Most of formal education is a complete waste of time

Firstly, my opponent has not proven that memory loss of information learned in schools is an overwhelmingly common occurrence. His evidence has been entirely anecdotal, relying purely on personal experience and “Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader” to prove his point, and this is hardly sufficient information. There really is no need to prove this. All you need to do is grab a textbook and start quizzing anyone around you and see how well they do. Here are some interesting numbers about memory retention from various ways (lecture, hearing, reading, practicing, etc) and this site has links to other sites: https://notendur.hi.is... In language arts and social studies, you are often required to research new information and write papers on those, which not only teaches research skills, but also writing skills, and this ability can be useful in reports that will inevitably be required from an individual in a desk job, persuasive argumentation, or journalism, among other applications. But you are talking about reading and writing skills which I already agree are valuable. It is the papers that are being written about that are usually a waste of time. The main value of math classes is not the information and the equations that are taught, but the problem-solving skills that are gained from the class. How often in the real world do you have to solve "if a train is traveling from NY to New Orleans and going 60 mph and a monsoon is destroying Manila on a Thursday, which Guns N' Roses song sold the most records to people with dark skin" or some other drivel like that. In my real life, I have never had to solve these kinds of problems. In my 47 years of life, I cannot recall any math class beyond the basics teaching me anything I have ever used and I would say that is the truth for nearly everyone. Only people in highly specialized fields would ever consider problem solving skills that they learned. Similarly, science classes are not important for the specific information that is learned, but rather a more general understanding of the world around us, increased problem solving skills, and experimentation ability. I don't see where science teaches any problem solving skills and the memory loss factor for science is simply enormous. My kids know more about science than I possibly remember. from watching animated videos where there are visual demonstrations making it fun. Hands on experimentation is very good but again, who disects frogs in the real world and who after several years remembers what they temporarily memorized? Even if my opponent’s memory loss statement is assumed to be true, in formal education, the information learned is one of the least important factors. The skills and understanding gained from the education are the truly valuable part. I will give you this one but without formal education, we all have the greatest research tool that blows classrooms out of the water - the internet. The skills and understanding of doing research are really quite easy. I don't see the value in sitting for hours in a classroom. 2. If education is not useful in a job setting, it is a complete waste of time. I have shown already that formal education is generally useful in work settings. That being said, here are some uses of formal education that aren’t directly in a job setting: Intelligent conversations with others I agree and I actually meant to mention this in the first round. However, we need to be well read to be able to have intelligent conversations. We don't need to sit in a classroom to be well read. Do you agree? Critical thinking abilities Aids the individual in directing personal research Helps students to realize what job they want Helping a person to be overall more knowledgeable. P.E. classes help individuals to become healthier. Keeps the mind sharp for many more years, rather than just calling it good at “the earliest of grades” All of the above that you wrote is true so I am not disagreeing with you but any of this can be obtained outside of a formal classroom setting and outside of that setting is almost mandatory for PE. I am not implying that your job is the only thing that is important but meant to stress that for all of the above you mentioned, none of it needs a classroom. I should have made that more clear so that is my fault. I am a big believer in reading more than just what formal education requires one to memorize just to pass the next test. 3. Education can be acquired online It is true that facts can be learned or memorized through Google. However, Google is utilized best as a supplement to formal education, as not having the formal education curriculum would leave the students without direction. Now, we are going to strongly disagree on this one. I have found almost nothing in this universe that I could not learn more about on my own. There may be certain cases where you need to take a class in order to either get certified, licensed or to get some order but for 99% of the time, you can educate yourself online and get more and better information that in any classroom. Some classroom curriculum is okay in some cases but I am talking about the majority of the time for the majority of the population. Exceptions do not change the premise of this debate. Countering Specific Examples “Learning to read and read well with a good vocabulary is highly important for anything you pursue in life.” This is true, so why wouldn’t it be important to continue practice through high school and college? One is hardly going to acquire a high level vocabulary from just early grade education. No, we get advanced reading skills through reading practice, not by sitting in classrooms at any grade level. “Temporary memorization is not valuable in one’s life.” The ability to quickly study and memorize information, even if the memorization is short-lived, is still a valuable skill. Some jobs where that would be useful would be waiting, acting, working as a studio musician, being a flight attendants, and any profession where remembering names would be useful. Schools do not teach us how to remember things. I am currently reading an awesome 1974 book on developing a better memory and none of this was ever taught to me before. “Why would an accountant need to have serious math skills?” An accountant needs serious math skills so he or she can do the serious math that is necessary for an accountant. As I mentioned, accountants use calculators. He just needs to know how to use it. Engineers also need math of incredibly advanced levels in order to perform their jobs properly. But you are making my point. Some of this stuff is taught in high school to the 99.9% who will never become engineers. Why would schools teach something so specialized (that will almost certainly be forgotten) when the vast majority will never use it. If a person wants to become an engineer, then and only then should he need to take classes in these highly advanced math skills...in college, not high school. Conclusion My opponent fails to look past the facts, when one of the main gains of formal education is the skills like critical thinking, researching and reporting, and problem solving skills. I look forward to my opponent's response. Robert, I do value critical thinking, researching and reporting and problem solving. I just do not see any evidence that we need to sit in classrooms being lectured by teachers in order to develop those skills. Homeschooled kids (like mine) are ridiculously sharp and they do not sit in classrooms with tons of useless information being pushed at them. You can develop all of these skills with a little guidance and practice. There is no need for formal education. Some of the sharpest minds in history did not sit in classrooms.