Enrolls Illiterate Grandmothers

I've never really thought much about using schools to teach adults. I love the idea, although in the United States there'd likely be a lot of pushback from people who oppose more subsidized college.

But aside from all of that, I think that the expansion of services that libraries provide would be an excellent way to go about this - many libraries are already getting 3D printers and all sorts of tools, and are consistently adding new programs. And I doubt many people oppose supporting local libraries. Plus, libraries are in some ways better equipped to train people on how to learn on their own (not that they shouldn't also have teachers, but self teaching is definitely a great skill for life long education)

Also, the idea of having many ages all together is really nice - something that doesn't even happen much in colleges. It's the sort of thing that helps foster community across generations and helps give people an understanding of more perspectives. Although luckily that kind of interaction can happen a lot across the internet.

I think it is mostly a funding issue. In Sweden there is municipal adult education. About 4% of the population ages 20 to 64 attended last year, with the median age (at least previously) being around 30. It is however tuition free and grants you a government student loan for living costs. Of course soon enough that loan might not actually cover rent.

With the rapid pace of technological advancement, I think adult education will become increasingly important as labor needs evolve, although online courses are probably a better route for adults. Seems like there would be significant logistical and security issues associated with using facilities currently configured for small children (for example, furniture size, possible overlap of adult/child presence).

Atleast here in Sweden (Stockholm, big city) schools are usually used on evenings (languages courses for adults, such things) and on weekends.

Fwiw there's numerous public schools in my city that run free programs at night and in the summer for "continuing education."

Maybe I live in a strange area, but we've always had continuing education offered by the county and various other local government type organizations. They offer everything from languang and reading instruction to welding, pottery, fitness and woodwork at very reasonable prices. We get two or three catalogs in the mail a few weeks before every scheduled session starts. My wife and I are currently taking the second session of an art program and take regular fitness classes every week.

The local library also offers a large number of classes in various subjects for various ages.

Classes use a mix of facilities, but I've spent quite a few evenings crammed into an elementary school desk.

I've moved around a bit in my state and have always had this kind of offering available, even in quite rural areas. Is this not the norm?

If there was demand for the services ( cooking, bike maintenance, simple math ), I'm sure schools would offer them. The point is who is going to pay to keep these schools open and pay the salaries of the teachers if people aren't willing to pay for these services?

Besides, with the internet, learning to cook, maintain bike or even basic math is available to most people. It's how I learned to cook.

And finally, the Hacker ethos is fairly anti-"schooling". Most hackers view school as indoctrination centers rather than centers of education. The idea of a "hacker" is being a curious free-thinker who tinkers and tries to learn things on their own. Maybe we should give everyone access to the internet so that they can seek the knowledge they want?

Honestly if I could go back and take highschool trigonometry classes again I would. I learned enough that I can use a trig calculator to find what I need, but I'd love to go back and really learn the principles and the why. I had no interest in it back then, it just took me an extra decade and a half to get interested.

I suppose some community colleges might have something like that. I know there are some that offer language classes on 10 week cycles with no other enrollment or commitment required beyond a small fee.

> young couples migrate en masse to big cities for better paying jobs.

If only farming payed like in tech, I would happily do switch careers. Unfortunately this not how we human beings decided to run our society. Hopefully our French yellow vest comrades can give us revolutionary improvements again like they did in past.