Education is the natural consequence of a person (of any age) expressing their curiosity through self-discovery and playful-exploration in a conducive environment, while traditional schooling was based on the Prussian model which was established to produce obedient soldiers and factory workers who were competent enough to do the work but not aware enough to question why should they do it in the first place.

They needed people to be subservient to the state and colonize the Natives, and schools were perfect for that purpose.

So how is it that teachers of all people have no idea of it's true function and it's history?

When did people started to conflate schools with 'education'?

In the latest installment of r/teachers OP is lamenting how the students just unable understand the assignment he assigned to them, so what does he do? Give them a new one based on the feedback of the students? Of course not that would be the smart and considerate thing to do, instead he keeps at it wasting everyone's time, now that even after a month it has not worked out (Surprising, right?), he runs crying to the sweet refuge of teachers subreddit where everyone advises him to (you guessed it) double down on it and fail the ones who are unable to do it, that will do it.

How do these people sleep at night is beyond me;

I really hope students start some silent protest where they stop attending school altogether, and since funding is tied to attendance, all of it would just collapse like a house of cards.

No other sector treats their clients in this manner and actually takes their feedback seriously.

These teachers and school staff have long since forgotten that the people in front of them are their employers and not their subjects.

In the real world they are worse than most corporate managers that adult world complain so frequently about, yet minors are just expected to not just tolerate it but also be grateful for it.

Generations from now, we’ll look back and say, “How could we have done this kind of thing to people?”

This user is a MASSIVE supporter of social media bans and (likely) Jonathan Haidt. They keep trying to tell people that the ban is "not censorship/surveillance" and claims that the ban "empowers parents". Even when people tell them that they don't work, they keep deliberately ignoring the evidence to the contrary. Seems like they are a Haidtist. I saw someone post about them before on another privacy subreddit, but I'll post them here to see how you guys think. To me, I would assume they are a fascist, but I don't know.

“Respect your elders.”

Probably one of the first rules we teach children.

But here is the question nobody likes asking:

What if the elder doesn't deserve the respect they're demanding?

We teach children to lower their voices while adults are allowed to raise theirs. We tell children, “Don't talk back,” while adults insult, humiliate, threaten, and then call it discipline. We tell children to apologize even when they were hurt first. And when they finally say, “That wasn't okay,” we call them disrespectful.

Why?

Because apparently, in our society, being older is enough to make someone right. An adult can hurt a child and call it parenting. A teacher can humiliate a student and call it discipline. A relative can cross a child's boundaries and call it love.

But when the child reacts?

“Kids these days have no manners.”

Maybe the problem isn't that children have stopped respecting adults. Maybe the problem is that adults have become uncomfortable with children who can recognize disrespect. We have created a culture where obedience is mistaken for good character.

We don't ask children:

“Were you treated fairly?”

We ask:

“Did you answer back?”

We don't ask:

“Why were you hurt?”

We ask:

“Why didn't you just stay quiet?”

And then we act surprised when those children grow into adults who don't know how to set boundaries.

Here's the uncomfortable truth:

Respect is not a lifetime membership card you receive on your birthday.

Age does not make cruelty wisdom. Authority does not make someone morally correct. Being someone's parent does not give them permission to destroy their child's dignity. Being someone's teacher does not make humiliation education. And being someone's elder does not make every opinion a fact. Children absolutely need to learn respect.But adults need to learn something too:

You cannot demand the respect you refuse to practice.

If your version of respect requires someone younger to tolerate your disrespect, that's not respect.

That's power.

And perhaps the most dangerous thing we can teach a child is not how to obey.It's teaching them to believe that the person hurting them must always be right—simply because that person is older. So yes, teach children manners.

Teach them kindness. Teach them respect.

But while you're at it

teach adults accountability.

Because a society that teaches children to apologize for everything while adults apologize for nothing isn't raising respectful children.

It's protecting irresponsible adults.

~sana~

I've noticed that in recent years, parents are actively trying to remove autonomy from minors, some as even young as 17. Kids aged 9 to 17 are now being treated as subjects to be controlled, stripped of their basic rights and being forced to listen to everything their parents tell them to do, which makes the environment worse for them. And the situation over parental controls has gotten worse and worse over time and is continuing to get worse.

