If it's important to teach children about their culture, it would be good to get them into school because school itself is a part of our culture.

I highly recommend reading David Deutsch's piece 'The Evolution of Culture', which ended up being re-written as a chapter in The Beginning of Infinity.

School, as a concept, isn’t a solution to a child’s problem, it’s always a solution to a paternal/authority figure’s. -Me

School, from the standpoint of "education" is designed to control and present children with problems, it's designed to avoid problems that children actually have because they may conflict with the problems adults are interested in solving. Occasionally some children's problems and those that the authority impose align in some way, but even then that often turns out worse for those kids long term because they end up relying on recognition, or they hold that authority-defined success over others and it becomes a part of what drives them. School is about supplanting problems. It's about an authority deciding which problems subordinates should solve.

Even if someone voluntarily chooses to go to school, they are choosing to make the path of their learning of a particular area the problem of an authority who they grant power. So, even then, school is the problem of the authority trying to shape the path of a group of students so that they can get the knowledge in their head into the head of another. Otherwise, it'd be something like an apprenticeship, or an open-ended discussion like a socratic dialogue, or a study hall with access to whatever you want and support for that process, not school as anyone thinks of it today. By the way, those were some of my favorite "classes" in school and college.

Don't let schooling interfere with your education
-Mark Twain

We do not live in an ideal world, we live in a world with single mothers who have to work two jobs to pay for their house. Now, that's a solvable problem in its own right. But the subtext is that children have to be taken care of while their parents are at work.

But note, we're not talking about students anymore, we're talking about daycare so parents can go to work. We can have that discussion if you want, but I don't think that's the discussion you want to have. I think you want to talk about how people learn and the best way to do that. And, how to decide what people should learn, and how best to get that into minds. I'm saying that's backward.

The argument that children must be forced to learn to read and write because, otherwise, they can never function in society sounds to me exactly like saying we should force-feed them because otherwise, they will starve.
-Sam Kuypers, author of 'Measuring time in a timeless universe' (and student who worked with David Deutsch)

"It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood."
– Karl Popper

Knowledge is transferred through creative interpretation.
Knowledge cannot be poured from one mind to another.

Not through a book,
not through a hook,
not by being shook,
or by being forced to eat mook.

Perhaps you have still my words mistook.
We make guesses to solve problems.
For my eggs nested may be your goblins.
I can see your head now a-bobblin',
your glare a punch sending me hobblin'.

K_nowledge is always created from within, not from without_.
A truth that makes wise those that are devout.
I see in your eyes thoughts of discipline, now now, don't pout.
To make this, with AI I did not sin, don't you fucking doubt.
With ease it came with fun mental spin,  a veritable fly-fished rainbow trout.
Problems in my mind on trend, to the surface ideas rise not yet refuted, gained clout.

He never did really bring the talk around to making schools obsolete though. And I don't even think he actually believes that that's desirable. I think he just believes that a lot of ideas about school that are obsolete need to be supplanted with better ideas.

So, I watched the entire thing again (worth it) to point out how he makes that case.

Here's what's important.

"If we provide children [the environment / the conditions / the opportunities] that allow them to use their natural ways of learning, they will educate themselves very well."

Skills that human beings everywhere have to learn: "Walking on two legs, speaking your native language, being able to control your emotions, being able to get along with other people. We're a social species. We can't survive alone. We have to be able to cooperate. We have to know how to illicit cooperation. We have to know how to compromise and get along with other people."

Skills specific to 'our' culture: "Reading, writing, using numbers, calculating, understanding the meaning of calculation, acquiring computer skills"

Skills that define the unique characteristics of the person being educated: "Our schools are premised on the idea that everybody's supposed to master the same things. [...] we're better off if we follow our own interests"

"Most children in our culture do not have ample time to play. That's how they build strong bodies, develop the ability to move gracefully, learn to be courageous, manage fear, build things, use tools."

"They need the opportunity to play with the REAL tools of the culture."

"Free age mixing"

"Emersion in a stable, moral, caring community."

"We're also animals that have to follow rules. We can't just behave in accordance with our whims and wishes and impulses. We have to control our impulses."

Everything in italics above is something for which schools are currently the best means we have to provide.  Schools obviously still have many problems. As someone who works full time in public schools, I can tell you that some things aren't as bad as you imagine. Other things are much much worse than you could imagine. (Maybe I'll post about that next.) But, until we have better alternatives for providing these things, schools will not be obsolete.

What are the alternatives?

"The primary stated purpose of school was to drive willfulness out of children and to teach them obedience. Even today, that's the primary lesson of school."

Obviously, we need to continue to do all we can to evolve beyond this primitive concept. Peter Gray is not alone in believing that there are many functions more important than obedience that schools can serve. I think his ideal concept of school is probably very similar to my own: a safe place that gives children access to tools, resources, other children and opportunities to discover interesting things and explore them.

It seems that, to a certain degree, Peter endorses Sudbury and Summerhill's more progressive approaches to education. But he still refers to them as 'schools'. So, I think we can forego the sensationalist headlines and just accept that schools aren't what they used to be and, more importantly, they don't always have to be what they are.

One final thought.

If it's important to teach children about their culture, it would be good to get them into school because school itself is a part of our culture.

_I've always operated based on the following:1. Respect for other human beings' rights as humans should extend to all humans, regardless of age, race, etc.(for brevity) comes first and foremost.

After that, my respect must be earned. I don't care if you're 2 or 82. Autonomy you get for free from me. I expect that much back. Not my respect. Do not confuse this with the position that "disrespect is the default". No. Even disrespect must be earned.

There's a ton I want to say about what you wrote though (not all criticism either). I know you asked for thoughts on this ages ago but it was still mostly in the realm of abstract concepts to me then. Anyway, I'll start superficailly by just picking on this one statement.

"whereas most people treat adults as sovereign individuals regardless of gender or race, almost no one treats children with the same respect." - Cody

1. "...most people treat adults as sovereign individuals..."
   Very few individuals on Earth can be classified as 'sovereign'. Assuming 'autonomous' is closer to what you mean, 'most people treat [all] adults as autonomous individuals' would still be far from true. Adults (even those considered sovereign) don't enjoy absolute autonomy any more than children do.

2. "...regardless of gender or race..."
   Okay, so you're actually just saying that gender or race don't factor into how people treat adults in regard to their level of autonomy. Also, unfortunately, far from true (although I agree it should be).

3. "...almost no one..."
   This is just a bit exaggerated. There are lots of people all over the world who take children seriously without necessarily affixing a concept handle like "Taking Children Seriously" to it.

4. "...treats children with the same respect."
   This suggests that the level of autonomy adults enjoy is based on the level of respect they have from other people. I can't think of an example where this holds up at the individual, community, government level or anywhere else.

I can think of plenty of examples of where a person or group of people's autonomy is influenced not by how much respect they have but by how much respect they show. I definitely see a problem with using the prospect of autonomy to coerce someone into showing respect. I also see a problem with someone assuming they've earned respect simply because they enjoy a certain level of autonomy. But neither of those are what your statement is about.

5. Obviously, not every man was once a woman. Nor was every Caucasian once an Aborigine. But all adults were once children. So this is a False Analogy.

**********

I'll watch Peter Gray's video and respond to that soon.

In my daughter Anna's case, (to summarize) we were quite authoritative as parents from her early years, then gradually eased off over the years as she demonstrated more and more that she could be responsible for herself and her decision making. She's 20 now and if the "authority" dial was at 100 when she was 3 years old, well it's around 5 or 6 now...meaning she has about 95% control of her life. The other 5% is mostly things that affect the rest of the family.

Hope all that makes sense.