While at my dentist’s, I happened to skim a recent issue of Time.  In it was an article favoring the extension of the school year.   The author only wanted summer vacations cut by a month, though, which is ridiculous.  Kids should get no vacations, at all.  Give them any time off and they’ll find out what not being a slave is like and many of them, especially the males, will want to re-experience the feeling as adults. This could lead to their trying to do what they want to do with their lives rather than what the government wants them to.

The author was also foolish in highlighting the fact that many kids become bored at times when they’re on vacation.  Bringing that up may remind those of them with IQ’s above 72 that nothing could possibly be more boring than school.  The fact that the boringness of school is compulsory tends to make kids dislike it more than than they dislike the sometime non-compulsory boringness of vacationtime, too.   The real flaw in this approach is that it involves kids’ preferences, not parents.  Obviously, the top argument for abolishing vacations is that full-time schooling equals full-time vacation from kids for parents.  And they’re the ones who will make the final decision.

On the other hand, the author does a good job with the argument that the more formal education kids are blessed with, the better off the country will be.  No good American will ever fall for the notion that non-robots are of more value to a country than robots, or that there is knowledge of consequence not available in the classroom that a kid can pick up while on holiday that will more than make up for his falling slightly behind Swiss kids in speed of multiplying two-digit numbers.

To sum up, I’m happy that Time published this article, but many more articles like it need to see print.  You can’t have too little freedom, and the place where its limitation begins is the school.