"Learning" syntax

[xcriteria]

(01-01-2014 02:56 AM)timf Wrote:  For the history of the world until a couple hundred years ago all learning was accomplished by apprenticeship, usually father to son. When people were collectivized to be components in a global machine, their children were taken from them and they were told that their children would be "educated" and thus be able to move up to higher places in the new utopian world collective.

I think public education has resulted in quite a few benefits to society. Being locked into learning only from your parents isn't necessarily the best thing in the world (it depends on your parents, and if their professions even suit you...)

Fortunately, these days, much of the world has not only the benefits of basic level education (reading and writing, basic math, some knowledge about the world), and the benefits of the printing press, books, and radio that were around earlier in the century (if you could find your way to the material.)

Now, many people on the planet have access the Internet, which is opens up all kinds of doors, especially as so many educational institutions and simply experts in various topics are making content available for free, or for pay in an "unbundled" manner, where you aren't locked into 12 or 4 years from a single paradigm, but you can shop around.

So, I don't think the basic idea of school is a sinister plot against the ideal world of learning only from your parents -- there are benefits of learning from new teachers and being around new people -- but there are so many more ways to do that than just within factory-model schools. And even more these days.