Comment by adrianN

I often see criticism of the school system like yours. I think it comes from a perspective of a fairly intelligent, self-motivated individual, probably from a family that valued education. However many children lack one or more of those factors. For them the intrinsic motivation is to play video games all day, or talk to their friends, or smoke weed. There is no intrinsic motivation for most children to learn all the subjects taught in school. I think the school system is fairly good at forcing all children to learn at least a little about all subjects. This comes at the price of not optimally supporting students who would do much better in a different kind of system.