Really Alternative Schools Rising
26th December 2012
Glenn “Instapundit” Reynolds reminds us that the world is changing.
‘Nobody ever got shot or knocked up in an online school.” That’s the comment offered by a friend when my daughter — in search of more AP classes than her public school offered, and anxious to graduate early — decided to switch to an online high school.
An excellent point. A reminder that the sort of ‘socialization’ that goes on in schools is mostly turning kids into little socialists.
But the larger question of whether it makes sense to warehouse a bunch of kids together, sorted by age, remains.
Sure. Get all the dysfunctionality concentrated in one place. Nobody ever got bullied or had his lunch money stolen plowing a furrow or tending a loom.
Putting kids together and sorting by age also created that dysfunctional creature, the “teenager.” Once, teen-agers weren’t so much a demographic as adults-in-training. They worked, did farm chores, watched children and generally functioned in the real world. They got status and recognition for doing these things well, and they got shame and disapproval for doing them badly. But once they were segregated by age in public schools, teens looked to their peers for status and recognition instead of to society at large.
With results as you see them.