I have also thought a lot about this, though I don't have children yet. I think there is a lot to object to in the standard public school system and in many other types of schools, but I don't go as far as some do to want to throw out the idea of school altogether. Many have made the claim that the public school system was designed to create workers, learning things by rote, not questioning anything, being quiet and obedient, etc. as if the state is in the business of training future drones. I think that in many ways this is a fair criticism. Schools teach regulation of one's time and one's body, and obedience to authorities who are given the power to tell you what to do and where to go. If this power is put into the hands of someone who is burnt out, unimaginative and jaded, and who sees all of the students as drones, this is going to be terribly destructive.

Many things that I can criticize about the school system are double edged as far as I am concerned. What I mean is that even in things that I criticize I can also see a positive flip side. So every culture varies in the degree to which it prioritizes the individual or the collective. Japan is an example of a place where the collective far outweighs the individual. One sacrifices self in order to support the common good. The United States is more and more the opposite. There is less and less a feeling that we are all part of a collective, that we're all in it together and have a bond we share as citizens of the same country.

So you can say that one of the Cons of public school is uniformity and conformity, the risk of getting rid of children's individuality by leveling off differences, asking children who don't fit in to the existing blueprint to try harder to suppress authentic parts of themselves that don't fit in with the majority. You might think there could be no Pro side to this issue, and if you definite it this way, I can't see one either. But I do miss the sense I had as a child that across the country we were learning the same things, the same historical and cultural touchpoints, reading and writing English in a standardized way, with many of the same holidays and traditions. It's the feeling that no matter what different ideas and backgrounds we have at home and our individual beliefs and destinies, we all break for juice and crackers mid-morning. We all take a recess and run around and get some of that energy out. We all respect the school principal. We wear costumes on Halloween and bring cupcakes when it's our birthday. We learn to take turns, not interrupt, and how to work in groups with each other. Then again, others may say that it is exactly this type of cultural normativity that has made people from different cultures, beliefs and religions feel left out or invisible in school and that the shared sense of country and culture was merely an illusion. This subject is so vast that I just realized that I can't possibly express everything about it in the space here and I don't want to cheapen it by giving it short shrift. So I'll leave off here.

The bottom line is that I think all children should be allowed to explore and play and to be taught to think for themselves and defend their arguments. I think children should spend time with each on their own and learn how negotiate social groups, make up rules and standards among themselves, figure out how to take turns, solve problems, tackle challenges. I think they should all learn basic math, science, language, art, and music skills, and be acquainted with the key events in history (and learn how different people interpret them and learn to think of their own interpretation.)

I believe there are schools that accomplish these things, but they are the exception, not the rule. Homeschooling can accomplish many of these things as well, though I think extra attention has to be paid to making sure the children get to spend time with other children outside their family.