How different would the world be if school never ended but you could leave and come back anytime you elect to?

Look, I'm not saying that you're lazy for not spending your nights and weekends at the library taking online learning courses, but you can answer your own question by answering another, "What's stopping you now?" There are fewer barriers to education now than there ever have been. People who are curious learn. People who are driven accomplish. People who are both discover.

36

School isn't just learning the stuff in the classes. It's the shared experience too. It's the teachers holding you accountable for learning.

"Going to school" is a very different thing than just trying to learn on your own. Self motivation and time are a huge barrier for a lot of people. I think the OP was imagining being able to go to school every day and just take classes for free with other people also interested.

16
I have done my fair share of school. I just think it would be cool to keep learning, but not only that. I think if peoples default was to continually learn stuff and the time allowed to do it wasn't hampered by outside influences we could all engage in much deeper conversations about all sorts of things.

8
- You should never stop learning. School gave you the framework by which you can build new information and knowledge, use it!
  
  2
- Some good companies will provide you with paid education, of course it's in form of a training, to an important topic used in that company.
  
  1

Harvard puts classes online for free, libraries are already paid for through tax dollars and YouTube exists. You can go back to school whenever already friend

20

As a self learner, knowing this, I'd like to have a word with whomever set requirements for any job requiring a degree.

22
- Probably those who had massive errors happen because people bullshitted their way into a position. Certification is important. It’s impossible to test all the bits of knowledge required for a position every time someone applies for a position with the potential for huge fuckups (doctor, engineer, pilot, etc.)
  
  I don’t want to be in the plane with the self taught pilot, even though I think the requirements in the US are kinda bullshit.
  
  I’m not denying that schools are fleecing students and jobs have some protectionism going on with certifications, but there’s a balance to be struck. These requirements happened for a reason.
  
  10
- I'm a firm believer that as long as you can show you knowledge and can accomplish the job, the piece of paper is unnecessary. It's also why I think apprentiships should be more of a thing again. Degrees are a very modern thing that while a very useful tool, isn't being used right.
  
  3
- : ( like yeah man just gimme a change for a sec and you'll see I can hang with the big dogs
  
  2
- The degree isn't proof that you know things, but that you can get through a certain set of ordeals.
  
  2
You can go back to school whenever already friend

The hypothetical included living costs. Which would let you digest those educational resources to learn. Saying they are there without having a system in play is just ignoring the realities of life.

10
- Right, of course I could spend all my spare time learning stuff. What if I was allowed all my time to be spent learning stuff?
  
  3

It's already like that except the funding part. There's free online learning for basically anything available to everyone in the world, 24/7. And people do take advantage of it.

You can learn whatever TF you want from reliable, trusted sources it's just that all you get from it is the knowledge. You don't normally get a degree or a certificate or anything like that. Because those things are for traditional institutions (and how they make money).

If you really want to learn something, go learn it. What's stopping you?

11

If you really want to learn something, go learn it. What's stopping you?

Work.

If I don't work full time I can't afford to house or feed myself.

Work wipes me out mentally leaving me no mental bandwidth to spend what precious little time I have left to go learn, even if I want to.

I would love to be able to dedicate time to learning like I did when I was at university but even with the government funding available to me I would have to upend my life.

I do spend time doing learning around things that interest me but it is depressing how little bandwidth work leaves for me to do that.

19

The library?

11

No...

1

teachers would be really freaking sad with all the people who go only for the free housing

11

Would they though? Wouldn't they be thrilled to teach things in an open ended, no pressure type environment. It wouldn't have to be structured like it is today. People could learn what ever they are interested in, focus solely on that, and teachers could offer different levels of difficulty based solely on each person's ability.

2
- With free housing, I'm expecting quite a bit of people to be there without interest in learning anything. There is also a lot of pain if the learners aren't filtered into skill levels because you're going to have to "conserve" teacher power so that everyone gets at least one teacher for their subject. A "bright-line" solution to this would be dropping those who don't pass a test after a few weeks, but then you also risk filtering out those who only want to learn a specific subtopic.
  
  3

The issue as I see it is that knowledge in any subject is protean. It changes. So if you wait to long to go back, what you learned before would be completely useless and you'd effectively have to start from the beginning.

Heck, the things I was taught in my Archaeology Degree from 2001 are at best, incomplete, and in some cases, now completely refuted. If I had left and decided to go back even ten years later, the technology that was suddenly in use alone would force me to start all over again.

8

That is a feature not a bug. The alternative is people being in senior positions that want to do things "the way they were taught to do it" 30 years ago.

2

Have you considered checking out your local Community College?

5

I think I was fine with school ending at some point. Focusing on new things... Trading in some annoying obligations for others. I don't think I'd elect to come back unless it's just every now and then.

3

Yeah, I'm 100% glad to be out of school but as a society we just kinda accept that school should end and then you only do work. Just wish we could reverse that idea. That people who are capable were given more opportunity to explore all the different possibilies this world contains.

How interesting would it be if you and the grocery store clerk could get into a conversation about their dissertation on dark matter or something.

Think, in a future with complete automation why can't this be a possibility?

2
- Agree. I'm not sure if the grocery store clerk will be a human in that scenario and not a robot... But I'd like to live and see humanity arrive at some post-scarcity utopia like Star Trek. Where everyone can choose to do whatever they like, because all the basic needs are met. And all the mundane tasks are done by automation. I'd certainly learn a lot. There are some skills and languages that'd I'd like to try or maybe even master.
  
  2

Replies in here really showing why teachers are so tragically underpaid 😔

3

What do you mean ? Tons of people come back to school later in life, and it's ~~often ~~ sometimes funded by unemployment, better giving money to someone for 2 years than for thei rwhole life

1

A decade or 2 ago? Maybe a ton

Now? This is essentially the truth with the internet

1

It's already like that except the funding part. There's free online learning for basically anything available to everyone in the world, 24/7. And people do take advantage of it.

You can learn whatever TF you want from reliable, trusted sources it's just that all you get from it is the knowledge. You don't normally get a degree or a certificate or anything like that. Because those things are for traditional institutions (and how they make money).

If you really want to learn something, go learn it. What's stopping you?

1

That’s how it works now. Assuming you can afford it.

0

The government would end up housing and educating most of the population, which would cost more than any country could afford.

0

Everyone would go anti intellectual because of those free loading students

0