This doesn’t seem true to me. Out of all the harms that Tsvi has listed, which of them are ‘absolutely necessary’? And if ‘absolutely necessary’, how did humans survive before school?
Tsvi isn’t trying to compare school to a specific alternative; he is focusing on the downsides of the current system. The points he listed do indeed seem like downsides to me. Reiterating my understanding of his section-header points:
1. Children are taught that their implicit instincts about what is interesting and worth engaging with are wrong, constitute only “play”, and that “real work” involves forcing yourself to do things you are not interested in, and indeed which no one is really interested in, because authority says so. This often results in lifelong nightmares about forced activities (especially tests). In my case and I think many cases, it results in a semi-dysfunctional split motivation system, where I am often forcing myself to do things (even if I am intrinsically interested in those things) because that’s what “working” looks like. This is a recipe for akrasia, or workaholism, or other problems.
It might be true that some kids do just fine (adults certainly would have labelled me as mostly doing just fine tho). But this doesn’t diminish the downside for those kids who do pick up lifelong damage.
2.1 Solitary confinement, restrictive bathroom privileges, almost total lack of privacy, and a regimented day where you rarely get to decide where you are.
2.2 Enforcement of rigid age-based segregation, assigned classes, sometimes assigned seating, a general lack of agency about who you can associate with.
2.3 Increasing infantalization of children. Tsvi quotes a passage where someone describes often getting educational tours of trains and other adult job situations. In modern times this is reduced to a few memorable field trips to local businesses, which means much less education about the work local adults are actually doing, much less community integration, and much less exposure to adult life in general (children are too busy “preparing for adult life” to go experience parts of it and learn). Over the past century+, social norms increasingly require helicopter parenting, meaning (for example) the age where children are trusted to cross the street on their own without parental supervision keeps going up, and the range that children are allowed to roam on their own keeps decreasing. The general picture is clear: children are increasingly not trusted the way adults are trusted, and so, have to wait longer and longer to engage in adult life.
3. Preference falsification.
I might buy arguments that some of these concerns are overblown, or misrepresented, or false; but you seem to be suggesting something else: that some of the points raised are upsides rather than downsides (for neurotypicals). This seems harder to swallow.
This doesn’t seem true to me. Out of all the harms that Tsvi has listed, which of them are ‘absolutely necessary’? And if ‘absolutely necessary’, how did humans survive before school?
Tsvi isn’t trying to compare school to a specific alternative; he is focusing on the downsides of the current system. The points he listed do indeed seem like downsides to me. Reiterating my understanding of his section-header points:
1. Children are taught that their implicit instincts about what is interesting and worth engaging with are wrong, constitute only “play”, and that “real work” involves forcing yourself to do things you are not interested in, and indeed which no one is really interested in, because authority says so. This often results in lifelong nightmares about forced activities (especially tests). In my case and I think many cases, it results in a semi-dysfunctional split motivation system, where I am often forcing myself to do things (even if I am intrinsically interested in those things) because that’s what “working” looks like. This is a recipe for akrasia, or workaholism, or other problems.
It might be true that some kids do just fine (adults certainly would have labelled me as mostly doing just fine tho). But this doesn’t diminish the downside for those kids who do pick up lifelong damage.
2.1 Solitary confinement, restrictive bathroom privileges, almost total lack of privacy, and a regimented day where you rarely get to decide where you are.
2.2 Enforcement of rigid age-based segregation, assigned classes, sometimes assigned seating, a general lack of agency about who you can associate with.
2.3 Increasing infantalization of children. Tsvi quotes a passage where someone describes often getting educational tours of trains and other adult job situations. In modern times this is reduced to a few memorable field trips to local businesses, which means much less education about the work local adults are actually doing, much less community integration, and much less exposure to adult life in general (children are too busy “preparing for adult life” to go experience parts of it and learn). Over the past century+, social norms increasingly require helicopter parenting, meaning (for example) the age where children are trusted to cross the street on their own without parental supervision keeps going up, and the range that children are allowed to roam on their own keeps decreasing. The general picture is clear: children are increasingly not trusted the way adults are trusted, and so, have to wait longer and longer to engage in adult life.
3. Preference falsification.
I might buy arguments that some of these concerns are overblown, or misrepresented, or false; but you seem to be suggesting something else: that some of the points raised are upsides rather than downsides (for neurotypicals). This seems harder to swallow.