There is a lot of criticism regarding alternative education. Well, let me tell you something about the mainstream one. I was in the school for 14 years. Nine years of elementary school, four years of high school and one year college.
Elementary school was the worst one in the republic (but was the nearest one). There was a lot of bullying in the school and also drugs. The only reason I didn't start with drugs was I wasn't one of the cool kids. Most lectures consisted of old Communist teacher writing really fast on the blackboard and erasing it when it was full. You weren't able to write down notes fast enough? Your problem.
I started smoking weed on the very first day of the high school, I was one of the cool kids, till 2 years later when we had an argument. Our networking teacher once told us that we are not active enough and why won't we e.g. try to get admin access to the lab computers. This teacher later hated me for hacking computers in all 3 labs we had and he did his best in attempts to fire me from the school, that didn't work out for him so he at least tried to give me a low schore during graduation exams.
After high school I wanted to go to work, but I had problems with my first girlfriend which got me emotionally, then my parents gave me ultimatum, I will either go to college or I will have no home.
College wasn't so bad, I found a lot of friends there and thanks to the timesheet of lectures (2 hours lectures, 4 hours free, 4 hours lectures) I started drinking heavily (what else to do in the town where you don't know anyone). After first two semesters I left the school and went to work as a software engineer, I am in the same company since then. Oh, one thing I forgot, I studied Informatics faculty, but because the whole school was Biology oriented, I had more essays about BSE and stuff than about IT.
Generally my experience with education wasn't great. Our education system is old, teaching a lot of stuff that were either outdated or simply wrong, even nowadays I sometimes get into problems when I say something I know from school. Programming is the only thing I learned home (I originally wanted to be a game creator), and it's the thing that pays my bills now.
Critics of alternative education say you won't get important lesson about social communication. Yes, you won't meet drug dealers and the bottom of the society before they get their photo in the evidence.
Critics also say that school teaches you how to think. Yes, convergent thinking is a great way how to achieve nothing in the world. Don't take me wrong, convergent (logical) thinking is important, but you should be able to use divergent (intuitive) thinking as well.
In about a second year in the office my gf told me about her metaphysical problems and I started studying occultism. After a whole year I found out how to get her rid of the problem. Since then Magick opened various gates for me. I started being interested in arts, in psychology, even in history (I hated history since the elementary school because our teacher was old angry b*tch), I also hated literature because our Literature teacher in the high school was the same kind of b*tch as the history one.
If I sum it up, school has caused me a various problems and a hate for most of the study, I am still in the process of repairing these damages. I also believe I would be less socially awkward if I wasn't forced to sit in the same classroom with thieves, bullies and drug dealers for 13 years of my life, actually if I stole something I would be in the prison with these inmates for much shorter amount of time.
Ending up like one of our criminal students isn't a thing of genetics. It's a thing of environment. A lot of them had bad parents and bad social situation, they simply had bad luck. My best friend from elementary school was better in everything than I. But him being cool was also one of the problems, he started doing drugs. From what I have heard he never finished high school, he never got to work, he started stealing and for some time he was also selling his ass for drug money. That's the end of a cool genius kid.
