Dropout Dilemmas; Paths Not Taken

Photo by Ben White on Unsplash

I confess the only reason I left school was the need to support a family. I had a fantasy of becoming a forensic pathologist, but I dropped my pre-med studies to devote full time to my law practice when school and work and being a single dad got to be too much and I had to choose. I know how odd that sounds coming from a ninth grade dropout who did not drop back in until the University of Texas was willing to take a chance on me. My life up to that point appeared to show hostility to education, but that was not true.

I was — and remain — hostile to schooling as practiced K-12 in the United States. What we’ve got is universal child care with graduated lesson plans aimed at theoretical students of a particular age without regard to their abilities or interests. With the learning component rendered too difficult to absorb or too easy to avoid boredom, the function of the public schools devolves to social sorting, mostly in a manner that replicates the status of parents.

There are many popularity contests that offer no trophies for participation. The winners win consistently and the losers likewise. Hence, the sport the losers find in class reunions when they have done better than the people who made them miserable back in the day.

If the problems are so damn obvious, and if I believe in the value of education, why didn’t I use what…