school iz out.

'Every child is a thinking, creative, active, person'.
---from the NYRB.

You can't but help think that school is really a colossal waste of time. As is much of what counts as a university education. Stuffing more and more people's brains with facts, theories, or teaching them techniques that will prove to be useful in their careers; instilling discipline, the ability (desire?) to work hard, to question everything, prepare for better scores on tests, get 'the right answer' (without even knowing what the question is). The whole approach is so mechanical and mind-numbingly tedious. Foucault was surely right here to draw attention to the similarities between the school and the factory.

What could there be instead? First principle: whatever you do has to be connected to pleasure. Secondly: more music, more history, more art, and more work with one's hands, a greater contact with nature. Theory, yes. But above all: practices and practical thinking.

D.McCloskey has this line about Dutch schools. Don't know if it's true, but the relation to natural light is important.