Schools are terrible places to learn anything.

The bias in schools.

I taught for 10 years at one of Europe’s top private schools. However, I wouldn’t consider sending my kids there. In fact, my wife and I have long believed that homeschooling or community schooling is the best option for educating our children.

Why? Because of bias.

It is no secret that schools are full of super-progressive types: left-wing, “woke,” or whatever you want to call them. If this political bias isn’t something your family agrees with, well, the people spending 8+ hours per day with your children do. Even if you spend every waking moment of the weekend with your kids, those “woke” teachers have doubled it. Teachers and the school “community” have a much bigger impact on our kids than we like to admit.

Stagnation in Education

Schools haven’t evolved much in the 20-odd years since I graduated from high school. They still adhere to the same age-old structure: 40–60 minute lessons, 5–6 times a day, with 15–30 students per class and only one teacher. A quick calculation reveals that it’s virtually impossible for children to receive a quality education in such an environment.

At best, a student might receive 4 minutes of the teacher’s attention in a class of 15 students (60 minutes divided by 15 students). In public schools, where class sizes tend to be larger, it’s more like 30 students per class.

Of course, this calculation overlooks essential factors like instructional time, class management, and addressing students’ queries.

Teacher’s Perspective

Consider it from the teacher’s viewpoint. Typically, a teacher juggles between 4–7 classes, each with 15–30 students. Let’s take the average scenario: 6 classes with 25 students each, totaling 150 students. If a teacher spends just 15 minutes grading and providing feedback on an assignment, it adds up to 37.5 hours for just one assignment across all classes.

Factor in one assignment per month, and you’re looking at roughly 40 hours of grading and feedback per month. Unfortunately, dedicating 15 minutes per student per assignment doesn’t allow for thoughtful or personalized feedback. To do a decent job, 30 minutes per student per assignment would really be the minimum. But 80 hours of extra work per month? Now we are really dreaming.

Teachers clearly don’t have the time, so what do they do? They resort to copying and pasting generic comments and skimming through assignments out of necessity.

Educational Exchange

The students also must resort to hastily writing assignments filled with generic jargon, now facilitated even more rapidly with AI. Teachers respond with equally generic content. Both sides squander time and energy engaging in a meaningless educational exchange devoid of value. The roles of teacher and student are performative, with both sides feigning interest and pretending to contribute original thought and effort.

The Administration at Schools

School administrators, such as principals and heads of school, are essentially teachers who have mastered the art of deception. They project an image of competence and regurgitate the latest educational jargon like “authentic concept transfer” to maintain the illusion of educational nous. They are actors, listen to any of them talk about education, and you soon realize there is nothing there, no soul, no skill, no knowledge, just jargon and mediocre acting. If you found yourself stranded on a desert island with a school administrator, they would likely be your first meal.

Take a moment to assess a school’s administrative class , one quickly realizes that it’s a closed loop, where they only hire people who resemble themselves. Climbing the corporate ladder in schools is akin to any other industry, but worse. Some corporate leaders actually have good organizational skills, or leadership skills, hell they might even be able to use google calendar properly.

The most adept manipulators are in charge, having long departed from the classroom and unable to teach a lesson if their lives depended on it. In my experience, some of these administrators command salaries nearing 20,000 euros per month at top schools, yet have no skills, and are not even nice people. So teaching and teaching administrators is just like the rest of the workforce out there, minus any actual useful skills whatsoever. Youtube replaced teachers 10–15 years ago, we just haven’t realized yet. Once you replace the teachers, the parasitic overpaid administrators are less than irrelevant.

Concluding Thoughts

In conclusion, the educational system, as it stands, appears to be entrenched in a cycle of inefficiency and mediocrity. Both teachers and students find themselves shackled by outdated structures and overwhelmed by unrealistic expectations. Meanwhile, school administrators, often detached from the classroom, perpetuate a culture of superficiality and incompetence, regurgitating the same “revolutionary ideas” at every meeting.

There is no future in the current school system. Schools were originally designed to train the next generation of industrial workers at the onset of the industrial age. In today’s digital era, the traditional school model no longer serves its intended purpose. Let’s be honest, schools are not primarily centers of learning; rather, memorization seems to be a more fitting descriptor. The primary function of schools has shifted to childcare, providing a place for children to go while both parents work. While this may have once been a choice for families, it has now become a necessity for the majority, with two incomes often essential for survival.

Hopefully, in the near future, advancements in technology will alleviate the burden of mundane tasks, allowing parents to spend more time with their children. This could lead to the rise of more homeschooling communities and decentralized learning approaches, emphasizing project-based learning and fostering a deeper, more meaningful educational experience for all.