@porters, I really do enjoy your stories, you've got so much to share and I appreciate your perspective on this.

Every teacher I talk to says the same thing @riverflows! The system is so archaic and all the old fat cats are so comfortable that change takes forever. I know teachers do their best with the resources they have and many go above and beyond to compensate and give the kids the best until they burn out. I have a lot of respect for teachers.

I cherish the internet and libraries for the wealth of knowledge you can absorb for free. I even have some uni textbooks. Not all of us need classrooms to learn. People used to apprentice for all sorts of things, learning by doing, learning from people who'd been doing those things all their lives and it worked. We lost out on so much when this sort of rich and practical education fell to the wayside and education turned into a disconnected highly controlled mega-business.

Uni is NOT for everyone and I wish they would stop pushing ALL kids into it or telling them that "You can be anything you want" because ... it really isn't true for most. It would be better that they know what the outcome could be because they should be aware of the debt and frustration that can follow their choice. There are a lot of grads stuck working at Tim Hortons selling donuts here in Canada. Very bleak. Had they had their eyes wide open they might have chosen a path with a strong future instead. A lot of my friends never did get a job/career in the sector that they'd studied and endded up having the start at the bottom in some other job which is so hard and they are also struggling to raise families and pay off that crazy debt. My son's friends are in similar situations so it is only getting worse.