Could it be that education actually has value sometimes?

Considering how little most adults seem to remember about what was taught in high school I'm not entirely sure how much value it provides. It sends me up the wall when people can't help their kids with the excuse of "I don't know how to do that" despite having done that same thing in school. Pick up the damn book and refresh your memory then.

>Considering how little most adults seem to remember about what was taught in high school I'm not entirely sure how much value it provides.

maybe it's an elite small percentage who push society forward and improve it, and it's important that they are discovered and learn by learning and not as important what the rest do with their education.

I think society should be organized around the common (wo)man, but the common man wants the best doctor when he needs medical care, and the common woman wants the best aircraft designer to have designed any plane she flies on.

that's not to say that we should not look for better ways to educate people, perhaps we can find more doctors and plane designers, but just because 10% (or whatever) is all we get out of education doesn't make our education system a bust.

You barely remember anything from your toddler years, but they were some of the most impactful in your education.

Having had to get back into electricity recently, sure I didn’t remember a thing, but it came back much faster than the first time.

I remember what I learned. I know how to walk, talk, and use a toilet.

My last two years of high school were entirely about university entrance preparation. For someone who didn't plan to go to university, those years were of no value whatsoever.

I don't remember many of the advanced algebra classes anymore and I wouldn't be able to tell you why precisely the polynomial equations of 5th and higher degree aren't solvable in radicals (has something to do with sequences of normal subgroups, eh...)

But studying advanced maths forced me to learn to think rigorously and take various minuscule details into account, and that skill is valuable.

With one exception, my favorite CS classes, by the test of which ones engaged me and changed my trajectory later in my career, had no programming. One was a sequence of classes about logic and set theory, the other distributed computing. The latter in particular has come up again and again and again as a blind spot for coworkers, many of whom did finish their degree or even a masters.

I got much more vocational coding in than the vast majority of my classmates before I dropped out, and not all of the theoretical stuff has been applicable. But what was has been invaluable.

No.

That is because regular, and failing(even fatal failure) often is just how nearly everyones life works.

You win by first learning where you are going to die, and not going there.

Most college dropouts fail. You are better off finishing school.