They have no formal lessons on prosocial behaviours
Um?
How and when to say “please” and “thank you”
How to address and talk to police, firemen, and other public officials
The importance of “sharing”, etc.
The bad of “bullying”, etc.
How and when to write thank-you letters and other social niceties
Appropriate ways to talk to someone who lost a family member
These and others were all things that I recall from my grade school years. One could critique the means and content of these lessons all day, but it seems unsupportable to claim that there are no lessons on such behaviours.
(If you’re autistic, your problem may be that you were taught the explicit, formal, and decontextualised rules that schools include, but failed to pick up the implicit, informal, and contextually-dependent behaviours that schools don’t include.)
Schools do many useful and harmful things, also from social perspective. They teach you that bullying is wrong, but they also create convenient opportunities for bullying and make avoiding the bullies difficult. They teach you social skills, after they separated you from older kids whom you could instinctively emulate. Probably they are a net benefit, but some of the problems they solve are problems they have created.
I’m not sure that I agree with the notion that one needs to teach reasons before behaviours. When it comes to socialisation, one needs to teach the desired behaviours first, and the complicated rationale later, if at all. And we do this precisely because we DO care about outcomes: people (including highly intelligent, nerdy people; let’s not flatter ourselves) are much better at applying heuristics and rules learned in early childhood than they are deriving proper action from first principles. I think that the general shape of childhood education in this matter is actually correct: first you teach people to do things because It’s The Right Thing To Do; later, in an advanced course, you can break out the game theory to show how the prescription is derived.
-
Um?
How and when to say “please” and “thank you”
How to address and talk to police, firemen, and other public officials
The importance of “sharing”, etc.
The bad of “bullying”, etc.
How and when to write thank-you letters and other social niceties
Appropriate ways to talk to someone who lost a family member
These and others were all things that I recall from my grade school years. One could critique the means and content of these lessons all day, but it seems unsupportable to claim that there are no lessons on such behaviours.
(If you’re autistic, your problem may be that you were taught the explicit, formal, and decontextualised rules that schools include, but failed to pick up the implicit, informal, and contextually-dependent behaviours that schools don’t include.)
Schools do many useful and harmful things, also from social perspective. They teach you that bullying is wrong, but they also create convenient opportunities for bullying and make avoiding the bullies difficult. They teach you social skills, after they separated you from older kids whom you could instinctively emulate. Probably they are a net benefit, but some of the problems they solve are problems they have created.
-
I’m not sure that I agree with the notion that one needs to teach reasons before behaviours. When it comes to socialisation, one needs to teach the desired behaviours first, and the complicated rationale later, if at all. And we do this precisely because we DO care about outcomes: people (including highly intelligent, nerdy people; let’s not flatter ourselves) are much better at applying heuristics and rules learned in early childhood than they are deriving proper action from first principles. I think that the general shape of childhood education in this matter is actually correct: first you teach people to do things because It’s The Right Thing To Do; later, in an advanced course, you can break out the game theory to show how the prescription is derived.
-