Parental controls have existed since the 90s. But even then, they were mostly used for kids under 9, and few parents would use it strictly into their whole childhood. I'm grateful most of my childhood on the Internet was before parents got extremely strict towards parental controls and started taking away digital autonomy. Even if parental controls were used past age 10, they were minimal and not as strict. I barely remember any parent from roughly 2006-2021 being strict towards their kids using the Internet.

What's hardest to figure out is how parents became so strict and started using parental controls in a worse way than ever before starting around 2022.

Like, I can see a reason why parents would use parental controls on a 5-year-old. But I struggle to understand why some parents are authoritarian and want to be extremely strict towards their kids and teenagers using the Internet as old as 17.

(this is a throwaway account btw)

I'm on a DIY path to clarifying some things.

There will always be differences between the fears and insecurities of youth in different parts of the world.

And yet, when it comes down to it, the average American teenager and the average Indian teenager is fighting the same old fight, on different frontlines.

System's the problem, the boss is wrong as rain, and so are we. We are all suckers still holding on to this "american dream" or "exposure to obstacles will change your perspective" type BS.

Motivational speakers make money out of fancy public speaking, yet we are not even allowed to read or write or watch any art that does not directly/indirectly help our education.

Podcast equipment will always be expensive for people like us, who try to rise up in such a discouragement-filled environment, but not for the Ranveer Allahbadias and his many like-minded colleagues.

Man literally walked down the "road not taken", and yet kids like us are looked down upon when we say, "mujhe writer banna hai", or "I want to become a literature professor".

This is not about envy. This is about the seema-less hypocrisy.

Edit: Tl;dr - Inorder to love thy neighbor, you must first love yourself.

I'm seeing multiple different answers on this. Some sites say 19. Some say mid twenties. Some say adolescence still goes on into 30s.

Adolescence is defined as a stage between childhood and adulthood. The world health organization says that it's between ages 10 to 19, but a lot of other sites say that it can extend for longer

In my opinion, childhood, teenagehood, and adulthood should continue to exist as biological and social realities, because people do not suddenly change their developmental stage on the day they reach the legal age of majority. However, I think "adulthood" should not be treated as one single, unified legal status that automatically applies to everyone upon reaching the age of majority (for example, age 16).

Instead, different legal rights, responsibilities, and protections could be considered separately according to their purpose, rather than simply being grouped under the broad label of "adult." This could help avoid confusion and reduce the influence of adultism and ageism in how young people are perceived and treated.

For example, if the age of majority is 16, a 16-year-old can have certain legal rights associated with majority while still being a teenager in terms of their age, development, and social identity. Reaching the age of majority does not mean that a teenager suddenly becomes a non-teenager or that they should automatically be viewed in exactly the same way as a 30-year-old.

My point is not that legal adulthood should necessarily be abolished, but that we should distinguish between legal rights and responsibilities and age-based developmental or social categories. This distinction could provide a clearer framework for discussing youth rights without treating "minor" and "adult" as the only two possible categories.

I'm 19 years old. Meaning that I am in an age where the government expects me to make my own decisions. While I can make my own decisions, I think it to myself "if I was able to make my own decisions at 18, how come a 16/17 year-old can't?"

Just because somebody is under 18 doesn't automatically mean that they are incompetent babies who can't decide things for themselves. I feel like a 16-year-old should be able to sign themselves out of a hospital. a 16-year-old should be able to withhold their medical information or their grades from their parents. a 16/17 year-old should be able to make decisions for themselves.

the infantilization of minor is something that I have noticed a lot. "That person is literally a minor" mind you they turn 18 in a month.

Disclaimer: This photo was taken on July 24th of this year when I saw it.

Alright, so if you’re unclear about what's happening, here's the explanation. I was browsing TikTok when a post caught my attention—it was from a female user who was graduating in 2024. As I read through the comments, I was overwhelmed with emotion.

I spent some time reading users’ comments, and as they shared their ages and feelings, especially when expressing pain and vulnerability, I found it deeply hurtful. I had to close the app immediately because it moved me to tears just to witness it.

