AZNCHIPMUNK'S PROFILE

i didn't remember gamingw until just now

Even though I haven't actively posted on these forums in a long time, I still exist. Preserving RPGMaker history has value to me. It might not be super soon, but when I get a chance I'll find and look through my old hard drives to upload anything I have.

w0w

author=Pizza
because I was involved with Team Cascade,

holy shit

I don't really post here much, but the rather sensationalist thread title caught my eye and I thought I'd give my opinion, even though it's probably likely to purposely incite responses like this. I'm also going to ignore any of the political comments in this thread and try to focus on the initial opinions quoted.

Being a product of the American public school system (and a public university student nearly done with their degree), I've lived my whole life, like many others at my age, bound by this system. Many or most of my major successes and failures in life have been defined by this system. While it has certainly been difficult and trying at times, I can say without any doubt that it has immensely increased the quality and also potential quality of life of not only just those around me, but vast numbers of people across the world.

Here's why:

1. Learning to learn:

It is certainly true that for many exams that I have taken, they have simply been of that "memorize", "pass", and "forget" nature. Yet, the repetition of this act has taught me to pick up temporary skills quickly and also has given me confidence in my ability to learn. For example, if I need to learn how to bake a cake for a friend's birthday, even if I only have a little experience in the kitchen, it is simple enough to look up a recipe and follow instructions.

Also, while it varies from person to person, you do not always forget everything. I may not know the exact terms of the Treaty of Versailles yet I still know the basics, the "gist" of World War I. I can still do basic derivatives and integrals after taking years of (and forgetting) calculus and it will be much easier for me in the future if I develop a heavy interest in mathematics or physics.

This is why musicians, performers, artists, writers, programmers, etc. all practice. I can learn and practice a piece on piano for a performance, and forget it a few months later, and yet, I'll still be better for it overall.

2. You don't need 12 years of education to learn all the stuff you need to learn.

If education truly centers itself around real learning and not rote memorization, the amount of stuff you need to learn only requires 2-3 years.

As a semi-nitpick, not every skill takes only 2-3 years to learn. Bringing up musicianship again, it takes considerably longer to properly learn to play your first instrument than that, unless you are a prodigy. It takes many years of practice. That's what these 12 years are, practice for a vast variety of different things.

2. Developing culture:

You may call this "social engineering" or whatever but going to school develops a shared culture for humans. It's much easier for people to connect to one another when they are doing the same things. While not ALWAYS true, people in school mostly make friends with people in their same grade level who will be in the same graduation class. Why? Because you're around these people all the time, you do the same homework assignments, listen to the same lecture, etc. etc. It gives people a common ground. On top of that, there is the fairly obvious factor of the larger cultural knowledge that you will develop from going to school, whether it is about historical actions or local events or whatnot.

Going to school teaches you how to "behave", but I don't mean that in the fall-in-line don't-rock-the-boat kind of way, but rather how society works: cultural norms, morality, discipline (for work in the future), etc. Several people have mentioned it in this topic so I don't feel a great need to expand upon it.

3. Discovering passions and opening doors:

In my state (I don't know the exact details about others so they may differ) children at public school begin taking required choral/music classes in elementary school for a year or two. From then until high school, you are required to take a number of elective courses including music classes, art, dance, drama, philosophy, computer science, environmental science, etc. (These vary very heavily across schools, of course). On top of that, there's the required "core" classes, including English/Literature, Math, PE (Phys. Ed.), Bio/Chem/Physics, and a foreign language.

Why are we taught such a large variety of subjects? Because very, very few of us humans overall know EXACTLY what we want to do in life long-term, and kids in the age range of 5 - 18 are even less sure of what they want to be. I could take on an apprenticeship when I'm 13 for 6 years, but it won't necessarily be the thing I will want to do when I'm 19. How many people do you know that followed through their first grade "dream job" of being an astronaut or fireman? Hell, I've already had a great deal of success in my field, and I still don't know exactly what I want to do with the rest of my life.

We can maintain our own hobbies in our own time, but school allows us to explore a wider variety of interests that we would have done so on our own.

For the most part, people who get straight As are generally dumb as f*ck.

While being an extremely broad generalization, it is certainly possible. You don't have to be highly intelligent to get straight A's. However, I think that smarter people will likely see the inherent value in getting an A (or B, or even a C) over an F. Having good grades throughout your schooling will in any case open up a significantly wider pool of opportunities, not just in learning but in all sorts of experiences. You'll only be limiting yourself if you decide to do poorly in school because you think it's bullshit or that you're "subscribing to the system" or whatever.

In middle school and high school I took about 4 years of Spanish classes. While I no longer know the intricacies of its sentence structure or verb conjugations, I can still understand bits and pieces and can have a basic conversation. While traveling to foreign countries, I have been able to communicate with them due to them being taught English in schools. These doors would have been closed to me otherwise.

---

Being in school is an environment where you will be around and develop with a number of other humans. You learn to talk with others. You learn how people react when certain things are said to them, and you learn how to react yourself when hearing certain things. You learn to read and write, or at least how to fine tune these abilities. You learn how to acquire new skills and also how to practice them. In essence, you learn to communicate.

Being in school gives you the opportunity to meet others and interact. Potential boyfriends/girlfriends, becoming part of a club or organization, friends, enemies, etc. On the whole of society, it can be said that the quality of life and standard of living has risen considerably over the last few centuries, and widespread schooling and education is certainly one of the reasons why.

Now, this is not to say that humans who have not been educated or who have not been to school, public or private, have less value than other people. In fact, I know many wonderful people who aren't part of the same "system". Some people simply have the drive to go out, learn, and communicate on their own. But school provides a starting point for everyone in general.

Also I'd like to make a last comment. It is definitely true that there are people with awful situations in schools who cannot get education, largely in areas of poverty with situations where people cannot pay for higher education or children have to work instead in order to support the family and cannot go to school. There also are schools that simply have bad teachers, or children who simply do not perform well under a particular environment or in a particular subject. These are regrettable and unfortunate, but the issue doesn't exactly lie in the concept of schooling itself but probably in some larger social issue.

Sorry for the essay.