Canadian parents hear it constantly: “Why do we need to learn this? I’m never going to need this.” Whether the homework is geometry, writing essays, or trying to determine the periodic table, their whine is pitiful, but it raises a good point.

Why are kids learning about geometry, essay writing, the periodic table, or whatever other oddly specific topic, when they could be learning actual skills like team collaboration, financial literacy, or learning to adjust to the ever-advancing technology?

The answer lies about 120 years in the past, when Prussia formed public education to teach children skills to work in the industrial factories. 

Called the “Factory Model” of education, these schools had the single minded focus of churning out factory workers. By putting them in crowded classrooms categorized by age and their ability to master a curriculum, with a single teacher acting as an authoritarian, the goal is further achieved by strict regimes, even stricter grading, and a lack of individualization; the Factory Model was impersonal, efficient, and standardized. 

Sound familiar?

While the curriculum has since been adjusted slightly to become further standardized by removing gender specific classes, kids are still subjected to a system that is so focused on churning out “productive members of society” than allowing them to achieve their own personal goals with their own capabilities. 

Any person with common sense knows that no two children are the same – so why are they being treated as such? Especially in terms of physical and mental capabilities. Children with disabilities are seen as a burden to the system, an outlier in their statistics of normality, whatever that is. The term neurodiversity was coined in the 90’s and still thirty years later, the education system is still scandalized by the idea of having to adjust their standardized education to meet these needs.

So attached to this Factory Model, the idea of accommodating to neurodivergent students includes an attempt to “fix” them, simply assigning a “modified” version of the work their neurotypical peers do. 

No understanding of disability. 

No care for capability. 

No work to achieve their personal best.

That said, neurotypical kids are suffering in their own way.

Kids with a passion for the arts are squashed early on to focus on the much prioritized and required math and science, as if there’s no place for literary, historical, or artistic careers in society. High grades overshadow humanity – kids aren’t taught skills like executive functioning due to a strict schedule, aren’t taught how to take initiative without the guidance of a teacher, and later on aren’t taught real world skills like cooking, job hunting, financial literacy, the list goes on.

So what are the kids being taught?

Studies show it’s not history – a poll in 2024 revealed that 30 per cent of participants couldn’t determine the year Canada became a country and a similar number couldn’t name the first Prime Minister. Unlike the United States, where nationalism keeps the history of the country as a mandatory course, Canada’s history is not mandatory for high school graduation.  

But at least students know that a²+ b²= c².

The Factory Model is not lost on educators, who are sent to act as puppets, watching with hopelessness as their students struggle to find a love for learning, held back by the strings of low funding, overwhelming classroom sizes, and no support staff to provide any sort of accommodation.

Those who look down on teachers are the same kids the system failed, just grown up, educated to be a mindless factory zombie without ever learning what they were truly capable of. Our future looks almost apocalyptic, filled with lost, bleary-eyed adults in formal wear filling the streets, successfully conformed to the factories of the Prussian era.