Quote Originally Posted by HNSB View Post
I remember being young and working with old morons. Then I was older and worked with young morons.

As to the schools, there will be smart kids and there will be dumb kids. The tools used to teach them don't matter. It's more an issue of capacity and willingness for learning.
I'd say at least one other thing: scope. Even the smartest kid will still be ignorant if you only teach a narrow cross-section of the world. I was privileged to be in a special class in my public schools based on a test I wrote when I was seven or eight years old (clueless as I was, both then and now). Basically, we got more advanced lessons, more variety, and a bunch of good field trips that no one else got. It tapered off in high school and I remember my surprise when I realized everyone who hadn't been in that stream had never done a mock debate before (they were really bad at it). I'd had debates on subjects like the ethics of human genetic engineering in grade 8.

I guess my point is that even kids that don't care should be exposed to as much as possible. What we lack in specific knowledge and skill we can make up for with basic awareness of a dozen other things. It's not a small world. I never use cursive writing, and it wasn't very useful to teach it to me as a tool, but I don't regret learning about it.

I'd take a world of informed idiots over a world of ignorant ones.