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151 sats \ 12 replies \ @Undisciplined 10 Jun \ on: Who is unschooled Education
Michael Malice describes schools as the only place most people will experience violence throughout their entire lives.
Whether that's precisely correct or not, it's crazy that it isn't an outlandishly wrong statement.
Interesting, never thought of it that way. I assume he doesn't mean just bullying, but also involuntary confinement?
I wonder what society would look like if public schooling were still made available free of charge, but it was voluntary and not mandatory.
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voluntary and not mandatory.
I understand it's not the same, but I knew people who treated it as voluntary and they didn't turn out so well.
It makes me wonder how much differently it'd be for them now had there been no stigmatization for opting out.
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Yeah, I know lots of people who were successful without finishing college, but very few who were successful without finishing high school (not that I think finishing high school is the causal factor).
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the problem is that in our current setup, opting out of high school usually means dicking around. But if the counterfactual is that you'd enter the workforce with a full time job, that might actually turn out better for some people
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Part of the reform bundle, then, would have to be removing labor restrictions on teenagers, because right now they aren't allowed to work full time.
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I'm open to that.
not that I think finishing high school is the causal factor
It's probably not. I think there's a lot at play here, but I'd suspect that it's those who are the most ill-fitted to succeed in society at large who have the tendency to play hooky. I'm not placing blame, but we're definitely not all hard-wired for this shit.
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No, I think he means normal physical violence or credible threats of violence.
it was voluntary and not mandatory.
Also, if which school your children attend is voluntary and not assigned.
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Poignant. Schools/education are constantly politicized. No wonder he needs to make that point.
Might the perpetual violence against the values/culture that are at the foundation of Western civilization within these institutions have something to do with it?
I don't know what the solution is, but not allowing the public sector as much control as we currently do seems like a start.
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Even though I'd go further, just adopting simple school choice would go a long way: i.e. parents get to choose their school instead of being assigned to a catchment area.
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This would seem promising.
People could then decide based on the merit/reputation of a school, in the way they decide post-secondary. It could re-align incentives to being performance-/interest-based and create healthy competition to attract more students. Certain schools would probably exhibit more conservative and some a more progressive bent, but it wouldn't matter because you could choose. Low-enrolling schools would have to close. Enterprising people could open a school if they thought they could make a go at it! I think you'd still face many of the same issues we see in colleges, but it would be an improvement.
I'd have to look more into what Malice has to say about the violence, but I think kids being around others who are like-minded might help on that count too.
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