Forwarded from [⚠️Terrorist] Fully Automated Luxury Lesbian Space Anarcho Communism (the lord is my shepherd i shall not want)
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Response to a common (and terrible) take I hear about education (from someone who works in public schools)
"School doesn't teach you what you need to know, it teaches you a bunch of useless stuff."
Several parts to this: The things you "need to know" are either things easily taught within the course of a few articles or sessions (I see a lot of you talking about the need for schools to teach you how to balance a checkbook. That's something learned quickly enough that you probably don't need a full year's high school course on it. Additionally, if you ARE lost on that, many libraries actively have courses on that, which are often underutilized) and/or are already available, and you just didn't opt to take them (family and consumer sciences, otherwise known as home economics, for example).
Also, the "useless stuff" you're learning isn't useless for everyone. YOU might not need to learn the basics of physics or chemistry, but anyone who wants to work in the physical sciences needs that information, and it's incredibly useful to have that education before going into higher education for it. A lot of the "useless" stuff you're taught is quite handy for other people.
Additionally, some of the skills you're learning ARE useful, just in more abstract ways. "Why do I need to know what the green light represents?" You need to know what the green light represents because you need to learn how to examine the subtext in the media you consume, and how crafted narratives work. That's a life skill. Media literacy arguably the most important skill, if you want to be an informed member of the public.
Finally, the whole concept of that complaint comes from the idea of "functional education," the idea that information is only useful or beneficial if you're actively using it. That's a terrible fucking model for teaching people, and actively dehumanizes people by leaving no room for human aspiration outside of the spaces of domestic or productive labor. Education is more than just job preparedness, it's a value in and of itself, because it allows people to be more than the economic and social spaces they inhabit.
None of this is to say I have no qualms with education, particularly the American model of education, I just find takes like that to be absolutely asinine.
"School doesn't teach you what you need to know, it teaches you a bunch of useless stuff."
Several parts to this: The things you "need to know" are either things easily taught within the course of a few articles or sessions (I see a lot of you talking about the need for schools to teach you how to balance a checkbook. That's something learned quickly enough that you probably don't need a full year's high school course on it. Additionally, if you ARE lost on that, many libraries actively have courses on that, which are often underutilized) and/or are already available, and you just didn't opt to take them (family and consumer sciences, otherwise known as home economics, for example).
Also, the "useless stuff" you're learning isn't useless for everyone. YOU might not need to learn the basics of physics or chemistry, but anyone who wants to work in the physical sciences needs that information, and it's incredibly useful to have that education before going into higher education for it. A lot of the "useless" stuff you're taught is quite handy for other people.
Additionally, some of the skills you're learning ARE useful, just in more abstract ways. "Why do I need to know what the green light represents?" You need to know what the green light represents because you need to learn how to examine the subtext in the media you consume, and how crafted narratives work. That's a life skill. Media literacy arguably the most important skill, if you want to be an informed member of the public.
Finally, the whole concept of that complaint comes from the idea of "functional education," the idea that information is only useful or beneficial if you're actively using it. That's a terrible fucking model for teaching people, and actively dehumanizes people by leaving no room for human aspiration outside of the spaces of domestic or productive labor. Education is more than just job preparedness, it's a value in and of itself, because it allows people to be more than the economic and social spaces they inhabit.
None of this is to say I have no qualms with education, particularly the American model of education, I just find takes like that to be absolutely asinine.
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