At one pole, I have an innate dislike of forcing young people to do things they don't want to do, and all too often school falls into this category.  Sure, there are students who are happy and love learning and doing homework.  In no situation, no matter how positive, does this describe all students.  In some situations, it describes almost none.  The reasons behind this are many, and likely have something to do with family background, something to do with the school, and something to do with inherent personality traits.  But in any case, there are oftentimes large numbers of students who simply don't want to study some things, or most things, or any things, and I really wonder about the efficacy and morality of forcing them to do what they don't want to do - particularly at the secondary level.

How much good does it do a thirteen or fourteen year old to sit in a class against their will, be it math or literature or art?  Is the good any greater than the harm?  Or, how useful is it to force the student who resents his or her imprisonment to continue it?  Is it worthwhile to force the bullied, abused child to continue on in that abusive social situation?  Further, how much damage does it do to the learning environment to have resentful, angry, or abused students in that environment against their will?

This question has great personal significance to me because I was one of those who detested school from the start.  I didn't like kindergarten, I hated elementary school, and I detested middle school.  I have trouble really understanding why I then ended up spending five years in college and seven in graduate school.

So, I don't think people should be forced to do things they don't like just because society thinks it's good for them.  Society is wrong an awful lot, especially when it really doesn't even try to look at the individual.

On the other hand, there are some things that people just should know!  Teaching now in Japan, and confronting firsthand the shocking level of ignorance and insularity in this country (not just at the student level!), it makes me sick.  People should bloody well know something about geography, and at the very least about their own history.  People should know how to read tables and graphs, and how to deal with data at a basic level.  People should know how to read and write coherently, at the very least in their own language if not in a foreign one as well.  People should know how to competently use a word processor, format text for print, use formulas in a spreadsheet, and acquire and manipulate images for a variety of uses.  In a car society, people ought to know a bit about the maintenance of cars, and in a home-owner society people ought to know enough carpentry and plumbing to at least understand the nature of the maintenance problems they might face.  In a society where most people live on their own for a period of time, people ought to know how to cook, how to budget and track expenditures, how to do basic repairs on their clothing, and how to deal with credit and finance.  And everybody ought to be able to raise plants, be they food or decorative.

This isn't about a canon or anything, these aren't about subverting the system, these are basic survival skills.  I don't have all of them, and I feel their absence every time a button falls off one of my jackets or my car starts making strange noises.  I know people who run into problems when they have to write things.  Despite this, many people don't have some, or any, of these skill, and often enough, regardless of class background, they resist acquiring them - it's too bothersome, who cares, I have better things to do, I'll never need that, I'm good enough already, etc.

And, honestly, it requires a fair bit of study and application to learn a lot of those things.  They aren't trivial.  Something like reading and writing well takes hours and hours and hours, year after year, to really master, and frankly most people don't care to put in that sort of time.  But damn it, they ought to!

And thus my inner dilemma.  There are a bunch of things that I can't help but feel that people ought to be required to know, whether they want to or not, yet I can't help but feel that forcing anyone to study anything against their will is inherently wrong.

Putting this burden at the feet of teachers, to be inspiring to everyone and fix their motivational problems and personal difficulties, is like saying that all generals should be Sun Tzu or all basketball players should be Magic Johnson - it'd be great, but it can't happen.  Inspiring the least amongst us is not a normal task that can be left to reasonably competent professionals, and there's not nearly enough magic fairy dust floating around to help out.

So I don't know anything.