Schooling: The Hidden Agenda ( interesting article )

Can be found here:
www.unschooling.info...

...
What sells most people on the idea of school is the fact that the unschooled child learns what it wants to learn when it wants to learn it. This is intolerable to them, because they're convinced that children don't want to learn anything at all--and they point to school children to prove it. What they fail to recognize is that the learning curve of preschool children swoops upward like a mountain--but quickly levels off when they enter school. By the third or fourth grade it's completely flat for most kids. Learning, such as it is, has become a boring, painful experience they'd love to be able to avoid if they could. But there's another reason why people abhor the idea of children learning what they want to learn when they want to learn it. They won't all learn the same things! Some of them will never learn to analyze a poem! Some of them will never learn to parse a sentence or write a theme! Some of them will never read Julius Caesar! Some will never learn geometry! Some will never dissect a frog! Some will never learn how a bill passes Congress! Well, of course, this is too horrible to imagine. It doesn't matter that 90% of these students will never read another poem or another play by Shakespeare in their lives. It doesn't matter that 90% of them will never have occasion to parse another sentence or write another theme in their lives. It doesn't matter that 90% retain no functional knowledge of the geometry or algebra they studied. It doesn't matter that 90% never have any use for whatever knowledge they were supposed to gain from dissecting a frog. It doesn't matter that 90% graduate without having the vaguest idea how a bill passes Congress. All that matters is that they've gone through it!
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[edit on 14-11-2005 by bratok]

www.education-reform.net...

and another good one

What if we empowered our children to think for themselves rather than parrot the facts and figures they are instructed to memorize if they are to succeed in school? That might be dangerous to society as we know it.

One of the first statements a professor of education at a venerable and well-established university in California made to his class with regard to children in public school was: "We don't want them to think".

Children, think? God forbid!

Teenages & kids like me, do want to learn.
But how am I mean't to learn wasting years of MY ONE LIFE learning about complete and utter crap?
Why do I HAVE to waste 15 hours of my life, learning about simple algebra that I learnt in the first hour?

Why do I have to do a piegraph about results about how much amazon is deforested? All I need to do to learn that is read it. We do pie graphs in maths!!!
If we do learn pie graphs in Maths, why do I waste my time doing 30 of them??? I should only do about 5.

If schooling was done my way, I could be way more smarter than I am now.
In my conclusion ;eople under 16 or so aren't free, we are forced to crap and waste a part of our lifes.

When I'm older, theres going to be some changes to this world.

Why don't when I'm older (if I am in charge of what ever which I wont), I'll just get the god damn people who made up the school system, and lock them up on alkatraz for the rest of there lives?

[edit on 24/11/05 by JimmyCarterIsSmarter]

[edit on 24/11/05 by JimmyCarterIsSmarter]

Originally posted by JimmyCarterIsSmarter
Teenages & kids like me, do want to learn.
But how am I mean't to learn wasting years of MY ONE LIFE learning about complete and utter crap?
Why do I HAVE to waste 15 hours of my life, learning about simple algebra that I learnt in the first hour?

Why do I have to do a piegraph about results about how much amazon is deforested? All I need to do to learn that is read it. We do pie graphs in maths!!!
If we do learn pie graphs in Maths, why do I waste my time doing 30 of them??? I should only do about 5.

If schooling was done my way, I could be way more smarter than I am now.
In my conclusion ;eople under 16 or so aren't free, we are forced to crap and waste a part of our lifes.

When I'm older, theres going to be some changes to this world.

Why don't when I'm older (if I am in charge of what ever which I wont), I'll just get the god damn people who made up the school system, and lock them up on alkatraz for the rest of there lives?

[edit on 24/11/05 by JimmyCarterIsSmarter]

[edit on 24/11/05 by JimmyCarterIsSmarter]

I'm 18, it hasn't changed bro, College is even WORST than highschool!

And sho know what? You get to pass through fun utterly
useless classes like Humanities, which is another form of english,
Gym, yay gym, which you can do on your brakes (I work out).
And, hey! Lookie here, English itself is a boring subject, I already know
how to spell flawlessly, (well... most of the time, blah, you get the idea).
On my english mid-term it was written:
Your essay must conform to academic standards.
So... it must NOT be my own opinion nor must it
be written in MY own way? Okay then...
I guess the academic board knows better

Originally posted by JimmyCarterIsSmarter
Teenages & kids like me, do want to learn.
But how am I mean't to learn wasting years of MY ONE LIFE learning about complete and utter crap?
Why do I HAVE to waste 15 hours of my life, learning about simple algebra that I learnt in the first hour?

Don't let them waste your time. If you really want to learn math, get a real math book, read it, and work out the problems. Bring it to class, and read it in class. If need be, force your teacher to kick you out of math class for reading a math book.

As far as books, I suggest trying Calculus or Number Theory. If you like geometry, try Euclid's Elements. For any serious modern math textbook (think 20th century), you will need to know set theory. You can get the books from the library, or the bookstore. If you need help or additional references, U2U me.

Cool, I might get it.

About a week ago, I was mucking around in class.
The teacher said "don't come to school if you don't want to learn"

I'm like,"I do want to learn and school is compulsory".