Let Children Work

They won't become office zombies.

When a child hates school and is old enough to work, we tell them to suck it up because "school is important". We don't really do that in other areas of life. Apparently, schooling's benefits are so self-explanatory that the people coercing the 14-year-old don't even need to list them. However, most people I know have never required their long-forgotten knowledge of Henry VIII or faded trigonometry skills for anything.

Why not let the reluctant child work? Vocational education, AKA "child labour", is a damn good way to learn skills you need for a real job. Working with other people is as good, if not better, at teaching the child social skills. It also does the job of babysitting, which many parents care most about. Any "business brainwashing" is unlikely to have any more effect than it does with adults, and most companies aren't bothered enough to try. Academic propaganda is more likely to be believed when delivered by kind teachers. It is also more dangerous because it's so homogenous. Arguably, business propaganda is worse on the outside than within. Children's buying habits are shaped by it whether we like it or not: balancing that out with an internal perspective could only be good.