The Full Circle in Education

In the early 1900's, American citizens began standing against child labor in a large scale moral crusade.  "Children are not to be manipulated for profits."  There may have been other reasons—children were most likely overrunning professions which late teenagers and early twenties persons should begin their career with.  However, the main reaction was that of moral outrage in forcing children to heavy hour labor.

So as a result, the children were put into compulsory education—and so they say "our public education system will be the best in the world!"  Well, it probably was for a time.  Children were put in quality schools to be taught the newest fields.  The children needed to know the most cutting-edge forms of logic, and so Algebra became compulsory in order to lead into Trigonometry and Calculus.  The children are taught of the social disorder of the 1960's and of the fantastic "progress" since then.

Then, they return to the outside world and see a society which does not need Calculus, and which does not need "progress" and all of its fruits.  They see that society needs ordinary trades!

So the children now go through school in a trance knowing that their studies become irrelevant at graduation, and so return home unfulfilled mid-afternoon to finish monotonous but compulsory schoolwork—for nothing other than the nod of their teacher and a letter grade.  And at days end, they play Minecraft—the most ironic of phenomena, as the game simulates the same skills and trades that the children were just a few generations ago shoo-ed away from!

The cycle has come full circle I believe.  The children now dream of the days when their work actually meant something.  They dream of building houses, designing farms to yield crops, and mining in the caverns for valuable ores.  They dream of defending their homes from mutant monsters and exploring untouched worlds.  The same activities that industry was invented to destroy are the ones the deep subconscious of the children now yearns for.