Before I finally pry myself off Twitter:
I've talked before about how we shouldn't force kids to go to school. Less coercive approaches seem to be working reasonably well. Maybe the reason children hate going is because we turned learning into a misery gauntlet.

There are a lot of similarities between education and labour. Children are usually extremely curious and excited to learn. The German education system then does its best to smother this natural desire for understanding.

It does this by alienating us from learning. We don't learn for ourselves in school. We learn to pass examinations and earn certifications of education. Certain skills are treated as necessary, others as worthless. We learn only for future employment.

This coercion prepares us effectively for a life in employment, where our own interest is secondary to that of the exploitation machine. But it is also soul crushing. So many people say they hate maths, even though maths is so rad. I get it. School almost made me hate it too.

The German education system also tries to instill in children an appreciation for art, culture, literature. It often achieves the opposite by confronting kids with works far above their "pay grade". They're graded on their interpretation of books that often mean nothing to them.

Young adults tend to feel the classics, even the actually good ones, are boring and that old people like to read all kinds of shit into them. You can't force people to appreciate art. You can and should challenge them, but you need to get them to buy in!

The result of burning children like this is pretty severe. They do all the work of engaging with challenging material but miss out on the deep satisfaction of doing so successfully. Because it's not about deriving meaning, it's about saying the things that get you an A.

So many stick to accessible, easily digestible stuff. Star Wars is great, I love it. But even my most favorite star wars movie hasn't really changed my understanding of the world and my place in it. Not all art has to. But everybody should experience some art that does.

But that kind of art tends to take a bit of work to engage with. And school has inadvertently taught us that art that makes you work for it isn't worth the hassle unless someone's holding a gun to your head. A school gun that fires bad grades and disappointed parents.

Okay enough rambling. Tl;Dr fuck school. It destroyed my ability to study, challenge myself and love myself. I had to relearn all that stuff afterwards. And it's all because capitalism needs a machine that churns out competent drones more than it does self-actualised people.