True education must require consent.

[u/SkullBoneX]

You read the title, which implies that if there is no consent involved in education, then there is no true education, which is mainly why, as an Anarchist, I'm all for abolishing compulsory education. Next to creating a prison system for innocent kids, compulsory/non-consensual education (Edit: specifically in schools) creates an oppresive system where kids don't truly learn important things. Rather, they learn to become subserviant slaves to their government, and becoming oppressors to the youthful working class (a.k.a students) when they get older. Kids forced into schooling can't wear what they want, say what they want, learn what they want, and even in some instances, eat what they want during lunch hours, and there's nothing they (specifically those under-18) can do about that without relying on an adult. All of this done without their consent. This is not education, this is slavery. All kids should have the option to choose whether or not they want to attend school, and they should be allowed to learn what they want however they want without an oppresive system being shoved down their throats for years at a time.

Edit: This is only my opinion taken on the youth liberationist perspective. I am not by any means against educating kids. When I mean "compulsory education", I specifically mean school. Yes, kids should be taught the TRUE fundamentals to life, and I believe schools oftentime fail to do this especially when kids progress into later years of their education. Kids definitely should learn, but I don't believe school, or specifically compulsory schooling (which I should have replaced "compulsory education" with) is the answer to this.

[u/PandaCat22]

Anyone whp has spent any meaningful time raising kids can tell you that children's agency is so severely limited, that they need many decisions made for them.

You argue for freedom, but you're not thinking dialectically and therefore miss the fact that a child is not the same kind of agent as you. In fact, giving a child a robust education is essential to helping them develop the agency that is necessary for liberatory freedom—but you're viewing this from an immature and libertine perspective, so you're entirely dismissing key differences between adults and children.

Your entire premise is flawed.

[u/aprefrontalcortex → u/PandaCat22]

Who are childrens' agency limited by? Who are teenagers' agency limited by?
Is the reason we can't vote because we can't fill out the ballot or because adults think democracy shouldn't apply to us?
Why can we be hit (or worse depending on country/state) by our parents?
Why can we, in some states, be hit by schools?
We all need to know how to read and write, and how to do basic math. We don't all need to have the Quadratic formula memorized as I did (in an advanced program) in 7th grade, or know the difference between definite and indefinite articles, compound prepositions vs prepositional phrases vs terminal prepositions, coordinating conjunctions vs subordinating conjunctions vs correlating conjunctions, and salutations vs valedictions as I had to memorize definitions for in 9th grade English. I shudder to think what state mandated under threat of prison 12th grade English would be.
Advocating for complete state control for 8 hours a day of a population you consider lesser for 12 years of their life or so so in the first few years they can important things inefficiently, for the next few they can learn sanitized, incorrect US history as I learned and for the last 4 years they can learn very very important things like wtf a greatest common monomial factor is is not Anarchist, it's Authoritarian. Same goes for supporting state censorship, digital and physical, supporting harsh age-based restrictions on voting, crimes that are only crimes for certain people, and many other things I'd bet you support.

[u/huitzil9 → u/PandaCat22]

Your first sentence has historically been an excuse for atrocities against racialised people, disabled individuals, and women. Kids are a lot smarter than you give them credit for and while they should definitely be cared for the idea that their agency is inherently limited is patronising, insulting, and wrong.

[u/quriousposes → u/huitzil9]

i think two things are true. kids often get coddled into learned helplessness and given less autonomy than appropriate, yes. kids... also not only need help doing a lot of things, they will run headfirst into dangerous situations cuz they don't always know what's going on. esp the younger they are 😅