School isn't about learning.

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School is a test to see if you can endure working that long, keeping track of assignments and sitting around doing something boring because that's what jobs require pretty much.

To wit, it's a filtration system, a sieve but not a fair one.

Discuss.

Where else will you learn?

No matter what else you might call it, any arrangement between teacher and student is school.

This doesn't just come from me btw, I've heard a lot of teachers saying similar things.

Also, I'm from the U.K. Where we use learnt more often than learned so it's correct for the local usage. Language is merely a way of conveying information. As long as the information is understood and you're not being tested in any way then the way that the information is given is irrelevant.

I rebelled against the indoctrination part. I kept asking 'why', even after they told me to stop. I even wrote a few essays on the Founding Fathers that revealed their intentions to establish an aristocracy of wealthy, white, male, European Protestants in order to establish and maintain a classist society.

Every time I handed one of these essays in, the teachers would start another round of lectures on the importance of patriotism. Then I would counter with another essay on how 'Patriotism' is really just propagandist double-talk for supporting the Patriarchy, and how those who encouraged conformity were really just supporting a culture that keeps women subjugated as second-class citizens.

Of course, with most of the teachers being female, that accusation didn't go down very well ...

What a lot of people seem to not understand is that while schools are also indoctrination centers as influential as any religious institution ever was, you don't have to believe any of the esoteric doctrinal bullsnot, just the practical tutelage of crafts, science, and mathematics.

Algebra, geometry, trigonometry, and calculus? Definitely.

Astronomy, biology, chemistry, and physics? Certainly.

Reading, writing, languages, and geography? Absolutely.

Woodshop, welding, drafting, and programming. All are both practical and useful.

Psychology, sociology, citizenship, and history? Maybe ... Maybe not.

Philosophy, political 'science', religion, and journalism? Run far. Run fast. Run away.

It is a sad testament that today's public schools are in fact institutions that teach to the middle. If you are too smart, too slow or different in any way there is a distinct lack of options available.

I frequently tell my 10 year old that she will NEVER be in this environment again. When she is an adult she will be able to find a place that values how she looks at the world and that she asks lots of questions.

But for now she just has to get through it.

For example I had 'music' classes for several years at my school. They gave us all these tiny little xylophones to play as these were the cheapest instrument possible.
The teacher didnt even teach us what a chord or a scale was in all that time!

She just told us to compose a tune, let us bang on the xylophone thingies for 40 minutes and then the lesson was over.

To be fair [not that I always feel like it], from the standpoint of one involved in teaching / learning / schools from birth and a bit more than one generation before:

They teach. They work for learning. The issue is WHAT.

I wanted access to data on bugs. They wanted me to learn to play nice and sing songs with gestures.

I wanted to learn how stuff really works. They wanted me to learn and pass on the consensus theories.

I wanted to learn the origin of "to jodute". They wanted me to order food in Nice.