Does conventional schooling assist in people growing up to be original thinkers?

Question

I'm a homeschooled teen, and I've noticed that alot of the time my conventionally schooled friends can't think for themselves about intellectual subjects. On most topics in school, (esp. arts), they merely regurgitate what the teacher has told them. I've spoken to teachers, and they say this practise is rife and many students have great difficulty adapting to uni, as they cannot develop original ideas. How do you feel about this?

Answer 1

I work in the public school.  Public school is great for helping kids not be ashamed to wear American Eagle jeans with holes in them at the price of $50.00 or more a pair.

Name brand sandals at around $90.00 a pair, and  hollister tshirts at $20.00  or more.

I  don't think many parents will complain when we switch to uniforms.

Answer 2

Conventional schooling teaches conformity. A great book on this subject is Dumbing us Down by John Taylor Gatto. It's a great read.

Answer 3

As I learn more about original thinkers from the past and the education some of them have, I have to agree. Thomas Edison and Benjamin Franklin are the two that come to mind. They spent very little time being taught. I just read that Benjamin Franklin went to school for 2 years, had to be pulled out at the age of 10 because it was too expensive for his father, but then he learned a ton of things after that, on his own--navigation, algebra, geometry, science, four different languages... Thomas Edison was pulled out after a few months of school when he was 7, his mother took a few years to teach him the basics--reading, writing, math--and then he was left to his own devices, but expected to immerse himself in some sort of study.

These two, at the age of 10, were given a LOT of time to explore interests, at their own pace, in their own way. They weren't required to do presentations and projects, which I had learned were ways of having children express creativity (except that I now feel a lot of the time it's somebody else's creativity that they're expressing--and because they have to, not because it's something welling inside of them), they weren't required to be at school for 7 hours and bring home an hour of homework and more.

I know some naysayers have said that Thomas Edison was different--hinting it was just because he was a genius--but if he'd gone to school in our modern school system, he would not have had the time to explore what he did, he would not have had the time to think the things he did, and yes, he would have had to spend a lot of time learning what he was told to learn, and focusing on getting certain results on standardized tests. What choice do the schools really have if the governments keep requiring that the kids do regurgitate information for standardized tests? The standardized tests are all about making sure the kids are learning what the governments have decided they should be learning. And for a multiple-choice test, it means facts, information, not creative and critical thinking.

Answer 4

I agree, many conventionally schooled kids don't seem to be able to think for themselves.  I have given up trying to have intellectual conversations with most of my public school friends because they just repeat what somebody else said.

Answer 5

Conventional school teaches conformity to the maximum degree.  I'm a non-conformist, so I'm fortunate to have finished public school with a diploma.  Also, I am a writer and most of what I learned about writing, I learned from studying on my own, reading great books, honing my writing skills, etc.  

Regurgitating what someone has told you does not mean you have learned it.  Intellectual curiosity is fulfilled by reading, researching, studying, and learning on one's own.

Answer 6

I've seen it so many times in the public school kids that I tutor. I saw it when I went to public school. It hurts a child more than anything else, I think.

Answer 7

My public school experience was that conformity was king. When the label on you jeans HAS to match, you can pretty much chuck creative and independent thought too.

Answer 8

I believe that this is due to several things, not just conventional schooling, although that is a major contributor.

It is mainly up to the parents how the children will develop thinking skills; how much they are involved in all aspects of the family, and the decision making process, how much they are taught responsibilities, work ethic, and such.

Thinking skills are developed over time, and become more refined with life experience, something home schooled students have a chance to gain daily because they are not confined to a classroom.

This is not something that can be achieved in an artificial environment (school) since children are age segregated, moved up a ladder (grades) according to age, rather than merits or ability.

Much of today's classroom teaching is also restricted to guided instruction designed to teach a generic curriculum that often limits the teachers to asking questions that will lead to the "acceptable answers"

So much for having a different opinion, or different questions about a topic.

Do that for several years, and the sadly, but true the only questions you will get from many children/young adult is "what do I do next, or how do I do that"?

In the end they need to much guidance, and on the job training, making it difficult when they enter the work place where a manager looks for initiative, and indepenent people who have idea's to contribute to do the job.

learning is interacting, thinking through, and solving problems, debating all topics, seeing them as multi-dimensional, and come up with creative possibilities/solutions.

Answer 9

This is an answer to your question and simultaneously a bit of humor towards some recent posts.

Hear this in a deep public school Frankenstein voice...

Ugggghhh... Thinking bad!  Feelings good!

Ugggghh...  Opinions good.  Research bad!

Answer 10

I'm 15, and I started doing an online school this semester, but I was homeschooled all my life before that.  I am not going to do this online school any longer, I have about four more days.  It is destroying my life, and I am not learning nearly as much as I did when I was homeschooled.  I live on a 500 acre farm, and as soon as I could walk I was working and learning doing real things, and that is what people need.  Being homeschooled isn't the one and only answer to everything, but regular school definitely isn't either.  Now I am spending almost all of my time inside on this computer, not learning in a week as much as I learn in a day when I am doing real things.  I think that homeschooling is good, but reglular schools could be good if people spent  less time there and more time doing other things.  I know I am very different than most people, but this is what I think.

Answer 11

No, conventional schooling teaches people to both toe the party line (as it is decreed by society) and to regurgitate the party line.

(it's the reason why mass schooling was introduced - to ensure an obedient, pliable, uncritical workforce - and schools are still doing a pretty good job of that in many parts of the world today!)

Even here, where public schools like to think their big selling point is supposedly teaching kids to be independent learners and critical thinkers, they're still churning out kids who rarely have the guts to step away from consensus!

@ Arbor, I'm also 15, an auto-didact and growing up on my family's farm. My siblings and I also have to start work on the farm as soon as we can walk, I reckon most farm kids do, lol. In fact my very earliest memory is of 'helping' my dad to AI a bunch of heifers. I wouldn't change anything about our way of life though and reckon it is the one of the best real-life educations anyone can get!

I couldn't do conventional schooling be it online or in person - I did go to a private primary school once when I was 7. It took me all of 3 days before I got up in front of the class and announced to the school principal that she and her school were wasting my time, lol.

Answer 12

The American school system uses the Prussian method.

It was designed to create soldiers who would follow orders and march off cliffs if ordered to.

In school, you're taught that you *shouldn't* think for yourself, and that the teacher knows everything. That learning is memorizing what your teachers say and what your book says, spitting it back up for a test, and hoping that when you get out you'll need that tidbit about meiosis. It was designed to create legions of obedient soldiers.

In America, an element of racism also came in to play. When there were waves of Irish, German, and Italian immigrants coming in, people who had been around for longer didn't want their kids mixing with the common folk. The schools were supposed to stamp out the peculiarities of the immigrant kids' home countries and train them to be worker bees who wouldn't look above their place. I've had my 13 year-old cousin say to me, "I can't read that book yet; that's eighth-grade stuff." Not, "That's too hard for me." No, you can only read that book in eighth grade.

There is nothing inherently superior or inferior about homeschoolers. There's no genius gene, no moral superiority (I know homeschoolers who drink and chaste public schoolers) or anything of the sort. Homeschoolers are not perfect, public schoolers are not the embodiment of evil.

The difference is that a homeschooling environment is intended to foster free thinking, while a government school is not.

Answer 13

Personally, I believe that the public school system kills off as much individual thought as it possibly can!  It makes us much more pliable robots when we are adults!  Any education system that caters to average is going to leave the vast majority of students floundering or bored stiff in the long run.

It took me years after I left state school to develop a mind of my own.