Do we really need schools?

Karachi
The two-day 'School of Tomorrow' educational conference that ended on Sunday came up with some fairly unconventional sessions and concepts. One of these was a session titled, “Do we need schools?”.
This was a lecture delivered by Prof Roger Schanks, Professor Emeritus, North-Western University, Chicago, Illinois, USA. With a specialisation in cognitive learning, Prof Schanks was of the opinion that children learnt through what they observed and experienced in their daily life. “As such, why burden them with learning things which are not going to be any use to them in their practical lives,” he questioned. His thesis was that the best teachers were not schools but parents. He said that it was no use for students to be memorising things, for years at a stretch, which would in no way figure in their practical lives.
He projected two slides on the video screen showing two workers working on the transmission line above a high-rise in New York, asserting that the workers did not have to go to a college or a university to learn the trade. They learnt it cognitively from their bosses, having worked in the trade for years. “Why then burden them with memorising things and passing tests.”
As for teachers, he said that they were about the laziest people anywhere and certainly could not be expected to give the students undivided attention.
The professor did not only recommend shutting down high schools but also called to stop preparing students for college. He also called for elimination of all testing. “The state of Florida in the US spends 300 million dollars annually on the grading of test papers which,” he thought, “Is a waste.”
“Parents are the real teachers," Schanks said. Natural learning, he added, was involuntary and that it came through curiosity.
However, at the end of his lecture, he admitted that schools could not be dispensed with because their primary motive was day care. “Teachers will always be there but their role will have to change," he remarked. “We have to create a culture where mentoring is the norm,” he said.