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Comment by lordnacho | Hacker News Reader

The purpose of school isn't to create employees. If it was about creating workers then yes, just show them whatever makes money. It's an impoverished view of education that somehow has gained traction in our world, and it needs to be explained why it is impoverished.

Kids need to be educated because knowing a bunch of stuff about the world is the greatest gift we can give them, and it needs to be given while they are still young enough to appreciate it. You can't live a full life without knowing a fair amount about all there is to know, and you can't experience things without having some context.

Knowing only things that are economically useful will still leave you in a place where you wonder how the world works, and wondering why there's a hole in your soul.

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> The purpose of school isn't to create employees.

I'm not OP, but I think his question is more, "Why does school set people up to be disappointed by the jobs available to them?" Not, "Why does school teach things that aren't necessary on a job site?"

The ambiguous intention behind the question has spawned two separate discussions in this thread, one of which isn't that interesting because I think we all agree (that there's more to life and education than employment).

If I'm right and his stance is the first, I'm sympathetic to it. The system, while training people for jobs better than what will actually exist for them, isolates people from its most broken aspects (workplaces), promising betterment and skill advancement, during the age of peak revolutionary energy. By the time they figure out what employment really is--for most people, an exploitative and unforgivable waste of their time--they are already in their late 20s, and any revolutionary movement has been deprived of their most energetic years.

Fair point actually, I hadn't thought of it the other way.

School sets you up for disappointment because it's the last place where everyone can participate. Everyone is given the same books and the same exams, and there's no limitation on what you're allowed to learn.

In the working world, you get pyramids. Most people who are entry level can do the next level job, but not all will be offered it. There's dozens of people who could be CEO but only one person will get the seat.

Everyone else is disappointed with the hierarchy.

School also sets us up to expect knowledge to be the deciding factor in who gets to do what. It's implicit: pass this course, be allowed to do the next course.

So you get out in the real world, and your manager is the owner's kid. Or some guy who doesn't know how the business works is in charge. Or indeed someone who doesn't recognise good ideas.

| there's no limitation on what you're allowed to learn.

This is becoming increasingly less true in some places around the US.

> Why does school set people up to be disappointed by the jobs available to them?

When I was at school (1970s), schools also taught creative skills (drawing, writing, a bit of music). That was definitely not aimed at the job market, and almost nobody expected to become a writer, sculptor, painter or musician. The common expectation was a some kind of manual labor, or an office job, and for the brainy few research/development.

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