Education - Is school slavery, child labor, prison? A dialogue - Anti-Schooling Series Part 12

Anti-Schooling Series Part 12

Hello,
I would like to ask you a series of questions, and I shall write your presumed responses, because you are not here. Suicide is the number one cause of death among South Korean adolescents for a reason. It is coming close to number one in the United States and will soon be.

When I go to my company's office and sit at my desk, am I working?
Yes of course.

If I wasn't on my computer, instead I am writing and doing things on paper, am I still working?
Yes, there are most likely many professions for which the person works at a desk and doesn't use a computer.

If I am self employed, and building my own company, and not making any money, am I still working?
Yes of course, self employed people, whether making a profit or not, are still working.

What if I was sitting at the desk, doing things in a notepad and not working on a business, then would I still be working?
No, then you are just sitting at a desk because you want to.

What if I do not want to be at that desk?
Are you being kidnapped?

There would be negative consequences if I didn't go to that desk and write in my notebooks and the negative consequences are great enough that I feel I must sit at the desk. How large much the negative consequences be in order for it to be considered kidnapping?
Physical force must be exerted.

If I am being ordered to do something I do not enjoy for hours a day by a person in position of cultural authority, and I do what I am being ordered to do, am I working or being kidnapped?
Perhaps.

If there are locks on the door, patrols in the halls, and patrols outside, all in order to keep me at my desk between certain hours of the day, would that count as physical force?
Yes. We all do things we do not enjoy. When someone else forces you to do it, it is forced labor. When it is from your own motivation, it is what you want to do, usually because you are sacrificing in the short term for an expected reward later.

So are children in school working?
They are working on school work, but they are not being paid, so they aren't really working in the labor sense.

Did we establish I can be working even though I am not making money? Is that child labor?
No because they are learning, and they are not down a mine or in a factory.

Did we establish I can be working if I am at a desk, writing in a notebook? Don't people learn in their jobs as well?
Yes, work doesn't have to be a factory or mine. Yes, people usually learn more while working than in school in fact.

So is school child labor?
No because they aren't being paid.

So isn't it worse than child labor, because wouldn't they rather be paid?
Yes it is worse than the child labor of a child being paid to work at a desk.

What are slaves?
People who work without being paid for it.

Are children in school slaves?
No, they can leave school.

Is it reasonable to expect a child to fight their parents every day to not go to school, run away from home, or enter the foster system in order to avoid school, or face being arrested for truancy?
No, that is not reasonable. Very few children would fight their parents to not go to school, or run away.

Do students in school have less of a choice than those who work jobs?
Yes, those who work jobs will not have to fight anyone, or become homeless, or be arrested by police for not working.

If I am being forced to be somewhere, am I imprisoned for those hours?
Prison is punishment, though it is meant to be reformative as well.

If I am stressed, depressed, and sleep deprived because of what I am being forced to do am I being punished?
Sounds like it. But school is for your own good.

If a slave master told a slave his work is for his own good because he is learning how to farm and exercising to become stronger and one day the slave master will free him and these skills and strength will help him provide for himself, would that make slavery ok?
No

Is school slavery, child labor, kidnapping, prison, or age discrimination?