If you think about it, schooling quite a strange business.
Taking young children away from their parents.
Shutting them in a building for hours every day.
Filling all of their impressionable minds with the same information.
It sounds a bit like mass kidnap and brainwashing!
We based our school system on the Prussian education, which in turn was developed from their military training. Prussian soldiers were legendary for their discipline.
They weren't even allowed to to groan when they got shot!
I admit that there are benefits of going to school. It's better than being sent out to work down a mine or up a chimney. And learning to read is useful.
But it's hard to assess the impact of something so universal (in developed countries). We all go through it, so there is no way to know what it's doing to us.
I am particularly curious about the physical consequences of school.
We take 4 or 5-year-old children who would mostly just be playing around, and in effect give them an office job. And for most its a job that lasts for 12 or 13 years.
How does all that sitting affect a growing body?
Our spinal bones stay soft and cartilaginous until into our twenties. How does bending over a desk for thousands of hours affect the final shape of these bones?
Many people have poor posture: head forward, shoulders forward, upper back flexed.
Perhaps this misalignment is the result of an enforced sedentary childhood?