In _Have Space Suit, Will Travel_, the young hero's ( Kip) father
has some quite unkind things to say about the curriculum at Kip's school.
Fortunatley for our hero, he sees the error of his class schedule, takes
tougher courses, and it therefore ready when the alien nasties come to
call. Since I took 3 years of Latin in high school, I got a kick out of
the part where the hero's knowledge of Latin was put to practical use.
Other than the "Marching Morons" and "Beggers" series mentioned by
others, the only examples of education in science fiction I can think of
off the top of my head are two Anne McCaffrey stories ("Daughter" and
"Dull Drums") where the educational system has been reformed into
something half-way rational, and that Asimov story where most people have
learning dumped into thier heads by a machine, and only the select,
imaginative few go about learning the old-fashioned way (the machine
learning, I seem to remember, seems to discourage people from thinking up
new solutions). Not exactly a "dumbing down", but stifling stagnation.
Pam McLaughlin
"I had a swell course that semester--social study, commercial arithmetic,
appled English (the class had picked "slogan writing", which was fun),
handicrafts....and gym."
Heinlein, _Have Space Suit, Will Travel_
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