Thursday, February 6, 2014

How Compulsory Schooling Causes Broken Hearts and Emotional Wounds

Saw this on Davi Barker's Facebook page last night:

"We've heard a lot about how compulsory schooling harms the natural enthusiasm to learn, as well as the unspoken lessons of the Prussian system. I've heard a lot of people discuss how forced association leads to bullying. But I have never heard anyone discuss to effects of compulsory schooling and forced association on broken hearts.

Think about a highschool from a biological standpoint. It is for practical purposes a cage in which society throws people who are biologically, and by any pre-modern standard, adults. They are trapped there for six hours a day, locked in a room with 30+ other adults, arbitrarily selected by age. They are at the peak of their emotional and hormonal volatility. And they are told to devote their undivided attention to education.

This is very bad chemistry. Inevitably relationships form, adding more volatility. Love, lust, jealousy, rage. Explosive emotions, probably experienced for the first time. And they are told to sit still and be quiet in the same room in 1 hour intervals. Normal adults talk it out, but they are not permitted. Normal adults need space, but they are not permitted. Normal adults disassociate from one another, but this too is not permitted. These adults are cut off from most healthy means of processing these emotions.

Is it any wonder teen suicide and teen pregnancy is a cliche?"