Ken Robinson expounds upon this thesis in a classic TED Talk:
https://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_cre...
Rather they "beat" the independence out of children intentionally as the trait does make them a nuisance. It is much easier to have a room full of trained animals.
Yeah, just think what a nice ornate roof we could build if we skipped foundations and spent all the time saved on the roof…
That misses the point, which is that rote memorization and the recitation of facts does not lay any kind of intellectual foundation, but rather attempts to turn children into diligent factory workers.
You think that memorizing facts in school is useful for factory workers?
It's the behavioral compliance of memorizing facts that you're not particularly interested in on demand that is a useful trait for factory/office workers
I think our 19th-century-style schools are the problem: we drum information and behaviours into kids until they forget how to be independent. All this time wasted sitting at a desk in a classroom means they might miss out on the chance to develop a passion for something, something that they would fill their free time with later in life. And then we're surprised that people just want to watch netflix.