🙆 🚚 ☁️ Do our children need a school? 🙎🏻 ✊🏻 🍑

For most of us, the school exists only in memories, so we do not often think about it as a public institution, its meaning and goals in the modern world. Many perceive it as a given, an integral stage of life. But is that right now?

The story begins with the emergence of the phenomenon. Mankind has long sought to transfer knowledge to future generations. The oldest method, oral transmission, has known disadvantages, for example, the effect of a broken phone, physical limitations on volume. In this scheme, the brain acts as a "flash drive". It is loaded with all the knowledge of the population, in the hope that at the right time, a person will remember and isolate specifically necessary. The appearance of books, ancient clay tablets of Mesopotamia, papyrus and parchments of the Mediterranean, the situation did not change much. They were expensive (especially good parchment) and were accessible to a limited part of the population. There was a pattern, one book - one copy. Copying a copy was an incredibly long and laborious task. Why, of all the books of the Ancient World, only the Hammurabi Code has reached us,The epic of Gilgamesh, the Bible and a stack of Greek poems? Because only they bothered to duplicate in sufficient quantities, and all the other books that existed then, for the most part, were lost.

In the Middle Ages, the ability to read and write was considered the prerogative of the monks, and books were accordingly stored and copied in monasteries. Even many kings could not read. Here we are close to the emergence of a modern school. Yes, do not be surprised, the school, and then the university, arose in the Middle Ages precisely as parish institutions. They were almost no different from modern ones, all the same lecturer-teacher in the center, and student students sat and listened around him behind benches. There could not be another form of education when access to books is limited, and each book is a treasure. It was physically impossible for all students to give a book. The teacher-lecturer naturally acted as a layer between all the books he read and the students, in fact retelling the book aloud.Naturally, the students had to load all this into themselves by heart, because over the next life, access to books might not have been expected. That is why “good education” was so appreciated.

Everything has changed radically with the invention of typography. It democratized the transfer of knowledge and opened access to books for everyone who knows how to read. The very first series of printed bibles was enough to unleash religious wars throughout 16th-century Europe. After the monopoly of the Catholic Church collapsed, the school went under the wing of the state, where ignorant children from the lower layers of the population were taught to read and write for free. Where does the generosity come from? After all, teaching to read with one hand, the whole time they constantly persecuted and forbidden to read either the bible, or the writings of freethinkers, then Protestants, then supporters of free trade, then scientists, depending on the mood and views of those in power at a particular moment. The answer lies in the concept of “you can’t win - lead.”Students are transferred not only the basic knowledge of counting and writing, but also an indoctrinated way of behavior in society, redefined concepts of good and evil. You don’t need to go far for examples; take and look through any social science textbook (a required subject). There you can learn a lot of things that will surprise many of us, for example, that the political system that is better than others is inculcated in children, that the economy supposedly should depend on the state, "Our Motherland is a democratic and modern country." It comes down to obvious sympathies for specific individuals of modern politics “Accelerated economic growth is observed with the rise to power of N”.There you can learn a lot of things that will surprise many of us, for example, that the political system that is better than others is inculcated in children, that the economy supposedly should depend on the state, "Our Motherland is a democratic and modern country." It comes down to obvious sympathies for specific individuals of modern politics “Accelerated economic growth is observed with the rise to power of N”.There you can learn a lot of things that will surprise many of us, for example, that the political system that is better than others is inculcated in children, that the economy supposedly should depend on the state, "Our Motherland is a democratic and modern country." It comes down to obvious sympathies for specific individuals of modern politics “Accelerated economic growth is observed with the rise to power of N”.

I want to especially draw your attention to the term “education” itself. In Russian, this is a derivative of the word “image” and literally means “to form according to something,” “to put the image [in a person],” and “bring [a person] in accordance with the image”. I leave the question open, what is this image and to whom is it beneficial? The very thinking of our children and future generations depends on the answer. What kind of people and in what country we will live. Education opens up endless possibilities for manipulating the child’s trusting consciousness.

If the advent of typography democratized the transfer of knowledge by a thousand times, the advent of the Internet is many millions of times. The situation when one physical device has access to almost all texts known to mankind, and, moreover, to video materials, raises with new force the question of the very necessity of schools. In most schools, the teacher retells what is already generally available in the textbook, and the students rewrite his words. Just like in the Middle Ages. The “teacher-memorizing students” scheme is outdated and looks in our time what the last sailing ships looked like in the era of steamboats.

The world has changed and the Internet has become a part of life, the same as electricity used to be. We do not worry that the Internet will disappear at the same time for everyone, that all servers will fail at once. There is no longer any need to turn your brain into a USB flash drive for useless information on the principle of "maybe it will come in handy in the future." Any book, any textbook can be easily and free to read on the Internet. Any knowledge can be obtained instantly on request at Google. Even for professional developers to climb on Stackoverflow is completely normal. You just need to know the basic things and be able to read. All monotonous homework completely lost their meaning in our time. The Internet provides a choice of knowledge, much better quality than the teacher says. YouTube is full of videos where the teacher is nonsense and a gag, and when the student finds the correct answer on the Internet,begins to close his mouth and pick up the phone. This situation is not normal and we should not tolerate the remnants of the past.

Why in the modern world so unreasonably long to keep our children, five hours a day, eleven consecutive years, in an institution that is surprisingly similar to a prison and force us to memorize strange and often useless things? Forcing to get up, stretched out in front of a teacher, a man who could not do anything except the pedagogical institute? The well-known saying "no mind - go to ped" was born not just like that, but because pedagogical universities have always had the lowest passing score. A closed room where children are placed and held forcibly, sitting hunched over, in an unnatural position behind narrow desks - the worst approach to education which can be imagined. Of course, in violent institutions,such as a school (or army), informal hierarchies of “leaders” have always arisen and will arise, peering among peers, by oppressing those who do not know how to suck up or fight back. The school educates pathological conformists doubly, accustomed to endure oppression by both teachers and peers. Such people cannot grow up free and the people who send their children to schools will never be free!

I do not urge you to abandon formal education for your children, but it’s definitely worth considering other options besides school. For example, at home education, after which the child receives the exact same certificate. Anticipating comments about the need for socialization, I note in advance that the sports section + hobby groups will help here much better than sitting out your child with a randomly selected set of children, among which there will be a frank gopota. The attitude will always be friendlier where there is a common goal and desire than where there is only coercion from the common. Among the compromise options are private schools with a client-oriented approach, and individual tutors. And let compulsory schools be a thing of the past, just like a twelve-hour work day, slavery and child labor. Once learning to read,Each person chooses what interests him. Based on this, he can build his life without imposed prejudice.

Do our children need a school?

More articles: