[mrguyorama]

Those same people will say "I wish school taught me <X> (things like how to fill out a check book etc"

It did. You didn't pay attention. You want school to teach media literacy? It did, but you complained the whole time "when are we going to use this?". My school taught us how to interpret a "source", how to write well defended arguments (even if I don't always rise to that level), how to calculate mortgage interest rates and payments etc etc etc.

But people will swear up and down "school doesn't teach anything important"

because they didn't pay attention to what was taught!

The primary problem with education in america today is that a huge proportion of parents do not give a fuck about education, see school as just a thing you have to do instead of a constant opportunity. When a kid sees their parent complaining about education being "Liberal brain washing" every other day, why would they pay attention in class?

Education requires emotional and ideological buy in from parents and students for best results.

[afarviral]

Agreed. There's a really specific form of nostalgia where a matured and adhd-managed person would simply LOVE to do school over again now they see the benefit and realise how absolutely fascinating and achievable learning is. Imagine how easy school would be for a mature adult! I wish being held back a couple of years was normal and encouraged, especially for boys. My life satisfaction would be way higher.

[lmm]

> It did. You didn't pay attention.

It didn't. I specifically remember the hole where my class should've explained what a court case actually determines, how the process runs, because I noticed things were missing / being swept under the carpet (we did some mock jury stuff but without the right context for it to teach us anything).

> You want school to teach media literacy? It did, but you complained the whole time "when are we going to use this?"

Nope. I specifically remember watching movie "making of" videos and my teacher saying "write this down!" about irrelevant technical details that distracted from the more important stuff the director was saying.

> But people will swear up and down "school doesn't teach anything important"

> because they didn't pay attention to what was taught!

Nope. I was an engaged, attentive student (indeed a kind of star pupil). I still learnt more in spite of school than because of it. Indeed some of the stuff that's most important for my education and career is stuff I was actively punished for doing at school (poking at the computers to see how they worked). Schools, at least the standard-ish state school that I went to (which had good official ratings) teach the wrong things and teach them badly.

[afarviral]

While I'm thankful for schooling for teaching me a variety of things, occasionally recognizing my passions and helping to hone them, it is amusing the disruptive and annoying things I did with the school computers that ultimately became my carreer.