Traditional by Default

This post was adapted from something that I had previously written.

No two children are the same. The ideal educational for each child is unique. Producing varying approaches is a necessity to prevent damaging these children. I would prefer to scrap the schools in favor of self-education. This is the only way that education can be consistently adapted to the needs of the individual.
I have been writing about the need for educational freedom, which is very similar to the concept of unschooling. Unschooling is one of many options in existence today that are not properly presented to children and their parents. Most options are only presented once the traditional approach has been proven ineffective for a student.

The traditional approach to schooling is far from variable. All children are expected to follow the same progression of lessons in an attempt to meet the same graduation requirements. The things that the schools demand from their students are established before any teacher knows any student that they will encounter that year.

We have invested heavily in the traditional system and feel that it is too risky to push children into untested educational environments. The system that we are used to has clearly failed to prove valuable. Since we want it to work, however, we act as though alternatives don’t exist.

Whenever I hear about someone turning to an alternative, I hear about the traditional system failing. Alternative high schools are targeted at those that the schools label as defective. Alternatives are only considered to be in someone’s best interest if the traditional approach is proven to be problematic.

Stereotyping provides discouragement. Since the schools label those who turn to alternatives as rejects, people tend to look down on them. People generally want respect, and finding something better will generally lead to disrespect.

Survival within the traditional system does not indicate that the traditional system is ideal. Even people who do well in school need to be provided with options. Even if the traditional system seems like a good fit, there can always be something better out there.

Public schools, private schools, and colleges are all based off of the same core concepts. They all maintain letter grades. They all use terms such as Freshman. The same methodology is used in each of these schools, and the faculty members are all trained through colleges.

The biggest difference between the schools today and the schools fifty years ago is that people openly discriminate against those who have not graduated. We have gone from an optional flawed system to a mandatory flawed system. We insist that all humanity must be forced through a single rigid system. Deviation rarely occurs unless significant harm has already come from the process. Since society hates deviants, we fear the search for the right fit.