Politics Mega Thread

I literally have never met anyone who agrees with me on this in a real way, but have angered a lot of people by saying it, so I hope this qualifies as unpopular. School, and the current education system in general, is super outdated, and genuinely oppressive to a lot of students. Most neurotypical students will get by more or less fine, but even they would only choose to be there if it actually benefits them(ie if they get to choose what they learn about instead of being force fed subjectively meaningless information and then forced to regurgitate it onto a piece of paper). Why force kids to go after they've learned necessary life skills, like reading, writing, basic math, basic history so they're not uncultured, etc. Everyone I know remembers at most 25% of what they were taught in school.

Then there is the huge issue of non neurotypical students being horribly mistreated, and even many neurotypical students being mistreated. I find most teachers have a weird authority fetish, more so even than cops etc. I was always 'taught' and expected to respect my teachers even if they yelled at me and physically abused me(which they did). This is always going to be an issue when you put so many people(who are different, because people are different) in one place and make them do meaningless, stressful loads of work day in and day out.

THEN, there is the issue of truancy laws. I'm aware that these days sending someone to juvie or someones parents to prison is one of the last avenues taken when a kid stops attending school, but that doesn't change the fact that it's also used in many situations to enforce unnecessary authority. Also, when I was 15, I knew someone my age who lived in Virginia, and their parents would call the police on them in the mornings when they were having panic attacks about having to go to school and not being able to just stay home for a few days even. Or panic attacks about anything, at all. And then the cops would come and basically threaten to send them to juvie if they didn't go to school(sounds fake, but if you've lived it or similar, you know.) I seriously doubt that was any sort of isolated incident.

I also think the notion that kids would just choose to not learn about anything absolutely ridiculous. The only reason kids don't want to go to school these days is BECAUSE it's forced on to them. If it didn't come with the whole prison vibe, and you got to actually choose what to learn about, there is no doubt in my mind we wouldn't run into problems with attendance that aren't actually rooted somewhere completely different(poverty, abusive parents, etc).

As far as socialization goes, I have almost reason to believe kids wouldn't choose to socialize with each other in their free time just as much as they are forced to socialize with each other now. I say almost because the internet does 'breed' introverts, which is why this is the biggest argument I can think of against this opinion. However, 'mandatory' socialization without the forced work and bureaucracy would still be lightyears ahead of what we currently have.

Ultimately, there is no doubt in my mind that the problems caused by school being forced onto children far outweigh the benefits. I still do think that it should be required for parents to send their kids to school until they have the skills necessary to properly integrate into society.

For political reference, I live in Canada and am pretty far left. I still see NDP officials and other people on the left talking about funding education and such without actually talking about education reform in any way. I'm reasonably positive this is a political opinion but can't find anyone else on the left who shares it.

/r/unpopularopinion Thread