School Attendance

Taking Sides presents two opposing arguments-one for compulsory school attendance and one against it. Mann argues for compulsory education. He saw that it worked well in Prussia and so strived for the same model in the United States. The biggest argument for compulsory education seems to be this: “The justification of compulsory education involves not individual benefit but societal benefit.” Everyone needs to go to school in order to be on an equal (or more equal) playing ground. It is a question of class. Compulsory education insures that everyone is educated because, homeschooling, in a sense, is for the privileged. Without the incentive of compulsory schooling, those of lower classes will only end up as subjects of the educated. (“If one class possesses all the wealth and the education, while the residue of society is ignorant and poor, it matters not by what name the relation between them may be called; the latter, in fact and in truth, will be the servile dependants and subjects on the former…”
Pink, on the other hand, argues very compellingly that compulsory education kills creativity and that homeschooling is the way of the future. He uses the example of the Lego building girl. If she already enjoys building Legos, her behavior does not need to be reinforced by grading systems or by competition. “…kids and adults alike …lose the intrinsic motivation and the pure joy derived from learning and the pure joy derived from learning and working when somebody takes away their sense of autonomy and instead imposes some external system of reward and punishment.” (Psych 101 yayyy) Schools today, he says, are static things, and he offers many examples of how that can change-through homeschooling, through online education, through apprenticeships…this is pretty much exactly what Reggio Amelio and the Free School strive for-letting children and teens have the freedom to love their education because they play a much more active role in it. There should be “less schooling and more doing,” seeing as doing is synonymous with learning.