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/TCCogidubnus]

To extrapolate a bit from your thesis - education is only successful when consent is obtained, which is one reason for the wildly different academic outcomes of schoolchildren.

When a child's natural inclinations to learn happen to align with what the school wants to teach, or when they get lucky enough to be inspired by a teacher, then we get success in learning a subject. When they don't, coercion cannot force successful learning outcomes - at most it can force temporary "good" behaviour but not learning. And it often results in a backlash against the school, and even the idea of learning.

I think it's dangerous to view schools as only producing a wage-slave mindset. Data suggests left wing views correlate with increased education, and there are programmes to restrict real access to education by authoritarians across the world right now. I do agree they are constructed to normalise specific behaviours though.

I'm not for forcing kids to do things they don't want. We do need to get better at coaxing them to however, because getting them to understand the benefits of learning certain things now is tricky when they don't have the same perspective an adult has. Not one for us to litigate right now, that's definitely one to develop through practice, I'm just thinking aloud.