the issue is that we should not stigmatize working-class and vocational work as ‘less than’. because in many cases, it isn’t really less than sitting on your butt in a office 40 hours a week… it’s a lot more difficult.
but it’s not about the job… it’s about social class at the end of the day. it’s about sorting people into their appropriate social class and perpetuating the divide between the lower and upper halves of society, and giving lower half people the vague hope their kids can get into the upper half if they just are smart or hard working enough… which is rarely the case.
egalitarianism sounds nice, but the truth is not everyone can be CEO, in fact, very few people can. the vast majority of work is on lower paying end of the spectrum.
you can have it the other way too… you can have the USA system where people have worthless Masters degrees and work in food service? is that ‘better’? when those folks probably should have been sorted into something more vocational earlier in their lives that would have given them less debt, wasted less time, and made them wealthier in the end. but at least in USA ‘vocational’ work is considered for stupid and dumb people and is very stigmatized esp among the white-collar professional elites.
I don’t think the point of schooling should be to get a job. Children should pursue their interests while recieving an education wide enough to accommodate being trained in whatever field they decide to follow. A lawyer should know a little trigonometry. An engineer should know a little philosophy.
A job is just something you do to pay the bills. I don’t see any problem with a barista who followed their interests and got a degree in Mesopotamian Culture. It’s only a waste of time if you view education solely as a means to employment.
In much of the modern capitalist world, education is seen this way, unfortunately. I agree with you that people today are sorted into social classes based solely on how much money they make. It’s how we end up with Business Idiots; people like Elon Musk who are fucking idiots that don’t know how anything works. But since they are really good at making money, they are seen as paragons of society. The construction worker with a degree in Underwater Basket Weaving contributes more to society than any CEO, yet is seen as stupid and worthy of derision for both having a physical labor job and pursuing their interests.
Education always was and always will be primarily about employment.
The only people for whom it is not are those who are already rich. The system you want requires we all be millionaires before we even start our education.
Here’s an idea: education should not be about jobs, it should be about raising the next generation of citizens to take over being Humanity in this world. Or maybe I’m too Greek and bought too much in this idea of “paideia”.
A bit more practically, I like Quebec’s CÉGEP system. Not everyone ends up to university but almost everyone at least gets a taste.
OK so it should be about social indoctrination towards your ideals? what if other people don’t agree with your ideals? should they just not be educated?
those things don’t exist in a vaccum, as much as you’d like to think they do. are we talking about the one where we think the modern liberal/leftism atheism is the pinnacle of human ‘critical thought’? because that’s typically the default presumption for most posters here.
We are talking about public schooling. Any system has to make choices about what counts as education, and someone will always call those choices “indoctrination.” Your extremist relativism makes public education policy impossible. In favour of what, exactly? Universal homeschooling? Go touch some grass, please.
because somebody needs to do those jobs.
the issue is that we should not stigmatize working-class and vocational work as ‘less than’. because in many cases, it isn’t really less than sitting on your butt in a office 40 hours a week… it’s a lot more difficult.
but it’s not about the job… it’s about social class at the end of the day. it’s about sorting people into their appropriate social class and perpetuating the divide between the lower and upper halves of society, and giving lower half people the vague hope their kids can get into the upper half if they just are smart or hard working enough… which is rarely the case.
egalitarianism sounds nice, but the truth is not everyone can be CEO, in fact, very few people can. the vast majority of work is on lower paying end of the spectrum.
you can have it the other way too… you can have the USA system where people have worthless Masters degrees and work in food service? is that ‘better’? when those folks probably should have been sorted into something more vocational earlier in their lives that would have given them less debt, wasted less time, and made them wealthier in the end. but at least in USA ‘vocational’ work is considered for stupid and dumb people and is very stigmatized esp among the white-collar professional elites.
I don’t think the point of schooling should be to get a job. Children should pursue their interests while recieving an education wide enough to accommodate being trained in whatever field they decide to follow. A lawyer should know a little trigonometry. An engineer should know a little philosophy.
A job is just something you do to pay the bills. I don’t see any problem with a barista who followed their interests and got a degree in Mesopotamian Culture. It’s only a waste of time if you view education solely as a means to employment.
In much of the modern capitalist world, education is seen this way, unfortunately. I agree with you that people today are sorted into social classes based solely on how much money they make. It’s how we end up with Business Idiots; people like Elon Musk who are fucking idiots that don’t know how anything works. But since they are really good at making money, they are seen as paragons of society. The construction worker with a degree in Underwater Basket Weaving contributes more to society than any CEO, yet is seen as stupid and worthy of derision for both having a physical labor job and pursuing their interests.
Education always was and always will be primarily about employment.
The only people for whom it is not are those who are already rich. The system you want requires we all be millionaires before we even start our education.
No it hasn’t, that’s primarily a post ww2 thing.
Here’s an idea: education should not be about jobs, it should be about raising the next generation of citizens to take over being Humanity in this world. Or maybe I’m too Greek and bought too much in this idea of “paideia”.
A bit more practically, I like Quebec’s CÉGEP system. Not everyone ends up to university but almost everyone at least gets a taste.
OK so it should be about social indoctrination towards your ideals? what if other people don’t agree with your ideals? should they just not be educated?
Ah yes, indoctrinating people into… critical thinking, historical literacy, and the ability to argue in good faith. A terrifying agenda.
whose version of those though?
those things don’t exist in a vaccum, as much as you’d like to think they do. are we talking about the one where we think the modern liberal/leftism atheism is the pinnacle of human ‘critical thought’? because that’s typically the default presumption for most posters here.
We are talking about public schooling. Any system has to make choices about what counts as education, and someone will always call those choices “indoctrination.” Your extremist relativism makes public education policy impossible. In favour of what, exactly? Universal homeschooling? Go touch some grass, please.