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Comment by Domenic_S | Hacker News Reader

> You don't have to send your kid to that kind of school or to any school at all, but you do have to educate them.

Sounds reasonable on its face, but the reality is that if you try and homeschool you will face all types of resistance from the educational establishment. Tellingly, you will encounter that resistance from public primary schools (many colleges love homeschoolers). This is because the primary goal of the system is to strengthen and reinforce itself. This is so that it may have complete power to create generations of people who contribute to making a strong country through work and capitalism.

This purpose may be good or bad, I leave that judgement as an exercise to the reader. But let's not pretend that any of this is done in the best interests of children.

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look at it from the other side:

Do you think it is criminally negligent for a parent to bring up their child without any education whatsoever?

Do you think the state should intervene to protect criminally neglected children from their neglecting parents?

Most people I know, myself included, would say yes to both questions, and therefore the establishment of compulsory education is at least in part directly intended to benefit the children. Education is shown to be one of the very few reliable indicators around the globe of both individual and societal prosperity. How we educate is always up for debate.. should we educate is typically not.

Being educated is the default state of being. An education is literally available everywhere, and kids especially seem to get excited about the process. Parents would have to explicitly set up an environment to prevent their kids from receiving an education of some kind, which, I agree, would be troubling. How realistic is that kind of environment though? Aside from that, it really is just a question of how.

Well, you could start by forcing children to sit still (!) in the same room every day, lecturing them about things that they do not care about, forcing them to do things that they do not want to do, finding ways to shame them if they do not obey, and then insisting that this is what education is and what the process of learning looks like.

That would be one way to teach them not to seek education.

Not all school environments are like this.

From the sounds of it you probably need some sort of therapy. Did you talk to your parents about it at the time? It's their choice how to educate you.

To believe that there is a problem with the current system is apparently a sign of mental illness (ie, a need for therapy).

Sure, why not? It's the end of history, after all.

No, to believe that the current system is a deliberate form of torture might show that you have some scars from that time in your life that could do with talking out. I didn't say (or even imply) you were mad.

And you didn't have to be there, your parents had a choice like everyone else's.

"Scars" imply a growth that is abnormal. It an attempt to mark off my reaction as somehow freakish and thus not legitimate.

As for "deliberate"? Deliberate's got nothing to do with it. See also "The Yellow Wallpaper".

No, scars imply you were wounded and you still bear marks. Nothing more.

It is an attempt to pass off your reaction as not legitimate, yes, because it's not. I'll say it again - you didn't have to be there, nobody was forcing you to be in that classroom, that was your parents choice. The only choice they didn't have was not to educate you at all.

--edit-- Further on the scars thing - in your first post in this thread you explicitly talk of emotional abuse and deliberate traumatisation during your schooling, I'm not sure why you would think my suggestion you talk to someone about this is so offensive?

>> Being educated is the default state of being.

No, no it isn't. Look around the world. Ignorance is the default state of being and continues to be the state of being in a lot of places.

>> An education is literally available everywhere,

You and I have different definitions of education.

>> and kids especially seem to get excited about the process.

Some do, some do not.

>> arents would have to explicitly set up an environment to prevent their kids from receiving an education of some kind, which, I agree, would be troubling. How realistic is that kind of environment though?

Very. Watch your cartoons and shut up.

>> Aside from that, it really is just a question of how.

It's really not, it's a question of giving access to learning to kids whose parents can't afford to educate them or don't care. There are a lot of these folks. In the days before mandatory education kids were put to work to support the family, social mobility was close to zero and... well it was Victorian. Compulsory education has been a huge step forward.

>> But let's not pretend that any of this is done in the best interests of children.

Ummm, yeah it is. Without education they, individually, will find it very hard to thrive in our capitalist system.

Again, I struggle to see this as a bad thing. Yes - one of the goals of the political classes in establishing a perpetuating a compulsory education system is most likely to be economic.

I'm not sure I understand how "people who contribute to making a strong country through work and capitalism" are necessarily devoid of individuality or creativity.

(--edit-- I agree that a lot of systems do end up becoming very focussed on self preservation and expanding their reach, look at the military and police. Education is in no way immune from this, I still don't think that suppressing individuality and creativity are key goals of the system though)

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