Why do we have public schools or large schools at all?

I have a few thoughts here.

First, not everyone has high speed internet. The Appalachian area of the U.S. is larglely lacking, for example. I can tell you that the FCC is trying to change that with the National Broadband Plan, though.

Second, not everyone has a computer. Think of children growing up in the ghetto or the children growing up in trailer parks.

Third, I think powerful teachers' unions prevent a scenerio like what you're describing from taking place. A teacher could record a lesson plan on a webcam once and could be played for all the students. This would take an hour or so to record and would replace having that teacher in a physical classroom for a full workday teaching four or five classes. This would probably cut down on work hours for teachers, and therefore their salaries. The unions would have something to say about that. (Plus would one day a week really be enough to help students with their questions? What if the student has a question because they don't understand something at the beginning of the lesson? They're going to be lost for the entire rest of the lesson, and wouldn't be able to ask their question until 'Question Day'.)

Fourth, education is a political issue. Any politician proposing a system like this would immediately come under attack by their opponent as not caring about "our hard working middle class teachers" and not caring about the young students. (Politicans like to spin things.) Also, going to a system like this would probably result in a reduction in tax revenue alloted towards education. The system would actually need less revenue, true, but that wouldn't matter to the people running the education system. Money is power, and they would just care that the amount of physical dollars they're seeing is being reduced.

Fifth, how would you do phys ed online?

I do think an education system like this will eventually happen, but we're probably 10-25 years away from seeing it come to fruition. And the people who say that the education system is daycare probably aren't that far off.

It teaches independance away from home. Too much of your parents all day every day is probably not a good thing. It provides you real world social skills more than anything else.

The stuff you 'learn' in school is only 50% of what you are getting. The social interaction, ability to interact with different peer groups and be successful on your own is the other 50% and what you will use the rest of your life. Ten years after high school you will forget the symbol for Rhodidium and you won't be able to do a double integral - but you will remember how to handle the bully at work and how to make friends with a new employee.

It's good way into socializing with other people, and develop self-esteem. Some children are very shy, and school is a good training field.

I used to go to a public school it was crowded but now I go to a private school and it is much better one on one with the teachers. Also public school teachers get paid more than private school teachers! I don't know why I would rather have private school then public

To build relationships IN REAL LIFE. Yes REAL LIFE experiences. It goes fr beyond education. It's all about life experience

oh yeah, kids that are in primary school are going to sit by themselves at home in front of a screen and focus and learn something new and hard. At noon they'll also prepare their lunch, go take a walk and come back home for the afternoon session. lol I mean seriously?

The internet has its place in teaching, but it cannot replace the public schools.

Think of the American West in its early years. Many of the parents could not spell, read, do math, etc. Educated teachers were brought in to do the job. After school, children learned at home by helping with the work at home.

Today, parents are better educated, but as each new technology arrives, better educated teachers than the parents are needed to pass on the new concepts.

So in many ways, hooking the children to the internet sounds like an ideal answer. But it is not. Kids have short attention spans and their minds wander easily. A recorded program could not see this happening, and a live teacher would have to have so many students at one time he/she could not see what individuals are doing. The classroom offers a place where the teachers and students can interact. That two way street is necessary and cannot be duplicated on the internet.

Today's economics prevent single wage earning parents. Most households have to have two incomes (sometimes three and four). Taking one income away just to sit and be present while the child is on the computer is not sensible or economically feasible.

Good teachers at schools are much more effective in teaching young minds.

Arguments on here include "I didn't learn sh*t in school, all my learning I did on my own outside of school". All my life I have known people like this, many in classes I took. The majority of the students learned well and went on to do well in life. But some just would not learn. Many fought the system, while some others had learning disabilities beyond the teachers abilities. Schools are getting better with the disabilities part, but those kids would be even further lost with one track on-line learning.

Then there are the arguments about propaganda and programming. Really? What political bull is being fed in math classes? English? Science? And even in other types of classes that might be open to it, I have not seen it. But if you want to see kids that have been programmed, look amongst the home schooled, where you can find many who have had their parents' biases crammed into them daily. The home schooled do not get a chance to hear any other views. While most of the home schooled kids' parents are doing their best, that is still where more problems can occur with "programming".

