My charitable interpretation of schools is daycare for kids with any actual education as a happy side benefit, but my less than charitable interpretation of schools is part-time jail for kids with the happy side benefit of state indoctrination and any actual education as a distant third thing that I guess also sometimes happens there
How the pandemic has been handled in schools (or more like the lack thereof) has not improved my reading of schooling as an institution
@eniko how home school kids turn out is by far the best argument for state schooling.
Religious insanity aside, the average person is simply neither capable, willing, nor able to afford proper schooling
And I've certainly got my beefs with the American schooling system, mostly around bullying, caving in to parents, and basically wasting every year before high school and most of high school
@eniko apart from all the other reasons, not having to force them to go to school every day for twelve of the most formative years of their lives is a huge reason I'm very glad to not have kids
@eniko Yeah, school was pretty much always a miserable place for me.
I was of course bullied for being autistic in primary school, called lazy, and graded for not paying 100% of my attention to subjects I simply didn't vibe with (or with the teachers, because it turns out a lot of things are more interesting when you're not required to memorize random facts).
Later on, most of my good memories are of the stuff I did with friends despite the system, not because of it. The only thing school did there is provide a consistent schedule we could all work around.
There were a couple actually good teachers, the rest were either incompetent, cruel, or completely nuts (as in conspiracy, far-right, antivaxx, 5G etc.)
@eniko
As a victim of bullying the state indoctrination part really hits home, had to repair the damage that over half a decade of harassment and neglect had on me myself and it took years to stop blaming myself for the injuries inflicted on me under the care of the state. Whenever I do interact with the state the effect, and perhaps even the intention is to silence people through the cheapest means possible and school set that tone by trying to placate both the victims and abusers and sweep the incidents under the rug..
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