<p>Means to an end. And it is a combination of beneficial and harmful.</p>
<p>Beneficial:
1. Today's world has become so complex that it is nearly impossible for a lone person to speculate upon the nature of the universe in a scientific context without understanding the basic language of science (mathematics). For example, if you'll look at the chemist's interpretation of the atom from the beginning to now you'll see a fundamental shift from a philosophical concept (the atom as an indivisible unit of matter) to a mathematical one (has electrons orbiting a proton/neutron nucleus, the electron moves in random paths and exact positions can't be calculated, only probabilities of position/velocity at best). So without knowledge of the basics the average person would be pretty lost in the world. That being said, I don't think many schools do a good job of doing this, but students will be able to pick it up after enough time.
But of course, this begs the question as to why schools are needed in the first place. That's a different topic all together, though.
2. Schools provide social conditioing. This is somewhat important for society to function because uninhibited human beings by their very nature are unable to live in society. What school does is instill emotions into human beings such as shame,guilt,etc which aren't part of our evolutionary instincts but are required to negate the natural human impulses that drive people to do things that would cause modern society to break down (for example, murder). </p>
<p>Harmful:
1. Schoolwork can be very subjective.
2. Most students are forced into taking a broad courseload that may include things that don't interest them.
3. School limits the way one thinks about the world.</p>
<p>None (the user above) said pretty much exactly what I was going to say. Some people decide too early that they don't need high school, and that's what causes them to see high school as just an obstacle. Additionally, school teaches us to suck things up. Life won't always be fair. I completely agree with the user who said that education and high school aren't necessarily in the same catagory. </p>
<p>I get really frustrated at people who think that they're too good for school. I guess overly arrogant students/people don't usually make it that far anyway; lets be honest, social standing and people skills count in the work force. </p>
<p>That doesn't mean that I necessarily enjoy high school all the time. It really sucks every now and then, but it's important to realize that you can learn a lot as long as you keep a challanging coursload and have a handful of friends.</p>
<p>
[quote]
School is also very good at motivating people, in that you feel that you'd be disappointing the teacher or harming your (academic) reputation if you don't do good work. Things become more important when personal factors are involved.
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<p>A person who based his entire education on self-studying (independently of interacting with people in real life) is probably more likely to be fine with such abstract deadlines, as opposed to a person who has been used to schooling for his entire life. Even after school ends, the person used to schooling is likely to remain emotionally dependent to concrete (by concrete I mean enforced by someone who is actually talking to you) deadlines, a lot more so than the person who has had to self-impose abstract deadlines on himself all of the time. Of course, concrete deadlines work better than abstract deadlines in motivation - I'm just saying that many people use concrete deadlines as a crutch - and this ends up hurting people</p>
<p>(this really hurt me in my CTY distance course, for example). I was so externally motivated that I procrastinated on EVERY assignment and didn't do any extra essays. <em>sigh</em></p>
<p>==</p>
<p>Another thing is that most of us who come here to CC are already highly self-motivated individuals who don't necessarily need school to learn subjects (we're smart enough to pick up things on our own - although as averin said - we may find other distractions like Nethack or other computer games). Many of us in this position thus see this consequently view school as an obstacle.</p>