[gkya]

In this age, schools are totally irrelevant as the place to receive information; there are so many places to get required information from internet, especially in the field of CS, as long as one's able to interpret data's truth. Schools, I think, are only good for getting people to socialise and give them a basic amount of knowledge that is fundamental to be able to communicate and think in a modern way.

[mcdougle]

Oh, definitely. I mean, the basic stuff we learned as kids is important, but I feel like I could learn anything I want to on my own, especially with Google available these days. The school system just feels a bit archaic to me. I hear all of these arguments that we need to try to be more like Japan, but I think we need to go in the opposite direction -- less focus on degrees, less focus on busywork, more focus on learning skills that are applicable to real life and lots more hands-on experience rather than lectures and tests.

I'd actually love to see more push for little entrepreneurs to be creative and businessy (whereas it seems like they try to squash that out!) as I, personally, feel that having more entrepreneurs and more businesses is a big part of the ticket to fixing the economy. I remember when I was little, I thought I'd try to monetize one of my skills by selling my drawings on the playground -- harmless, right? Well, I got in trouble and was told not to do it anymore because selling things at school wasn't allowed.