I've bitched about school before, but I've recently reexamined, consolidated and tweaked my views about almost all forms of schooling and this is what I've got.
School is a game. It's less about how much you learn and more about how well you play the game. The game consists simply of deadlines, time management and organization. School is basically how we've figured out to integrate children into the workforce after child labor was outlawed in the United States.
Why aren't there schools for people who just want to learn as much as they possibly can? When I devote seven hours of my day to something under the pretense of learning, I don't want to be bogged down with dates, projects, organization and, now that I'm in high school, the constant loving parade of college information. I want to learn every mote of information about everything around me that's possible to cram into my head in the 5,040 hours I spend in high school.
And don't get me wrong, I'm not just finding an elaborate way to say "homework is dumb". While homework can be considered a part of the learning process, where information is absorbed in a way besides a lecture but I see it as superfluous to my learning process and furthermore, I see it less as a tool for learning but more as a way to hammer in the concept of working to a deadline, work ethic, and whatever goes along with that. This is all well and good, but don't do it under the pretense of learning.
Thoughts on this topic?