As I said, internet teaching would fail more kids. For the older student, with a true interest in learning as much as possible and more likely to have a way of questioning the learning, it is great. I have used it and was happy. But it will not work well for younger kids.

I think socialization is an extremely important part of school. I probably got as much, if not more, valuable skills from that in my time in school. It's important to be thrown into a pool of all different types of people that you didn't pick and choose to interact with, because that's how the adult work world is.

One of the worst things going on with the under-25 crowd is the lack of face to face communication. Everyone is just texting and face booking...you don't even have live phone conversations anymore. Show me a kid in their teens or early 20s, and I'll show you someone with their head down, texting constantly, oblivious to the world around them. I used to manage a bunch of college kids, and they acted like you were violating their civil rights if you told them to put their phone away at work. And I'm not a square, I would go out drinking with them after work, I'm not some old dork. But the lack of human interaction will be the downfall of western society, mark my words. Every homeschooled kid I ever met was a little "off" socially. Also, the average person is an idiot, and those idiots often have kids. Probably not a good idea to rely on them for education, it's bad enough they're raising kids to begin with.

Social skills nowadays are SEVERELY lacking as it is due to overuse of technology over in-person socialization. Taking away the in-person interactions of public school would only accelerate the rate of social retardation.

Kids don't go to their neighbor's houses anymore. They sit in front of the xbox, yell racist obscenities, and tune everything out. Public schools are for the most part, a daycare.

Socialization.

School is not just for learning from textbooks.

Its crucial for a child's development and integration into society.

If you're talking about the US, it's because the parents go off to work and the state finds the veil of education to be the best solution to running a government daycare center. Also, human beings need to be broken in so they don't question the way things are. The best place to brainwash is in a scenario like Lord Of The Flies, when minds are shaping. This is the purpose of shunning independent thought as an unpopular thing of derelict failures, big state schools is where this is programmed.

They put you into school because you need some interaction. You need to engage with people so you know how to act around them. Everybody knows this duh!

If you live in a rural environment like I do (I live in Mississippi) then school is really the only place to meet new people to interact with. I understand that real states (to me Mississippi barely qualifies) have organizations in place to help with that (a friend of mine used to send her kid to this sort of group P.E. everyday where the kids exercised together), but in places that they don't it's a real issue.
Where I live you can't just go to a neighbor's house (I mean you can, but you might get run over while you're walking down there). There are very few neighborhoods here and even in "closely packed" neighborhoods houses are still barely within an acre and a half of each other. Most of the time houses here are a good 5 acres away from each other and that's not even factoring in the fact that the person who lives next to you may or may not have kids. Oh, and there's no sidewalks here.

Also, when kids are with their parents all the time that's not good for them. They need to spend some time away from home to help to develop their own personalities. Plus, online school is expensive (at least in Mississippi. I know it's free in Florida, but Florida is a real state).

Are you out of your mind?
You think kids would do sh*t at home? I personally would like to think that I'd be too lazy to do any assignment online. You seriously think kids would watch videos of teachers explaining? As for the comfortable environment, I'd probably sleep throughout the "Online recordings" with my headphones on.
And seriously one day of school? I'd skip that day. Trust me no-one would show up.
How am I supposed to meet people too? I mean don't get me wrong, I love my mom doesn't mean I want her for a bff.

ive taken many biology classes, psychology and studied evolution, and socialization is vital for human survival, even more so for species survival. socializing with others helps you grow mentally, and without it people would have more mental illnesses, psychiatric problems, more people would go out and start shooting innocent people like we see on the news these days, its all a mental conflict they have with themselves that stems from lack of social development.

To interact with the children on a personal level is my guess.

totally agree. They want kids in school so they don't worry about them on the streets... basically its like day care... I didn't learn sh*t in school, all my learning I did on my own outside of school, I never trusted the info they taught us, especially history.

Who would baby sit the kids when the parents are working? Duh.