School isn't about learning.

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You are probably more indoctrinated than you care to admit to yourself. I never wrote essays. Never got that far. The questioning started the day I started school pretty much and by age 10 I had managed to annoy the nuns so much I got kicked out of the catholic school system. Not that the state school system was much better. Lasted another few years to finally quit formal education when I was 15.
After that I joined the marginals of the world and learnt so much more than I ever did in school albe none of it was academic by nature I did manage to build my own library of empirical evidence as to why the system sucks.
And nothing has ever come along to prove me wrong so still happy with the choices made.

Your bias shows through. There is no blueprint of what 'should' be learned beyond language and maths. Anything beyond that is projection if you ask me. I Italicised and bolded the ones I would like to think DD takes an interest in when she grows up. But your guess is as good as mine. She will probably enroll in fashion at vocational level eventually and will at least learn to sew properly as I will never be able to teach her and she does have an interest in things fashion.
My dear DD is 11 now. On the verge of joining secondary in another year's time. She is in mainstream (special)education because she is a social child and I could never provide the social experiences she hunkers after were she home educated. School to me is all about learning to deal with people. Learning all the double standards, forgotten promises, favouritisms and so on.
I have fun with school. They don't have so much fun with me though after I told them my only interest is in them teaching DD maths and languages as none of the other subjects they offer are relevant to me and DD will develop her own interests as she grows older.
She knows about psychology too as she got mental scars from bullying. I'm lucky as the psychologist she sees is one that is aware of cultural psychology and the fact that as a family we are definitly not W.E.I.R.D.
DD is doing another year primary to get her maths automated properly. School tells me there is no added value in her doing the year again yet when I ask them the added value of sending my child to secondary with the mathemathical skills of a 10-year old they have no answer either. They know I know they are only preparing them for the job market. And I tell them in so many words that my kid deserves better. School is all about compromises in our case. I communicate with school through the family worker now as they just don't know how to handle me.
And you forgot critical thinking skills in your list.
Point is DD with her AS-HFA diagnosis has 2 choiches. She can learn to think for herself and make her own decisions with regards to her special interest. Her interest is horses and she wants to be a 'horse woman' when she grows up so now you got me wondering as to the applications of calculus in the equine world Currently she is preparing for her first rider certificate which covers biology and as for chemistry she knows plants are full of chemicals and that some are poisonous to horses. I'm hard on her in so far that she has to give it her all but without the first rider certificate she's not going anywhere. Her own horse is not an option either so she got to make do with what is on offer. She has a 'job' lined up for summer but needs to develop the maturity to carry the responibilty of being left to look after horses on her own. We're working on it
Or she can play her cards and spend the rest of her days living an easy life on disability benefits after she finishes her education and go ride horses the way other people ride bicycles.
I am teaching her to think outside the box. More than that I can't do.

In primary school all we ever did was play the recorder (a cheap and mass-produced instrument) badly, sing-along with songs, play a game where you sit in a circle and pass around various drum instruments to share (e.g tambourine, bongoes, etc.) or do certain dances...

I am now 16 and a self-trained musician. Just 2 years of self-teaching I learned more about music than 7 years of class...

I do not take music class, but I meet 8th grade and sometimes even 9th grade music students who I know more about music.

School is entirely about learning, whether it be this mans truth or that mans truth on top of some base facts and some lies. I think you meant "School isn't always about learning the truth", a perfect example of this would be the political war in Oklahoma right now over AP US History.

No, I didn't. I meant school isn't about learning. Many experts and teachers agree that it isn't about learning, unfortunately.

I sort of disagree. While my university is awful, I am learning a lot in some of my classes. Specifically my computer science ones.

I tend to agree, since US academic institutions tend to be obsessed with extorting money from their students. I abhor jumping through hoops when I could just open a gate, so academic tedium gets the better of me. I can learn just fine on my own, but without that piece of paper, my knowledge and experience don't mean as much.

I'm now considering going back to school for a B.S. in Psychology through University of Maryland University College. It's not that I think it's a wonderful school or anything, but it would most likely put me into deferment with my previous loans, and I'd be eligible for many €-saving student benefits in Germany, even attending an American institution.

I currently work in the field of Early Childhood Education. I have received training through the DoD on-the-job. I shall have a CDA credential to my name in the next 6 months.

I know these acronyms mean something to a lot of people, but to me, they just mean more work for me to do something I'm already doing, but I'd get paid better for having them to my name.

It's a busted system. I don't need a formal education to be educated. But I'm trying to be realistic about what I can do to make the rest of the world pay attention to what I have to say. It's depressing, but if you can't play their game, they'll put you through the grinder even worse.

So what is so important that needs saying and you want the world to pay attention when you say it? What ideals are so righteous they justify you reducing yourself to a glue that ultimatelly will keep the busted system together for another generation?
Why be scared of the grinder? Never let the b***ards grind you down is my motto. And so far, so good

I'm a gay, autistic American living in Germany working for a government that my host nation doesn't trust. If I was going to be ground down, I would have been already.

Reality is 'reducing' me to play a broken system to whatever advantage I can figure out. I've been militant in my convictions in the past, and it got me nowhere. It's not as black and white as all that. It never can be with anything as complex as the human organism on planet Earth.

But what I am doing is weilding the strength of my disability to try to make a difference in the lives of the children of the US Armed Forces, a population not known for its stability.

If that means attending a sh***y makeshift University to get a degree that will provide me a few tools and a credential to do that behter, then I'm some tacky-ass glue.

Already, I'm convincing my coworkers that my 'disability' makes me uniquely qualified in a field that would otherwise spit me out to an SSDI check, Stateside. And children and their families are seeing a positive difference from my work. I'm setting myself up to make better money, qualify for positions that would otherwise be closed to me.

Most of the learning I do is not taught in a classroom. Unfortunately, there are hoops to jump through to be taken seriously, no matter how knowledgeable a person is.

I mean, I agree with you that it's a flawed system. But choosing not to participate isn't going to make me anything but more bitter. I know this, because I've done that, and it did. I'm happier trying it this way.

All I can say in that case is all the best of luck because you are right, the bitterness is a hard pill to swallow.
I've got all respect for those that at least are prepared to taste it. If more tried it maybe the world would eventually become a better place...

Yes, definitely run away from the items in the last two lines.
Run to the first two lines.
There is much to be learned there.
The fourth line is qoool too.