[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by Deepflow

I'm not sure something like that could work. Most children would just play games all day, if they were given the option.

We don't really know that. I don't know what they'd spend their days doing, and I suspect you don't know either. But it's possible, sure. And personally, I'd like to live in a world where that was possible. Games can certainly be structured (and I don't mean by someone directing play) in a fashion to educate people while they learn.

What if they were rubbish painters too, effectively wasting their entire school career? Obviously that's an extreme example, but there would be far more occurrences of children leaving school ill-equipped to deal with the world simply because they didn't possess the breadth of knowledge which we do, because we were forced to do it.

The breadth of knowledge I have is definitely NOT because I was forced to do music or art or whatever else. I would estimate about 90% of what I know is self-taught. Education is not about forcing random tidbits into your mind, but instilling a love of learning and equipping you with the right tools in order to research yourself. As well as some basic skills, of course.

Not to mention the fact that children can't really make informed decisions as they're only proto-sentient (i made up a stupid word! \o/).

I'm not really sure what you mean here but I suspect I disagree. Yes, children might do things against their long term interests but it's only in drastic cases it's really justiifed in restricting people's liberties. As I say, if you really think the current education system is working out well then that's cool, but I obviously disagree.

Kids, by and large, don't want to be at school, or at least they would rather be doing other things.

I would agree with this but point out that perhaps it's because schools are in some respects like prisons in their current form. Of course people don't want to be there, and I don't blame them.

If you hadn't had someone forcing you to do it, would you have done it at all?

Maybe. Maybe not. But it would have been my choice.

Originally Posted by horn

i know i'd be pretty cheesed off if i found out i could have been an olympic violinist if only my parents had made me go to music class etc...

Really? I'm not sure I'd care. There's lots of things i've never tried. I could have an awesome innate ability to learn Japanese but as I've never tried I don't know. Perhaps it is sad if someone never finds their gift, but I'd personally chalk that down to life experiences.

about the potential for someone to develop a taste/ability

This is true, and I agree which is why I'd support life-long learning and always having the ability to start learning what you want (with communal support where required). We already have this to an extent, lots of older people do adult education courses these days. Sure, if you never did _any_ maths at all for your whole life perhaps part of your brain wouldn't develop in the same way. But that'd be quite rare (most parents teach their kid some form of numbers way before they go to school anyway) and not likely to occur very often. And lots of things like games (Monopoly, Poker, most computer games) require number skills of some form so even a total slacker of a kid would have interacted with numbers quite a bit.