You're right, it's a child's first and main source of inculturation. No re- about it.

China has these schools too, so it seems even if they’re equivalent to the west, they are not effective enough at indoctrination, so more remedial indoctrinstion is needed...

But honestly, do you think ours and their systems are equivalently indoctrinational?

It depends on who you are: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Indian_residential_...

> It depends on who you are

Correction: it depended on who you are.

Those schools have been closed and have been repudiated at the highest levels of the Canadian government:

> On June 11, 2008, Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued a formal apology, on behalf of the sitting Cabinet, in front of an audience of Indigenous delegates, and in an address that was broadcast nationally on the CBC, for the past governments' policies of assimilation.[78][79] The Prime Minister apologized not only for the known excesses of the residential school system, but for the creation of the system itself. Harper delivered the speech in the House of Commons; the procedural device of a Committee of the Whole was used, so that Indigenous leaders, who were not Members of Parliament, could be allowed to respond to the apology on the floor of the House.

And yet the resulting intergenerational trauma lives on.

The echoes of these abuses continue long after the abuse itself ends.

Lots of similarities, actually. Both systems were designed to destroy a culture seen as backwards by the powers that be.

> Lots of similarities, actually. Both systems were designed to destroy a culture seen as backwards by the powers that be.

Yeah, except one occurred in the past and is now condemned; the other is a present, newly-created reality.

The last school was closed in the far distant year of 1996. Do you really think Canada in 2018 is that far removed from 1996? What exactly happened in that intervening period that will prevent such an atrocity in the future?

Maybe the fact that students learn about how horrible it was as part of the curriculum during middle school? Also, the school in 1996 was nothing like the schools in the early 1900s, why would you use that as support?

> The last school was closed in the far distant year of 1996. Do you really think Canada in 2018 is that far removed from 1996? What exactly happened in that intervening period that will prevent such an atrocity in the future?

Do you think the school in 1996 was doing the same things as the schools in, say, 1896? Don't you think it's more reasonable to see the 1996 closure as the end (or near the end) of a longer, continuous process, not a binary state change?

Unsurprisingly, things are more complicated: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Indian_residential_sc...

Read the article. Let me know where in western public schools they ask people to denounce their family on threat of starvation.

It's possible to indoctrinate without violence, you know that. It's possible for educational institutions to be ideologically motivated and coercive without starving their subjects. In fact, perhaps the it's the case that the more effective such institutions are the less violent they have to be.

Thankfully, enlightened western nations like Canada have not been so cruel since the distant, distant year of 1996 [0].

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Indian_residential_...

No, it's a warehousing system to keep children watched and fed while their parents work.

I agree and I find it interesting that teachers are wanting more money for less work...

My 8 year old son who is in the third grade has spent all year 'studying' for the SOL (Standards of Learning) test. All day everyday for the last year nothing but SOL 'prep'. He sits on a Chromebook all day. All of his work is done on a Chromebook, his teacher doesn't even have to grade the assignments it's automatically done by the application. The teacher doesn't even come up with the lesson plan, it's all pushed by the school system. No deviation.

The only reason he has to 'attend' school is because his mother and I work full time. I've considered working remote and just homeschooling my son but I worry about him missing out on the social aspect of school. but that's a double edge sword also.

One last kicker. I never signed anything that would allow my son to use a chromebook or consent to google data mining my son who is under the age of 13. But alas I am sure google has a whole profile built around him and his classmates...

I think we both agree that American public education isn’t in a good state of affairs - but through personal experience I know just how much work it is to do a proper job at teaching. It’s at least 70 hours a week of work just to tread water.

So yes, teachers are underpaid and overworked, and I believe that’s partially causing our system to be so mediocre - it’s hard to hire talented teachers who have time and energy to do a good job when the job is so exhausting and financially unrewarding.

No, it was deviced as a system after child labour became illegal to keep jobless children out of the streets practicing delinquency.

This is the uncharitable, slightly tongue in cheek interpretation of events.