School is there to show kids how to teach themselves anything they want to learn. Not to spoonfeed them specific skills they may or may not want to have.
It should include a bunch of basic skills as well - because seriously, I'd rather be taught "here's the common, most successful way of doing X" rather than having to go out and discover it on my own for thousands of random skills. Does that mean one day I may have to give up my notion of "checkbook register" that is comfortable and I've known forever in favor of "proper double entry book keeping" - absolutely, and you know what, I'll take a class on that too. But in the mean time, I won't be figuring out how to track my dollars on my own, and in the future I won't rediscover double entry for myself. Why?
I'm too busy focusing on software stuff in depth. That's where I'm focusing my "learn for myself" talents and limited time.
>Isn't that the best way?
Best for what? Best for being a good programmer? In my experience, no. You can't avoid spending 1000s of hours outside of school programming and reading about programming, but having fantastic teachers to help guide you through that journey is awesome when you can get it.
>School is there to show kids how to teach themselves anything they want to learn.
Not any school that I want my kids in. I want my kids in the school that teaches them how to read, add, and understand the science of the world around them - including how their stupid cellphone works. They've got the rest of their day and the rest of their lives (with a bit of latitude starting in the last half of high school, and college) to learn whatever they want, at least until all the libraries are closed and everything is behind a paywall.
Eh, debatable. I'd tend to say that ideally school is there to give kids experience with a wide range of activities and to try to inspire in them a love of learning in at least one of them, as well as the basic methodologies of doing so.
I don't think spoon-feeding, or making people learn skills they blatantly don't like, has great returns. But I wouldn't go quite so far as saying school's just there to show them how to learn - considering how directed the learning environment is, school doesn't really seem to spend much time on that at all.
There are things that did teach me "how to learn" but they only arose outside of school and after high school. There are things that have given me a fearless desire to learn, and the confidence to know that there's nothing I can't come to understand if I am willing to apply myself. However, none of those things happened inside of the traditional school system.