Cross-posted from Otherwise.
Caveats: My oldest child is 11, and I don’t have parenting experience beyond elementary school. We’re lucky that our local public school is a good fit for our kids, and we’d be looking harder at alternatives if that weren’t the case.

Current schools are preparing children for something like the present or the past. I think it's very likely that AI will shake up work, economics, and daily life considerably by the time my children are adults. The way the schools are preparing them essentially for 2019 feels pretty absurd to me.

In my dream world, my kids would be doing something more flexible than school, with some able tutor to guide them at the right level, and plenty of outdoor time and visiting places in the real world. So why are we not doing that?

School is where the other children are

One of the [...]

---

Outline:

(00:58) School is where the other children are

(01:57) We don't want to quit our jobs

(02:57) What do we even prepare them for?

(03:39) Guesses at what will continue having value

---

First published:
June 14th, 2025

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/6tvxuJE7jFLSQ2WFd/why-we-re-still-doing-normal-school

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“Why we’re still doing normal school” by juliawise

LessWrong (30+ Karma)