A documentary says school was built to make critical thinkers. The thread says the ideal never survived scale (cbc.ca)
A CBC documentary credits the modern school system to Wilhelm von Humboldt and the idea of Bildung: education meant to grow independent, critical thinkers, not obedient workers.
The thread answered with competing origin stories: US schooling drifting from critical thinkers to assimilation to a 'shopping-mall high school' built to keep teenagers enrolled to 18, and the argument that every noble model decays once you make it universal and mandatory. One German speaker deflated the whole frame by noting Bildung just means 'education.'
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