And here I was naively thinking that education was there to aid natural intelligence & ability.
I thought it was there for young people to learn & build upon the previous generation's findings & discoveries.
Now you're saying we must keep the young in the dark so they won't out-smart us.
Strange, very strange indeed.

individual,

Likewise.

Poirot and Squeers,

If what you and Gatto contend is really true (and I have no reason to doubt you) then I am truly dismayed. (That last word from Gatto is frightening to contemplate.) Or, can Gatto's view be restricted to his American experience? For truly, I find his preferred philosophy a bit hard to swallow. Horse riding to build character and confidence? Home schooling to ensure relevance and rebuild family and community values, and confidence with intimacy - great aspirations, but is his the only, or best way to infuse such qualities? And, is our Aus school environment directly comparable?

TV and internet may well be a disconnect from immediate society, but mandatory school attendance would then appear to be the only training kids/youth receive for later having to put in the hours to hold down a job. And school has been effective in the past in providing the necessary foundation for work and career - so what's changed? And, kids still seem to find time for personal interraction, and still seek it where the family environment is conducive.

Home schooling may also be fine if the parents are up to it; and some alternative schools may provide a better environment for learning and curiosity - but I would have thought our private schools would be reasonably equivalent. (Still some work to do in the public system, but they don't all seem to be abject failures.)

Is government responsible? Or, are WE truly "the "brats" for perpetuating the dysfunction"? (No one consulted me, but again I'm still unsure if the American experience is fully reflective of our educational institutions and our society at large.)

Families should be directly involved in their kid's education, both formal and societal, but failure to overcome our endemic addiction to mammon and materialism is surely a family and societal problem, and not one originated or propagated by our school system.

Total family school attendance and participation may however be efficacious in our remote communities, perhaps?

*Bur it's the powers that be - the reigning system that encourages parents to shower their kids with goodies*

Oh that is just an easy cop out excuse, Poirot. If Poirot drags
little Johnny to the shops and buys every chocolate bar that the
kid wants, pleads for and demands, then Poirot is to blame, not
the shop.

Fact is that the only qualification required to be a parent is to
enjoy a bit of sex. It shows, if you look around. Its much harder
to be a good parent, say no when you mean it, set kids boundaries etc.

Some of today's parents think that they are being good parents by
jut giving kids what they want. So they land up with brats who
learn to expect everything and even demand it, for that is what they
have been taught.

My old man was pretty tough on me, but now I can view it more objectively,
he taught me many things by being so. Other kids got
pocket money. He told me that if I wanted something, I'd have to
work for it. Wash the car, weed the garden, mow the lawn, etc.
Then he'd pay me (not much lol), but its still that kind of stuff
that teaches values, not just giving kids everything and blaming
the system.

If your claim about the education system being all at fault, we would
have not have so many great people coming out the other end, they
would nearly all be duds. That is not the case, so you will have
to rethink your claim, it seems.

Yes, people like to accumulate things. Have you ever considered how
squirrels store food to survive the winter? White man did the same to survive the snow.
Those that did not, would have soon gone extinct. So I think that there is a genetic component there, to be
considered.

.

Dear Squeers, ( from your post )

"Ralph Bennett,
economic growth is dependent on the growth of infrastructure, which is dependent on population growth or growing living standards. An economy can't grow in a vacuum. Economic growth and stable population at home just means it's being exported, i.e. population/infrastructure growth abroad. I agree with the Denmark model in the current dispensation as the best of all possible worlds. But the reality is that a profligate dispensation dependent on endless economic growth, in a finite system, cannot be viable in the median to long term. I'm horse from saying it but no one wants to face reality."

Squeers,

You dont need economic growth for full employment with stabilisation.

Stabilisation leads to labour becoming more scarce.

With scarcity ( as in any commodity ) labour becomes more valuable, treasured as a resource..........suddenly, there is money for re-training and with labour "worth something", it finally gives an incentive to get of the dole or disability pension.

Cheers,

Ralph

it finally gives an incentive to get of the dole or disability pension.
Ralph Bennett,
not to mention the tens of thousands of bureaucrats on very high pay who don't even know what they're doing all day for the money they get.

<You dont need economic growth for full employment with stabilisation.

Stabilisation leads to labour becoming more scarce.

With scarcity ( as in any commodity ) labour becomes more valuable, treasured as a resource..........suddenly, there is money for re-training and with labour "worth something", it finally gives an incentive to get of the dole or disability pension.>

Ralph Bennett,
I'm sceptical. I can see that the premises bear thinking about, but the argument's academic since we live in a world that is dependent on economic growth. Even so-called stable nations like Denmark require it in the context of the rest of the world. To not grow in this world is to fall behind, which entails many other consequences. But in any case, can you point to a prosperous and "stable" nation (population growth) that isn't growing economically?
Then there's the problem of what you call "full employment", by which presumably you mean more than the minimal hours of employment required to meet the designation in Australia, for instance? I think it more likely "full employment" would mean "shared employment" rather than a section "enjoying" a monopoly. I don't see how any stable nation, given modern manufacturing and technology etc., would require full full-time employment, though maybe full part-time workers. But once again the argument's moot because labour's never going to be scarce within a competitive "global" resource and employment base. The value of labour in a stable country is not based on domestic scarcity, but on the cost of labour elsewhere. Where labour is valued "and" scarce, such as in Denmark, the value is maintained by exports and economic growth, and not by scarcity per se.
The only way that I can see your formula working, in the current dispensation, is in an insular and self-sufficient nation, or artificially via tariffs, and these would invoke pariah status and security threats.
tbc