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Originally Posted by Deepflow
But there is a difference between everyone trying to be average at everything and everyone just trying their best at everything, I don't think I ever said people should "try to be average".
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No, but it's implied. In a rational society I don't think we would spend so much of our time as children comparing ourselves with others (a natural response to marked tests, grades, etc). And there it might not be such an issue. But here, there is the continued idea you should be trying to catch up. Bollocks to that, everyone should be free to puruse their own interests.
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Why are you putting a greater value on science and maths than you are on subjects like art and music?
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Because I enjoyed them. And because they have proved more useful in my career. And from the age of about 8 I've known I wanted to work in computers and despite having done two non-IT degrees I've basically ended up working in IT. That won't apply to everyone of course, which is why they should be able to choose what they want to do. I would never want to force anyone to learn the things I like, I just ask for the same to apply in reverse.
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I think they probably have specialisation at about the right age tbh, any time before that (about 13 I believe, or at least it was 13 for me) and you're not really a rational actor
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I think specialisation, in the sense you mean, is only ever bad when it closes doors. I think people should have the freedom to study what they want from a very early age. Not discard things permanently, but choose which book they want to read, what picture they want to draw, what game they want to play almost as soon as they are capable of making choices at all. I don't see any problem with a kid completely disregarding a subject for a period so long as they always have the option of going back. It's only the rigidity of the current education system which makes that very difficult to achieve. To me a perfect classroom would be somewhere where children turned up, chose their activity for the day / week / year, being coached where appropriate by someone who had a genuine love of learning.
But even on a practical level (ignoring the morality of freedom) forcing people to study things they don't want to learn doesn't really seem to work anyway. Maybe a limited number of people need that sort of coercion, but I doubt it applies to the majority. I might have liked things like art or music or PE, if I didn't have some ****s forcing me to do it.