Tony Collen: “Personally, I think that kids need to be in high school with their peers, or they’ll grow up weird.”

I guess it all depends on how you define weird.

Sean: “I think that Tony Collen is weird.”

I’m certainly not normal (and proud of it!) and I think the process of “socialization” in high school does more damage than good. It’s certainly important to be able to make friends and hold conversations, etc. However, the culture of high school often tends towards supressing differences and making everyone very much the same.

It’s a culture of competition (who’s popular? who’s got the drugs? who’s got the money?) and one that’s very self-focused. And I think that’s pretty dangerous. To paraphrase John Holt: I’d take my kids out of school for the social reasons alone!

posted January 14, 2002 05:43 AM () #

Nearby

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Retrospect for OS X

Aaron Swartz (me@aaronsw.com)