The public education system in many capitalist countries has been highly criticized for allegedly dumbing down students and/or killing their creativity. On the other hand, getting rid of schools would probably lead to a reduction in literacy and qualifications. Thus, it would be necessary to reform education somehow.
Here are some proposed options:
Socialist Values - Keep the current education system, but instead of teaching capitalist values, teach socialist ones. Grades, homework, tests, etc. remain a thing.
Montessori - Public schools all perform like the Montessori model: Students learn at their own pace, are encouraged to do student-led activites, and are guided by adults who act like mentors. Homework is minimal, if it is even assigned at all. Grades in Montessori exist but are done differently, instead of checking how well one has completed assignments, the mentor grades each student by how well they believe they are progressing.
Democratic Schools - Grades and curriculum are entirely abolished. Here, students are expected to be in charge of their own education and are even given the opportunity to decide many of the decisions made by the school. Children and adults are seen as equals to each other in this model. The most famous instance of this is the Sudbury School.
These are just the ideas I can think of right now. Which ones do you guys agree with, or do you have another idea not listed here?
A few things:
Students should be compelled to learn, not from their fear of getting a bad grade and being shamed by those around them, but by love and duty to learn. That can be done by reforms mentioned and other things that are currently being done in China.
As was mentioned, a goal of capitalist education is often to get people out of school and into the workplace as fast as possible. This leads to long school hours and minimization of off days. This is damaging for many people’s mental health, and should be reduced as work hours. Most people are probably not at their best learning potential at the seventh hour or the fifth day of learning. I’m sure some people are fine with learning for long hours, but they can choose to go to those programs on their own.
Another current problem is us having to wake up early and do long commutes. This also hurts students’ mental health. It can be fixed with more localized schooling. Here in the US in some places there are a few decent public schools, but mostly petty bourgeois white kids can get in as they have resources to hire tutors etc to help get in. Similar with private. Then those that are in have to get up early and get across town before the work traffic rush. This can be fixed with equitable local schooling. Everyone should be able to walk or bike to school.
Finally, we must get rid of the banking model (where teachers are supposed to dump info into students’ brains) and replace it with a dialogical model (as laid out in the pedagogy of the oppressed).