When I was a high school sophomore, the geometry student teacher approached me and said she wanted to assign me some extra work. When I asked why, I learned that this was supposed to be one of those enrichment opportunities. She said that the extra work would be “more interesting” than the regular work. I would not be excused from the regular work; this was extra work piled on top, and I couldn’t see any Earthly point.
I asked her several times what the actual point of my doing this extra work was supposed to be, and there just wasn’t any. All she had was the claim that it would be “more interesting” than the regular work. Did she think I was desperate for something to do?
I might have fallen for this when I was eight. “Wait, there’s interesting stuff around here somewhere? Sure, show me!” At fifteen, though, I already knew better. I had no trouble finding interesting projects on my own; I didn’t need the school to assign me hobbies and tell me when to work on them.
She couldn’t tell me the point of the extra work because there wasn’t any point. I would not, for example, be paid for that work. I wouldn’t have the satisfaction of seeing my effort serve some purpose. I wouldn’t graduate and be free any faster, either.
Imagine a different sort of school system, one whose real goal was to teach instead of to babysit and train. In such a system, when a presumably-willing student demonstrated existing mastery of the proposed material, the student would be excused from the course. He or she could test out of the course and spend that class period in the library, on self-chosen activity. If the student could demonstrate mastery of all the degree’s required material, the school would simply grant the degree and release the inmate student.
In my 51 years of living in several different states, I have never encountered a high school which allowed students to do this. Instead, the kids are shoved into this “enrichment” stuff, still pointless and still controlled by others. What would be the great harm in letting a young person read a self-chosen book? Would it really be so bad if a young person learned something unauthorized?