Socialization is important, on that we agree. Socialization at school is not always positive or even effective. There are many ways to socialize and jamming people of the same age in a room for 6-7 hours at a time is far less effective, in my opinion, than being part of extracurricular programs, clubs, etc that often mingle kids of different ages, backgrounds, neighbourhoods, and cultures far better than any school.
I found that school is an effective way for people to be pigeonholed with labels and expectations that make it more difficult for people to explore and change. Once labelled the class clown, or the athlete, or the brainiac, or whatever, it is very hard to do or try other things so long as you are in a fixed environment. This is why, in my opinion, going to college or university is such a profound life event for people - suddenly new environments and opportunities to explore being something other than your fixed adolescent self.
I don’t really agree. An important part of school is learning to overcome obstacles. Forcing the children to be together for 6 hours everyday inevitably leads to conflict that needs to be resolved. Just doing extracurriculars doesn’t give children the multi year time horizon they need to truly bond with their peers, and they can convince their parents to let them do something else if they don’t like the kids. Dealing with people you don’t get along with is an extremely important skill.
> jamming people of the same age in a room for 6-7 hours at a time is far less effective...
This may be true, if one is raising a philosopher-king or something. In life I'm thrown into situations where I'm jammed together with people in an "ineffective" manner all the time. If extra-curricular programs are more effective they can deal with both environments. Personally I had some effective, good teachers in school as well as some ineffective team coaches.
It is notable that educational systems can both prepare people for later life situations (generally considered good) and mold them to accept suboptimal patterns that we'd rather move past.
I found that school is an effective way for people to be pigeonholed with labels and expectations that make it more difficult for people to explore and change. Once labelled the class clown, or the athlete, or the brainiac, or whatever, it is very hard to do or try other things so long as you are in a fixed environment. This is why, in my opinion, going to college or university is such a profound life event for people - suddenly new environments and opportunities to explore being something other than your fixed adolescent self.