Regardless of their age, many users seemed to feel like they were teenagers or young people. I especially remember a post—possibly deleted—where some commenters mentioned their ages and expressed a sense of being young or in their youth, despite the original poster wishing for the age of majority to be higher, like in their 30s, 40s, or 50s. It’s a harsh reality we live in, indeed...

Just been wondering if there’s been any books written on youth rights and liberation that people would recommend, it’s something I care about a lot and it‘d be helpful to have some literature on it.

i’m 19, so I’m still a teen myself. When I see a teenager make the most downright stupidest decisions ever, it usually gets passed off as “just dumb teenager stuff” because according to everybody, “when you’re a teenager you are driven by hormones and you don’t have a clear view as to what’s right and what’s wrong”

i think that’s bullshit. i knew that I wasn’t supposed to leave at 2 AM to meet up with a random guys at 14. I knew at 15 to not sneak out and have run-ins with the cops. I knew at 16 to not get behind the wheel drunk and go 90 miles an hour on the freeway.

I feel like a lot of the stupid decisions teens make aren’t really because of an underdeveloped brain because it’s just a lack of guidance and huge character flaws. But what do I know?

Anyone else find it weird that in America protected ages in terms of discrimination is anything above 40? Like I feel like it should cover over all ages but yet it only covers that age max, I even gone over this with other people of various ages and they agree, even saw petitions for it, anyone else thinks we should change that?

Every August, California K-12 students are heading back to school right into unbearable heatwaves. Kids are trapped indoors during some of the hottest days of the year, while outdoor activities get banned because conditions are literally too dangerous. Meanwhile, research from the CDC and American Academy of Pediatrics shows that children are especially vulnerable to heat exhaustion and heatstroke.

I started a petition asking the California Department of Education to mandate that schools don't start until the first Tuesday after Labor Day. It's not complicated—states like New York and Maryland already do this, and they see fewer health issues and better student engagement because of it. We're not asking for much. Just a calendar shift that keeps kids safe during the worst of the heat.

Has anyone else noticed how extreme this has gotten? Are your kids coming home exhausted from the heat before school even really gets going? If this matters to you too, consider signing and sharing. Real change happens when enough people say it's time.

You will probably not be shocked to learn that absolutely ZERO national laws are in place to prevent age based discrimination against young people when hiring. We talk all the time about how youth are unfairly discriminated against, but we rarely get to the root issue; money. Minors cannot find work, so they cannot support themselves. They have no access to opportunities that would give them experience either. And contrary to popular belief, EXPERIENCES are what make people mature, not some bullsh*t about prefrontal cortexes developing late. Prefrontal cortexes continue developing through your whole life, nothing magically clicks into place when you are 25.

So why does youth getting access to jobs matter? Because without a means to support yourself, it is impossible for capable youth to be emancipated. Emancipation is about the only legal loophole that prevents mature youth from being kept from opportunities. I grappled with this for a long time, the problem of how to advocate for freedom for capable youth while ensuring that young people with less experience don't get harmed. Now I realized just how useful emancipation COULD be if there weren't so many systemic biases against minors already.

In our society, children are only given opportunities when it serves large corporations. A prime example of this, which someone I know brought to my attention, is the Hollywood industry. Film making and acting is one of the absolute worst places for children to work, and yet it is completely legal. The amount of grooming, fakeness, and coercion that goes into it is unbelievable. And still, it remains one of the only accessible jobs for children. Why? You guessed it: money.

If we could make emancipation way more accessible by forcing corporations to implement anti age-based discriminatory hiring processes, it could potentially solve all our problems with youth rights. It would give youth a way out of harmful families and dangerous situations. It would also allow them to get a head start on their adult careers without being constantly blocked.

The issue does go a lot deeper. Societal hierarchies and norms about the acceptable ways to interact with children allow children to be treated as pets, cute little things with no mind of their own. But similar to movements to end discrimination against other marginalized groups such as LGBTQ+ people, government reform starts first. If we get the underlying structures to be reformed, society's views will slowly but surely change.

Please sign this petition