GUEST POST from Don – The Purpose of School

WHAT is the PURPOSE of SCHOOL?

Talk with 7 teachers or school board members and you’ll get 7 answers, and the last one won’t count …


SOCIALIZATION?

I’ve read what some write about homeschoolers.  They decry the lack of “socialization.”  But being homeschooled has nothing to do with socialization.  Those children still interact with others their own ages as well as many adults (many can actually have an adult-type conversation, too).  Many are active on community sports teams.  They go to parties.  Some attend church or other youth activities.  They still hang at the mall on occasion.  There are hundreds of ways in which socialization occurs without sitting next to 17 other bored children.

The fallacy is bigger than that.  In public schools socialization doesn’t happen regularly either.  I saw several pictures chronicling socialization in public schools.  One picture was of high school seniors waiting for class to begin … no one was talking to anyone else.  They were  all “socializing” with their phones.  I really don’t think we need to spend $16,689 per student for those kids to “socialize” like that.

Socialization only happens if we schedule and plan for it.

CONNECTION to COMPETENT ADULTS?

A recent “back to school” article suggested there was a need for the students to have a competent adult with whom they could connect.  Seriously?  Have you met any actual teachers?  They are pretty normal adults.  They can’t spell well.  They swear pretty well.  They drink beer and wine (sometimes to excess).  They have sexual trysts outside marriage (sometimes with students).  They are political wackos (too conservative or too liberal).  Their own kids often have problems.  Wait!  I’m saying they are no more competent than your neighbor.  If THAT is the reason for school then we have failed our children.

BROADEN HORIZONS?

What does that even mean?  Are we supposed to suggest to them that our imperfect forebearers were, gasp!, less than perfect?  You don’t have to attend public school to see that.  Almost every family has had a bank robber or trailer park ancestor.  Even the best of the best of our political leaders have shown indiscressions … divorces, children who commit crimes, claims of abuse, and on and on.  In our village there are accusations that the mayor is taking kickbacks.  Do eight year olds actually NEED to know that Sally’s father cross-dresses (like that can’t wait until a child reaches age 10)?

To SPEND MONEY?

One local school district has found this to be their main focus.  Staff took trips to Las Vegas on the school’s dime (some even went to seminars), they threw lavish parties for themselves (with lobster and wine), they bought thousands of devices (which students never got to use), they hired additional staff (none of whom helped students).  What they didn’t do was improve the academic performance of the students.  

WORKPLACE READY?

If this is the goal, schools have been failing long before COVID.  Can students follow simple instructions?  Have they learned to be “on time” and “prepared?”  Do they know basic computer, like what BCC means in an email?  (One business article says, “No.”)  Do they know how to communicate in person?  Can they stay “on task?”  The answers are not surprising at all.  They are all “No!”

SPORTS and CLUBS?
One new college in the northeast has eliminated sports, art, and music programs in order to focus on teaching and to reduce the cost of higher education.  They think they have found an educational path that makes more sense.  Schools no longer have a driver training programs.  It makes sense to limit options in order to meet the basic needs of students.  Quite honestly, very few businesses support a company sports team, a business band, or company “clubs.”  They have one goal and they put all their time and energy into THAT.  Why don’t schools?

Or, (wink, wink) ACADEMICS?

Why would we teach that?  Aren’t there a lot of other things children should know FIRST?  This question is actual.  The National Teachers Union has a whole segment of teacher training workshops dealing with this.  Yes!  They are supposed to be teachers, but their main goal is not academic education!  No, it is to teach that it is normal to be weird.  It is to teach that parents are not the students’  best caretakers.  It is to teach that sex is normal and natural (as if we can’t see the very same illustration at the monkey exhibit at the zoo).  It is to expose students to racism, sexism, ageism, and everything ism, except knowledge-ism.  We wouldn’t want them to be exposed to anything that could help them for the remainder of their lives, right?  So, Johnny can’t read.  Ashleighghgh can’t add three numbers to achieve a sum.  Billy/Jane (they/them) can’t understand how to use a map.  Nope!  Reading, math, and cartography skills will never be as useful in life as feeling comfortable around and promoting trans- rights.  Students WILL be exposed to that concept (purposefully) as early as second grade.  They won’t learn about money.  They won’t learn how to put air in a tire.  Is life all about our own bodies?  (Apparently not, since nearly 30% of marriages of 10 years or more are non-intimate).  What they are really being taught is how to become victims of those who know more, and who need more.  A large portion of newly-minted “adults” can’t get a job that pays more than minimum.  They have missing life skills.  Unlike the generation before them, they have a diminished ability to speak to others in person.

Significant here is that it is well known that IQ scores are dropping both in Europe and the USA.  From 1930 until around the late 1990s IQ scores rose decade by decade.  But in the last 20 years they have begun dropping off.  Some blame those little devices called “smart phones.”  I have never found a phone that was smart enough to solve its own failures.  Dropped calls?  It has no clue where to go to get a better signal!  Mine can’t keep a voicemail account working.  But I think it is bigger than that.  The scores, however, began their decline at roughly the same point when smart phones became available, which is nearly the same point at which schools stopped requiring basic math skills to graduate.

Believe it!  I spoke a decade ago to a school board member.  I asked a serious question, “If a high school student finishes his or her required learning for the year in 160 days, can he or she go home?”  (A school “year” is 180 days.) The answer stunned me:  “We can’t let them out of school weeks early because someone might get pregnant.”  What?  The school is the pregnancy police, too?  They can’t reward smart students with time off because the school has a responsibility to keep them from having those relationships!  (… Like there’s no such thing as a three month summer break).  But getting out early would allow high school students a head start on getting summer jobs (and saving for college).  It would reward COMPETENCY (gasp!).  

Copyright 2026 Donald Whelpley

[PLEASE NOTE that Don is always open to discussing the thoughts and opinions he shares here and welcomes comments as shared in the comment section. He doesn’t use other social media platforms and won’t see whatever you’d like to share with him if you post it elsewhere.
ALSO, Don is always open to offer his thoughts on various topics. If you have a specific request, you can let him know in a comment; he reads – and replies to – them all. ~ Sherry]

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