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Estarlio comments on Two More Things to Unlearn from School - Less Wrong
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Considering the number of complaints I hear about recent graduates not being good at work, it's possible that schools aren't doing a good job of preparing people for typical office jobs--- after all there isn't reliable feedback from graduates or employers to the schools.
I suspect the short-run goals (baby-sitting, status enforcement vs. children and teenagers, acquisition of easily checked credentials) are the ones mostly being served.
I have read the opinion that the invention of public schooling in its current form was designed to create a more agreeable populace and workforce. People who will do what they are told, basically.
The exceptional would rise to the top naturally, and overcome the barriers set in place, but it would ensure the less than gifted stayed mediocre.
I haven't read any studies to this affect, but it seems plausible, if rather conspiracy theory-ish. I don't think it was quite so intentional, but it seems to be the result, and it has a great deal of momentum for those who run things to allow it to continue if they ever recognize the truth of it.
Could you imagine the nightmare it would be to be a politician in a country where everybody is skeptical of authority as a matter of course? It's a politician's worst nightmare to have someone question his reasoning if it is based on something flimsy or non-existent, what if that happened by default for everyone in the country?
Then, I suspect, whoever was familiar with a particular subject would still be massively outnumbered by everyone who wasn't. So you'd get a lot of junk data/bad reasoning thrown out, that on even light investigation turned out to be nonsense but that would determine the way the majority voted.