[Wolfgang34]

And inadvertently creates some of the cases of mental disorders in members presented on this site? In particular: Depression, ADHD/ADD, Bipolar and Narcissistic Personality Disorder?

There seems to be a growing interest in the "anti-school" movement, made both by students, parents and teachers alike. Mainly in their belief that schools wreck the psychological development of children and teens. A serious problem overlooked by many in their eyes.

Sites like School-Survival, the Educational Freedom Education, the National Youth Rights Association, Psychology Today and authors like John Taylor Gatto, Alfie Kohn, and Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt argue that the educational system we have in place does more harm than good. Instead of pushing kids to fight for their dreams and to be creative and open-minded while doing so, many schools today demands obedience and only seeks to create thoughtless workers for the ones in charge (Whether that means the government, authorities, or corporate/business leaders.)

Thoughts Opinions?

[IceCreamKid]

Originally Posted by Wolfgang34

And inadvertently creates some of the cases of mental disorders in members presented on this site? In particular: Depression, ADHD/ADD, Bipolar and Narcissistic Personality Disorder?

There seems to be a growing interest in the "anti-school" movement, made both by students, parents and teachers alike. Mainly in their belief that schools wreck the psychological development of children and teens. A serious problem overlooked by many in their eyes.

Sites like School-Survival, the Educational Freedom Education, the National Youth Rights Association, Psychology Today and authors like John Taylor Gatto, Alfie Kohn, and Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt argue that the educational system we have in place does more harm than good. Instead of pushing kids to fight for their dreams and to be creative and open-minded while doing so, many schools today demands obedience and only seeks to create thoughtless workers for the ones in charge (Whether that means the government, authorities, or corporate/business leaders.)

Thoughts Opinions?

Maybe it depends on the school system and the culture in which it is located. I have a problem with the idea of "kids to fight for their dreams". I don't see anything wrong with well-placed obedience. I live in the US and where I work now definitely has an entire tier of workers that the organization wants to be 'thoughtless' -- or I should say like drones, doing exactly what the job requires with no questions asked. But those drones are also expected to innovate and do more with less and come up with better ideas to do things (which the bosses then steal and present as their own ideas). Which is why I am making plans to get out of that environment. Why? Because my education did not prepare me, nor do I want to be, anyone's slave. I'm inclined to think the local culture creates the school system rather than the other way around. I enjoyed school and still do; although I should point out I am not young anymore. I am often in classrooms with young people who don't give any appearance of having enquiring minds; who have a small fund of knowledge gained through personal curiosity; who don't read for fun and who don't care about issues that they do not believe personally affect themselves. I work alongside many adults who are the same way. I don't think school can beat an enquiring mind into someone. I think bipolar disorder, ADHD/ADD and Narcissistic Personality Disorder may be found in people in school systems, but school systems don't cause those problems. They might make them worse but so would other major life stressors like marriage, gaining or losing a job, or moving to a new city. I'd specifically like to stress that I don't encourage anyone to "fight for their dreams" and I don't think it is random that you chose the word "fight"--I've seen the students who believe in clawing and biting their way to the top and they are miserable, miserable people.

[Travelinglady]

It's possible, I guess, but I think the argument is overstated. There was a movement at one point to set up stations, where kids could go around and do different, interesting things, instead of just having one teacher teach by lecturing to the whole class. Is that still true in the early grades?

I think there must be some serious discipline in schools. Otherwise, chaos develops. Teachers, then, have to spend all their time trying to get kids to behave, and they are left with little time to teach.

However, I started to school in 1960, and believe me, our classes were regimented, and kids were required to behave or else they could get paddled. Each teacher had a paddle along with his/her gradebook, etc. I know of no zombies who were created, though. (By the way, when my kids came along, we had to tell the school if we were okay with corporal punishment of them--and I said, "No." Hmm. Well, I knew my kids were decent, anyway.)

I probably would have picked different topics to learn about, if I had a choice, but as a society, I do think we should expect certain topics to be covered. We should have a common data base. And making some topics interesting is difficult. Reading, writing, and arithmetic should still be highly valued, IMHO. As a former college prof, I can tell you I was shocked at how little some kids knew after 12 years in school.

One problem is that we are now expecting schools to do things that parents should be doing--like fostering a sense of discipline and teaching sex education, as two examples. Schools can not do everything, and they should not be expected to. Parents should also be teachers, too--helping to encourage a "love of learning" in their kids! At least my mother took us to the library to get books to read and encouraged us to buy books of our own to read.

In conclusion, I can't say I really can totally agree with this premise.

