Top 5 Dysfunctions In The School System
Updated: Mar 6, 2025
Written by Nathan Francis, Youth Self–Sabotage Coach
Nathan Francis is a 30 Year old former school teacher from Australia. Nathan is a podcast host and youth self-sabotage coach/mentor who freely admits that his mission is to lift the self-esteem and health of our youth.
The current mainstream schooling system is a mess. It’s designed to condition our children to be compliant, order following robots who have very little capability to think for themselves. The children who dare to dream, who dare to step out of line or who dare to step out of the box they are kept in are the ones who are punished the most… It all comes down to perception. Children mirror, mimic and copy adults.
On a subconscious level they are scanning for the most repetitive behaviours, words, content etc around them. Think about this for a second, children are sponges and they are sponging off their teachers in school more than their own parents. Furthermore, their behaviours, morals, ethics and beliefs are that of their teacher… Why? Because a teacher spends more time over the school year with other people's children… The child is being raised in the system, rather than by their own family. How backward is that? There are so many things that are dysfunctional about the current system and I could write up to 100 changes…
Top 5 dysfunctions in the school system
1. Life skills
Schools are not teaching children essential life skills that will help them once they graduate. Life skills such as tying knots in ropes, building shelter, basic building/fixing things, changing tyres, car maintenance, financial skills to build their own dreams and create multiple passive income streams, how to take care of themselves physically, how to grow food, how to cook food and how to read the food labels…The list is endless. Children need to be shown these essential life skills to be functioning adults in society. Let’s do better.
2. Subjects that are no benefit in the real world
From Algebra to Parallelograms, to Pythagoras theorem. There is one thing that these topics all have in common… Children will not use this rubbish out in the real world… There is a reason why so many children are disengaged from school, ‘act out’ and play video games 24/7... Learning this garbage has a lot to do with it. Furthermore, it is a waste of time for everyone involved, including the teacher. I am all for children learning the basics, counting, adding, subtracting, dividing, multiplying, reading and writing. That is it… I believe the more advanced should be a choice for the particular child. Not one size fits all.
3. Dependency
The system is based on dependency. The children are dependent on someone else to tell them what to do, what to learn, and what to think. Furthermore, children aren’t being taught how to be independent, or how to think for themselves. Schools teach resume and cover letter writing.. Why don't schools teach their children to write a business plan? Moreover, children are growing up and going to work a job they don’t want to do. Just like they were conditioned to do in school. They are kept inside a box doing one thing, building someone else’s dream for the rest of their lives… How backward is that? We came here to do and be multiple things
4. Creative expression
Children inside the school are kept in a box, they are told what they can and cannot do. This limits a child's ability to be creative. For example, the children are painting. The teacher says the children MUST paint a cat. Well, what if a few students don’t want to paint a cat and they would like to paint something else? But because the curriculum or the planned lesson doesn’t say so they are forced to paint the cat. Simply, the children who do not conform are punished and/or threatened. This system destroys a child's ability to be creative.
5. Being told to still & be quiet
It’s the main ‘rule’ that is repetitively driven into the minds of the children and the one that they must conform to or else they are punished. Children are energetic, hyperactive little people who need to move, speak and express themselves. Simply, children are not designed to sit still for long periods of time. Especially if they’re not passionate or highly engaged in what is being taught to them or said to them. Any child who dares to step out of line is firstly singled out in the group and then punished accordingly. This method scares the other children into line.
Children need to make mistakes and fail a bunch of times. Mistakes and failure are essential learning and growth opportunities… We need to unwrap our children from the bubble wrap and allow them to grow, evolve and learn. Let them play, and express their creativity and imagination. It's that simple. The mainstream schooling system is failing our children, however, there are so many alternative bush schools, homeschools and online businesses out there that you should look into..
Read more from Nathan Francis
Nathan Francis, Youth Self–Sabotage Coach
Nathan Francis is a leader in the Youth Coaching space. Drawing from 10+ years experience inside the mainstream system, it became quite evident to him that the system is failing our youth. Nathan has dedicated his life to helping our youth unleash their innate human potential. He is the founder of teenageselfsabotag.com where he offers 1:1 and group coaching programs. Author of Breaking Free: A Teens & Young Adults guide to identifying their addictions and overcoming them. He is also the host of the breaking free podcast.
