> My wife and I are expecting our first child.

> I once tried to come up with a single-word purpose for education, and I landed upon the word “resourceful” ...

As someone who's a little further ahead in this process, I realized the true raison d'etre for education might actually not be any of the reason discussed..

It's so you, the children's parents, can go about your business for the day and the kids can stay somewhere safe and where they can interact with their peers. If they happened to learn something, that's pure bonus.

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kazzak13 a day ago | parent | next [-]

I don't think there's just _one_ singular "raison d'etre" for school; many different forces have influenced its current-day shape: learning (or rather, the appearance of learning), socializing and friend-making, daycare for working adults (like you mention), etc.

	▲	pfannkuchen 21 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Regarding the socializing and friend making function, if school didn’t exist would that be a problem? Like you have to send your kid to school to be with other kids only because the schools silo away the kids. If there weren’t any schools there would be kids in the neighborhoods. Do kids have to be at desks or in gym class to socialize with each other? I don’t think so?
	▲	Aperocky a day ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Socializing (with peer) and allow parents to do that too (work is basically a form of socializing with peer, with benefits) will probably remain far far into the future, as long as humanity exist, whether AGI pans out or not.

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bagacrap a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> needing someone to watch one’s kids.

	▲	Aperocky a day ago \| parent [-]
		I glossed over it, it probably deserve half the article if I was writing it.

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mberning a day ago | parent | prev [-]

This is the sad reality. The education provided is based on an industrial revolution era theory of the worker as well. I’m not sure what a better alternative is.

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Aperocky a day ago | parent | next [-]

Why would it be sad? They get to socialize with their peers, which is probably the more valuable part of the education process. Learning as I come to understand, are better curiosity driven, which don't necessarily need to happen at school. All the game hacking and number crunching on unit stats probably did more to where I am today than any school class.

	▲	herewulf a day ago \| parent \| next [-]
		It's sad because anyone spending a good chunk of the week with others roughly exactly their age is completely artificial. This doesn't happen outside of traditional schooling (until university level). It's no surprise that for some, it's quite toxic. At least if there's learning involved, then one can say it was worth it. But if it boils down to nothing other than babysitting..?
	▲	pfannkuchen 21 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Weird, I remember being told to stop talking all the time in school. Apparently those teachers were confused about the true purpose of school!

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a day ago | parent | prev [-]

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