[Morghana]

I don't think school stifles learning in general, and I don't think it "creates" disorders. Rather, I think school tends to promote only one type of learning. Some people are better at this type of learning than others, and sometimes those who are bad at it are said to have disorders. I happen to be very good at school-learning, and I can tell you that I never once felt that my schools discouraged my intellectual curiosities. Instead, I learned to look at the world from the lenses of literature, language, math, science, music, and history. I learned to work with a huge diversity of students and teachers, some of whom had extremely different opinions and backgrounds from my own. I learned to force myself to sit quietly for a few hours and read. In a world of dwindling attention spans, this is probably the most important skill I possess.

If you don't flourish with that type of learning, however, school is often not very good at catering to you. I've known people at both ends of the bell curve--the gifted to those who are below-average (not for lack of intelligence, I might add)--and they have had no shortage of problems with public school. The gifted find themselves bored in class and almost being punished for being extra-intelligent. One of my friends ended up leaving his elementary school in favor of home-schooling because the elementary school refused to let him skip a grade he was obviously far above. He was the sort of person who read Hemingway while the rest of us were reading Captain Underpants, and the school refused to acknowledge this. On the other hand, people who perform below average end up miserable because the system automatically infers that they are stupid when this is rarely true. One of my friends is brilliant, but she simply lacks the ability or inclination to sit down and do her homework. This is in part due to ADHD (which, by the way, she was diagnosed with before she entered school), and in part due to parents who never really took a lot of interest in her education. As a result, her grades were very poor, though she often managed to ace tests, and often, she would be the one helping me with my subjects, even though I was receiving "A"s and she was failing. No one ever addressed this problem. My friend languished away in regular classes when she was knowledgeable enough to take advanced ones because she could not fit into the system of doing assignments. If I was in either situation--being especially above the average or especially below it--I think I would be very frustrated with school. As it is, I was a little above average, but never so above as to cause anyone, especially myself, inconvenience.

I don't think school inadvertently creates disorders. I think it's more likely that it labels them. For something to be considered a disorder, it has to interfere with what is deemed a normal pattern of behavior. The school system defines normal as being able to sit in a classroom for long periods of time, study subjects quietly, obey and respect authority, and basically get along with peers. If you have trouble doing any one of these things, you are considered different, and in some cases are said to have a disorder: ADD, naturally, leaps readily to mind. A person has things he is naturally good at and things he is not naturally good at, and in every person there is variation. It's only a matter of degree and definition that separates someone who is fidgety from someone who has ADD, and that degree is often related to the ability to function within the classroom. However, I think people are naturally fidgety and naturally hyperactive. School is simply the entity that deems the latter inappropriate while reluctantly tolerating the former.

So basically, I think that school does not stifle learning if you are in the norm, but it is fairly bad at catering to those who do not fit their neat little bell curve. It does not necessarily create disorders, but instead tends to define them by isolating already-present traits and declaring them "abnormal" and thus "pathological."

[Perna]

To function well in society from an educational perspective, I believe one has to learn to read, write, and do maths. None of that is "fun" all the time for all people but the number of choices as to schools, self-education possibilities, TV/video, computers, etc. are such that there's no excuse for not being educated.

I think what one "loves" is a personal thing and allowing anything external to get in the way of one's own development is a personal problem to me. If I love "dogs", that I am asked to learn about cats too, I should use that for my own benefit rather than resist, just because it is not what I want. With children/teens, they have no experience in life so what they think they know about it is more often wrong than right and mostly "new" and, therefore, potentially scary so resistance is not uncommon. While I should be allowed to love dogs and that I do should be acknowledged, that should not get in the way of my also needing to learn about cats.

Because one prefers something as a child, I don't think that has any bearing on what one needs to know as an adult, something the child has not been yet, has no experience whatsoever with. Allowing a child to not work hard to learn what is put before them in school is a bit like teaching them it is okay not to eat a wide variety of foods or like teaching them to eat too much junk food. When a child gets to the permanent choice of what to learn in the future (college and beyond) then they can concentrate on dogs only if they want, skew their own lives in that direction.

The future doctor can quit taking tuba lessons only when he is definitely on the road to becoming a doctor and needs to take doctor lessons. The engineer (my husband) needs to be exposed to that Robert Frost poem for the rest of our sake, whether he likes it or not.

[anon61514]

This sounds like a first world concern, let's just say that here in South Africa, where kids with a love of learning never get the chance, a title like this would be (and rightfully so) considered heretical!

School is more about learning to deal with having things of expected of you, in my opinion (and learning how to use a language correctly) - I only really started 'respecting' and 'enjoying' what I was studying once I got to University (again, with the exception of English & IT).

Sorry if I sound preachy, but its all well and good to criticise the concept of modern education, hopefully humanity will allow for everyone, all around the world, to experience it before working on the next system.

[Wolfgang34]

It's all cool.