[badpun]

Social environment _anywhere_ is far from ideal. I've felt that school gave me great training at recognizing and dealing with assholes. I was more of a sensitive kid and if I was isolated from school (and the playground), I may not be able to join the society later on - the state of it it would've been too much of a shock.

[winchling]

Yes, we don't really know what a good social environment for children looks like.

But it does seem obvious that being forced to associate with brutes is unpleasant, demoralising and inconducive to academic learning. By the same token why not teach people to deal with pain by tapping them daily with hammers?

We also have to factor in also that many people will become brutes as a result of this forced association, like the way criminality incubates in prisons.

[badpun]

Academic learning is not nearly as important as good socialisation (dealing with brutes etc.) IMO. For most people who are not smart enough to get a good, competitive office job (like software engineer, doctor etc.), those years in school seem largely pointless, apart from learning basics like literacy, algebra etc. And even for academically gifted, life without social skills must be worse than being an under-performer in a sub-optimal job. Hell is other people, and social skills is how you deal with them.

[winchling]

But again, what about the people who become bullies and brutes as a result?

The way we learn to get along is through a combination of shared challenges and by trying to emulate people we admire. Not being locked up with Bane seven hours every day.

[badpun]

That's fine for learning to get along. Many relationships are antagonistic though, and dealing with a bully in school can help with dealing with an abusive spouse/family member/boss/colleague later in life etc. There are bullies in adult life too, they're just more subtle.

[winchling]

I'm sure that many people have learnt to deal with bullies that way. Fair enough, and everyone should make the best of whatever environment he finds himself in. But it would be a mistake to think, as people often do, that one's own historical path represents the best path for all.

For one thing, setting aside how cruel it is, at 12 years+ the 'school bully learning method' is monstrously inefficient.

Btw, similar arguments are applied to most school subjects. For example, one is forced to take obsolete subject X because it is useful if one later wishes to study subject Y, which is in turn can be helpful if Z crops up in adult life, and so on.

Most sane adults would rather learn 'just in time' and to the precision and extent appropriate to the unique challenge they face. Yet, perhaps because of the enormous sunk cost of their own schooling, they become irrational about this where their children are concerned.