Is school a straightjacket? A response to David Aaronovitch
The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one's self. And the arbitrariness of the constraint serves only to obtain precision of execution. Igor Stravinsky In yesterday's Times, David Aaronovitch wrote an opinion piece headlined, Pupils aren't just another brick in the wall. His argument was that schools "force" children into cohorts depending on their age and abilities and that this is a "straightjacket". Many aspects of schooling are, he claims, based on the flawed assumption that children develop at the same time and in the same way. Clearly, they don't. We are, of course, unique, just like snowflakes, but [...]