The post Is school worth it after 8th grade? appeared first on Occasional Planet.
]]>One of the enjoyable things about working with middle school students is seeing how creative they can be and how skilled many are at critical thinking. One of the depressing things about working with middle school students is the thought that as human beings, they may have reached their apogee of reason and empathy. It all could be downhill from there.
There is a disconnect between twelve to fourteen-year-olds being able to define a problem and then develop workable solutions and then them growing up to be adults who vote for Donald Trump.
Granted, not all middle schoolers are deep thinkers and effective problem solvers. But a lot of them are. And you have to wonder whether they have a more refined sense of fairness than adults do.
Let me posit some reasons other than education as to why in most societies school goes beyond 8th grade:
Since the social norm is increasingly for students to finish college, not just high school, they must have ways to justify to themselves that what they are doing is worth it. It’s somewhat like the Stockholm Syndrome. Most students buy into what they are supposed to be doing. But during so much of this time, they are being forced to do things; their lives are so scripted.
Suppose that after middle school we offered a potpourri of activities for kids. First and foremost, they could learn. But it wouldn’t have to be in a pressure cooker. Learning more about what interests them makes it more meaningful. It also increases their chances of becoming life-long learners, something that schools often fail to do.
They could enter the work force (this would naturally require the government to create many of the jobs, but we still have enormous needs in the public sector). Furthermore, as artificial intelligence replaces more conventional jobs, we are going to have to redefine what we do in much of our waking hours. It may be that we do less traditional work and we look for other ways to promote our psychological, social and community health.
Seeing the pressure that so many students are under to learn something today only to forget it tomorrow, you have to wonder about much of school. Wouldn’t we serve individuals and our society better if we lightened up? Is there anything inherent about five to twenty-two-year-olds spending so much time in classrooms when there are so many other ways to grow intellectually and emotionally?
If the best that we can get now is a country that votes for Donald Trump, we might want to reexamine what we’re doing. No quick changes, but start thinking about it.
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