School is the price of being young and helpless! Not going to school is the reward of being grown-up, and strong, and powerful. You associate school with weakness and childishness. You associate non-school with strength and adulthood. Every kid knows that he is going to be rewarded for reaching the age of sixteen, or whatever age he’s allowed to get out, he’s going to be rewarded by never having to go to school again, never having to open up another book, never having to learn another fact, never having to think another thought. We teach kids that to be grown up is to be able to be stupid for the rest of your life…We won’t be able to do that anymore. In the 21st century, we’re going to have to think of education not as a task to be completed, but as a process to be continued.

The Future of Humanity: a Lecture by Isaac Asimov