Ah, but how can you possibly know whether the average person is innately stupid and incurious or whether school makes them that way?
Anyone who spends time with small children knows that before they reach school age, they are all absurdly curious about the world, and they absorb information like a sponge. I suppose you think it's just a coincidence that they lose that curiosity right around the time they start being stuffed into classrooms.
Writers like John Taylor Gatto have written hundreds of pages going through historical and psychological research to show that "genius is as common as dirt."
Your contrary opinion is actually one of the most insidious false lessons we learn in school, and it's a very useful form a social control. "See, most people are too stupid to manage themselves, you'd better let us elites make all the hard decisions for you."
And even if I grant your premise, it still doesn't support maintaining the schools we have, because they demonstrably don't work at conveying a "base level of education". They're elaborate kabuki, where everybody pretends the work matters and everybody knows it doesn't, and the average student retains almost nothing.
> I suppose you think it's just a coincidence that they lose that curiosity right around the time they start being stuffed into classrooms.
I mean come on. Yeah, little kids are curious, but do you really think that curiosity will translate to the amount of sustained concentration it takes to learn a complex subject like algebra.
I'm currently taking a computer science class and any time I don't feel like studying but do it anyway, I make a mental note that I would not have done that work if it weren't for the class. And it's one good reason why formal education beats autodidacticism, at least for me.
It can happen. Lots of little kids and teenagers sustain effort to play video games.
There is something to be said about being able to sustain effort over long periods of time (months, years) to master something, whose training includes things that are not pleasant. However, this is not something that formal education does very well. Ultimately, the person learning is the one who has to concentrate. Sticks and carrots do not necessarily goad someone into concentrating.
1. I dispute your assertion that children 'lose that curiosity right around the time they start being stuffed into classrooms' - I don't think most people lose their curiosity. I think some people who chafe against rules and conformity may, but I don't see most people being in that category.
2. I also find being able to focus on subjects that are not innately interesting is a useful skill, as are conforming to simple rules. There can be other reasons for following rules than oppressive social control. Maybe preschool teachers have to show up on time so the children in their care can be supervised appropriately, or drivers have to stay in their lanes to avoid accidents.
3. 'because they demonstrably don't work at conveying a "base level of education"' - 99% of people in the USA are literate. I don't know of comparable data, but nearly everybody can preform arithmetic too.
Actually, the recorded literacy rate is 86% in the USA[0].
The only number I can find for numeracy is this study [1], and depending on whether 'level 1' is considered numerate, it seems to show that between 5% and 20% of the US population is innumerate.
Anyone who spends time with small children knows that before they reach school age, they are all absurdly curious about the world, and they absorb information like a sponge. I suppose you think it's just a coincidence that they lose that curiosity right around the time they start being stuffed into classrooms.
Writers like John Taylor Gatto have written hundreds of pages going through historical and psychological research to show that "genius is as common as dirt."
Your contrary opinion is actually one of the most insidious false lessons we learn in school, and it's a very useful form a social control. "See, most people are too stupid to manage themselves, you'd better let us elites make all the hard decisions for you."
And even if I grant your premise, it still doesn't support maintaining the schools we have, because they demonstrably don't work at conveying a "base level of education". They're elaborate kabuki, where everybody pretends the work matters and everybody knows it doesn't, and the average student retains almost nothing.