I do think the perception matters in these instances.

Haha. No, the severity of the tortures, the killings and the like do not depend on if the shutzstaffel thugs think those are good things.

It’s a testament to the success of the propaganda surrounding public schools that you have conflated the institution of public education with education simpliciter.

As somebody who studies by themselves every day, I didn’t. That’s just how effective education is done at scale.

As for the difference between whims and instructions, they’re effectively the same.

They aren’t. The range of things that a teacher can demand can and is bounded.

We have children requesting to use the restroom, even being denied such a “privilege.”

This is an understandable complaint.

Who are you allowed to talk to and when? The teacher decides. Who can you sit next to? The teacher decides. … Hungry? You can eat at the appointed time and no other.

These complaints are silly. Do you think these are ‘whims’?

Want to associate with someone in a different grade? Not permitted.

In every place where I studied, there were no such limitations, with some even studying together with children from other grades in the same classrooms.

We somehow have accepted that school children ought to be treated like prisoners rather than free members of our society.

Seems like a very personally-charged tangent, but ok.