We have a public imagination that cannot conceive of what exactly to do with children, especially smart children. We fail to properly respect them through adolescence, so we have engineered them to be useless, and so they shuffle through a decade of busywork. Partly, the length of schooling has increased simply because it could—because we no longer

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Who could blame young adults for thinking that work is fake and meaningless if we prescribe fake and meaningless work for the first two decades of their existence? By confining meaningful work to an adult-only activity, it is little wonder that adolescence is a period of great depression. It would be surprising if it was not. Even for smart childre... See more

We live in an era where a motivated 12-year-old can learn the basics of timber framing, semiconductor design, or how to bake bread that would rival world-class bakeries. They can master nearly any mechanical system or any number of programming or artistic vocations, even if no mentor lives nearby. The limit is no longer some teacher or institution

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