Years back I remember teachers telling us we couldn't use calculators for some classes because we weren't going to always have access to one in future. The real reason was that we were learning the basics and they wanted us to memorize how to do it manually, because in later years we were given math to do but were also expected to use a calculator because it was difficult. I don't trust people to either spell words right or get math right if they don't use tools, because the internet's full of examples in their comments. Spell-check is built into everything and they still get it wrong.

Anyways, wikipedia eventually came out, and the immediate reaction was a distrust from the school system. Good reasons were had, as before, but when you're entering highschool and have seen two things shot down you start to question if the school system is up to date and trying to advance society or not.

Then AI comes out and the same familiar pushback is seen, and I think my viewpoint is solidified.

The school system wants people to be taught in a completely unbiased and factual manner, because teaching the students to question what they are being taught isn't part of their education until much later in life. If students lean on educational crutches too early then they aren't going to learn the basics, is what seems to be the issue.

The problem is that there's schools who are paid by religious organizations and corporations who both push for the inclusion of books that are inherently biased and teach viewpoints instead of things that meaningfully improves an individuals quality of life. If you teach someone math then they have the capability of becoming a merchant, if you teach them to read then they can learn from more than just teachers, but if you teach them to love oil companies then they only learn to accept other people making money while their own prospects are reduced in number, and if taught religion then they learn to be hostile to outsiders who might have made good allies or gained new technological insights other cultures provide.

With this, I think it's reasonable (in that we can use reason to understand) that the educational system dislikes things that will alter the foundation of society. But if it continues to push back against reality, then the result will be a loss of faith in the education system. This is an issue, because schools lean heavily on faith the age of the facilities creates to justify the cost of attending school there. If people lose faith then they might argue in general that education is good, but they might not be willing to pay for it if a better and cheaper alternative exists.

For a while schools also used the idea that an education would lead to jobs, but job hunting is mostly useless thanks to automation and nepotism making it impossible if you don't pay a service to apply for jobs for you. Companies ask for years of experience in fields that only existed recently, specifically because looking like they have openings means they can hire someone instantly the moment a position opens instead of creating the opening and then waiting for others to notice it (and if you the worker are wasting your time, who cares, the business didn't have to pay you for all the work you did applying everywhere, it's at your expense and not theirs).

AI's progress isn't what some expected. We're seeing things that at one time was predicted would exist a full century from now, but for everyone who only heard of modern AI in the last nine years this pace seems slow as hell, the quality is bad, etc. There's also the fear of cheap labor being favored by corporations when it comes to art of a certain quality. I've always hated advertisers, some are good, artistic, but then there's ads that blow out your eardrum when they come on, there's ads that take advantage of people who might not realize it's a scam, there's advertisers who put pressure on creators to not swear or show too much skin or any number of things. Of all forms of art, advertising has the greatest potential to do the most harm while the most people accept such harm is normal and expected. Which is why I'm not entirely against the education system's biases, because they (to my knowledge) ban advertising in schools.

Anyways, it seems the school system is banning smartphones again, some at least are, and I'm curious if this will increase people's faith in the education system, or worsen attendance as people question whether the current system is modern enough. Personally, I think this is more about how the parents are voters while children are not, and so there's going to be an increase of parents who believe schools are relevant and important for future worker production, and an increase of parents and children who believe schools are a waste of time that could be better spent learning from the internet and starting a small business at home. Who's more likely to be hired at a company that needs five years of work experience after all?