Why Our Coercive System of Schooling Should Topple | Psychology Today

[SoulRiser]

Source/More: Why Our Coercive System of Schooling Should Topple | Psychology Today

Quote:I’ve been called a crazy optimist, a Pollyanna, a romantic idealist. How can I believe that our system of compulsory (forced) schooling is about to collapse? People point out that in many ways the schooling system is stronger now than ever. It occupies more of children’s time, gobbles up more public funds, employs more people, and is more firmly controlled by government—and at ever-higher levels of government—than has ever been true in the past. So why do I believe it’s going to collapse—slowly at first and then more rapidly—over the next ten years or so? Here are four reasons (adapted from the webpage of the Alliance for Self-Directed Education):

1. Our coercive schools have become increasingly and evermore obviously harmful to kids.

Decades ago, schools were tolerable primarily because they didn’t take too much of young people’s time. Children and teens had much time after school, on weekends, and all summer long for self-directed pursuits. But over the years, the school system has intruded increasingly, and ever more disruptively, into children’s and families’ lives. The length of the school year has increased (it now averages 5 weeks longer than in the 1950s). The number of years of required attendance has increased. The amount of homework has increased immensely, especially in elementary schools. Recesses have been reduced, or even been eliminated. Fun activities, such as art and music, have regularly been dropped from curricula in favor of more time for worksheets and test preparation. Teachers have been given less freedom to depart from the standard curriculum, and ever-greater pressure has been placed on children to score high on standardized tests.

Children now often spend more time at school and at homework than their parents spend at their full-time jobs, and the work of schooling is often more burdensome and stress-inducing than that of a typical adult job. A century ago we came to the conclusion that full-time child labor was child abuse, so we outlawed it; but now school is the equivalent of full-time child labor.

The increased time, tedium, and stress of schooling is bringing many kids to the breaking point or beyond, and more and more people are becoming aware of that. It can no longer be believed that schooling is a benign experience for children. The evidence that it induces pathology is overwhelming.

[UnicornLionWolf]

It's tough to say if this will lead to the collapse of the school system. The article mentions negative effects the school system is having on students these days. However, I don't think the people in charge really have our best interests at heart. Meaning they don't give a bleep about our suffering.

[TheCancer]

The environment in many classes in many schools are so toxic that at best they're already downgraded from from a learning environment to a very destructive form of simple daycare. I think this has been going on for decades, however.

[UnicornLionWolf]

(12-21-2016 08:07 PM)TheCancer Wrote:  The environment in many classes in many schools are so toxic that at best they're already downgraded from from a learning environment to a very destructive form of simple daycare. I think this has been going on for decades, however.

You could be right. I could believe that this was a gradual decline as opposed to an overnight disaster.

[TheCancer]

As we've seen in the world the past five years, when change takes hold it can happen very quickly. It seems unsustainable to me but I'm often wrong.

[Rule_BreakerXVIII]

Quote:The revolution will come not because authorities within the coercive school system become enlightened, but because a growing number of families who are victims of that system will realize that they have an option—a good option—and they will take it.

[UnicornLionWolf]

(12-24-2016 07:47 PM)TheCancer Wrote:  As we've seen in the world the past five years, when change takes hold it can happen very quickly. It seems unsustainable to me but I'm often wrong.

I guess there is a way.