[onewhippedpuppy]

Originally Posted by Porsche-O-Phile

I think the "interaction" aspect of public education is highly overrated. How many people does anyone here still know or keep in touch with from elementary/middle/high school? Any? College even? Any?

Yeah it might help learning what molds society expects one to conform to, but I question the value of this too... Social interaction ability is not very high on the list of skills I'd consider important to either succeed or obtain a quality education. Things like proper manners, etiquette, behavior appropriate in a business context, etc. can all either be taught or learned later, when it matters. Beyond that, what's the value exactly? Nobody ever got a salary bonus for having more "friends" on facebook or for being popular... Your skill set and smarts matter, and to some extent knowing how to read people and respond to them appropriately... This is not done in a typical public school classroom setting or school/campus environment.

Simple question Jeff - how does someone that rarely interacts with others, particularly strangers, learn how to interact with people? Because there's very few professions where people skills aren't important. People skills and manners aren't learned from a book, they are learned from practice.