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 No.11160

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In the Western world, there's often an obligation for kids to take up a fulltime education in schools. Some kids have the option to do homeschooling, but even then you are obligated to follow a set curriculum.
While you are allowed to take up a part time employment during your teenage years, there will be restrictions in how much hours you can be employed.

With all the criticism on education and the concerns of the state encroaching on the freedom of the individuals, do you think we should do away with this system?
Should people be free to choose whether to enroll their kids into schools and be free to allow home schooling or self education in the curriculum of their desire if they wish?
Should we perhaps look into options of apprenticeships in the actual workforce rather than a forced curriculum or even open up fulltime employment opportunity for kids of all ages if they so desire?

If a standard education would become optional, should we relieve our society of the value of a preset education? As such should standards for education become a privilege rather than a fundamental right? (id est, kind of like college right now, it will be more of a private school situation with heavier costs if you wish to pursue it, but with the basics picked up from homeschooling and apprenticeships you're encouraged enough to be productive)

 No.11161

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>>11160
I'm committed to the idea of creating places where an accredited college education isn't the only path to productive work in science and software engineering.

This view is mostly because I do not see American college as universally accessible, affordable, and accommodating.  I guess that's slightly relevant.

>With all the criticism on education and the concerns of the state encroaching on the freedom of the individuals
My experience with K-12 education was mostly positive, but I know the quality varies.  What specific concerns are you seeing and referencing?

 No.11162

>>11161
Well, I was wondering how "radical" the views on the educational system has become.
I don't even mean the use of a college degree.

But let's say when it comes to coding/software.
Now a kid goes to primary school to learn to read/write and do basic calculationss and learn general themes of the world around them.
then they go to secondary school and learn math, languages, geography, history, chemistry,...

Only once they're 18 they can choose whether to go to college or pick up a training or just put themselves out on the workforce. every other thing they can only pursue outside of their school hours.

What if instead sending them to even primary school, parents teach them to read/write from an early age and then at the age of 6/7 they get enrolled at a software development company, where from a young age they are set to tasks like debugging codes (first simple stuff, then as they learn more complicated stuff) for training, then write code and once they're deemed capable enough, they can immediately be employed to full time work on software development, even if at that time they're only 10 years old.
Cut out all of the mathematics, history, geography,...

Parents and kids are no longer tied to go through an educational system, but kids are instantly employable in a work environment and be trained via hands on experience.

The downside of course is that kids are not really educated in general or at least only if they would want to pursue that.
and of course, what would happen if this software company decides to close shop and the kid is stranded without much other experience.

There is the question on the morality of child labor as well. Like, is it a big deal that kids are part of the workforce or is this still well management in the current settings?
And how harmful can child labor be on a child's well-being anyway?

 No.11163

>>11160
>but even then you are obligated to follow a set curriculum
Depends on where you are. I certainly didn't, and the better I am for it.
State mandated most anything is rarely good.

>Should people be free to choose whether to enroll their kids into schools and be free to allow home schooling or self education in the curriculum of their desire if they wish?
Absolutely.
Choice is vital, and it's quite clear, at least in the US, the state doesn't make good choices when it comes to education.

>Should we perhaps look into options of apprenticeships in the actual workforce rather than a forced curriculum or even open up fulltime employment opportunity for kids of all ages if they so desire?
I'm not a huge fan of such things, as they create an obligation.
Generally speaking I think any long time obligation is a bad idea, but especially when it comes to kids who don't really have the means to measure such commitments or their benefits to their costs.

>If a standard education would become optional, should we relieve our society of the value of a preset education?
Already is worthless.
I'd say the reverse is more likely. That suddenly, an education will be valued, as opposed to ignored by large.
As it currently stands, the years spent in schooling have no particular long term benefit, even including the information supposedly learned.
How many here can say they've made good use of knowing high-school algebra?
Not many, I should wager, of the few who even retained it.

>As such should standards for education become a privilege rather than a fundamental right?
I've no idea how the notion of education could be a right in the first place.
It's always been a privilege.

 No.11164

>>11162
I would say it would be nice to at the very least not have to spend our prime years in further schooling in order to get into a career or field.
Spending 4+ years after turning 18 in order to get a decent job is certainly an unfair and unreasonable expense of both time and money.

 No.11165

>>11162
Your post seems to address a lot of ideas.  I don't know a lot, but in many places parents may home-school, although the students are still required to get tests to see if they are learning.  I think your example contrasts in giving parents the right to educate their children in a specialty and neglect other subjects.

The problems with child labor, I suppose, are really problems of labor in general: workplace safety, the only available work not helping you learn or develop, and exploitation given power hierarchies.  I guess the conventional view is adults may appropriately make choices that involve these areas, children mostly may not.  You could argue children sent out to the coal mine weren't subject to any greater or lesser harm than adults, so why the age-related views?  But I don't know.  I studied some child psychology, but it's a difficult science because you can only get scientific validity for tiny pieces.  And the questions are often in a form like yours - "what is harmful to a child's well-being?"   Well, that depends on what you consider a healthy child and healthy adult.  If a healthy adult is a coal miner or coder with maximum experience, start early.  If it's something more flexible, another approach.

If you want my opinion, it's that deleting K-12 would be a mistake.  Sure some gifted children with attentive parents would do fine, perhaps even better.  Will students with uneducated parents or overworked parents do better?  When the quality or availability of public education goes down, do things get better historically?

 No.11188

>>11160
Typically most children who are home schooled have the privilege of such choice as the opportunity usually falls upon if they and their families have freedom for a set of circumstances ie; having the free time and knowledge ability/application. As such, a home school curriculum would generally follow a template based upon an already established general school system, with the freedom to make inclusions or omissions as they see fit.
Privilege in the sense of opportunity not everyone has.
The general education system is far from perfect and could use reform imo, albeit I would go as far to say standard education should be a right as the system is set up and streamlined to be accessible to all. We are privileged to have readily accessible schools in the west, and for the sake of equality it is our right to be able to attend.
Apprenticeships and labor should be exempt from an obligation, as like higher education, its presence is there to bolster and support those that wish to actually pursue such.
>If a standard education would become optional, should we relieve our society of the value of a preset education?
Having standard education become optional would essentially broaden the gap between it being a right as the bar would be set higher, diminishing the right as standard and higher education are separate.

 No.11217

I feel like people should be broadly free to pursue their own educational goals without interference from either any level of government or any other powerful institution standing in the way.

At the same time, desperate inequality means that some kind of radical wealth redistribution so that the lower fifty percent or so of the population isn't reduced to ignorant slavery at the hands of the absolute richest and strongest. Ideally, a universal basic income would allow for self-lead efforts at learning. And specific organizations with state backing can and should work to actually facilitate education. I think. With choice being key.


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