[linkregister]

My child's San Francisco Bay Area school has taught media literacy / skepticism every year since 3rd grade. Curricula are determined by the teacher, but N=1 is sufficient for a counterexample for a broad country-wide generalization.

Celebrating a local sports win is about as apolitical and low-harm as possible when it comes to promoting a shared cultural bond for a community.

[coryrc]

Are the children allowed to sit and study all day on the topic they're currently interested in? No. https://cantrip.org/gatto.html They're required to submit to authority at all times. How could it be otherwise in our system -- one teacher, 20 random kids of varying personalities and education level.

It's not a "local sports win" -- it's a profitable, billionaire-owned corporation stealing public tax money by brainwashing everyone into thinking it's "local". The majority of the players aren't from the area either and will leave after.

[linkregister]

Are we really recreating elementary education from first principles here? American public education has always followed an instructor -> pupil format, beginning in New England for bible reading, accounting, and manufacturing.

There are probably some Montessori schools that opt for other formats, but I doubt that children are set up for success by neglecting math or other topics they are uninterested in. I would wager that even Montessori schools require study of the core tested curriculum.

If you have ever been a guest teacher then you would observe that a substantial minority of students must be guided to pay attention to the material. Autodidacts are not representative of the majority of people.

Re: sports: all things have negative aspects to them. Being a grump to such an extent as to discount all positive culturally cohesive aspects of a largely benign activity is a suboptimal way to live life. Choosing to build on commonalities in a community leads to better outcomes. Believing sports to be a net bad activity is a single-digit percentage minority opinion.