The Future of School - Freire vs. Papert

While both Freire and Papert hold a negative view of the institution of school, they each reach different conclusions about the future of school. Freire sees that death of school as we know it to be an opportunity to re-invent it, modify it completely, to work alongside the technological world. Papert sees the death of school as being the result of emerging technologies, where technology will replace school. One has to agree that school can be stiffling due to curricular constraints on what can be taught, in what order and when. Obviously, one of the biggest factors affecting learning is motivation. Whether you are in a classroom listening to a stand and deliver lecture or at a computer working through a software game programmed for you, if you are not interested, you are not engaged in your learning. A teacher could allow me the choice between a game on the computer and an assignment. If the purpose of that game is to provide opportunities for learning how to operate a business and it is presented as a diesel engine repair business, I am unlikely to be motivated to play the game and may well choose an assignment over that game. To me it seems as if the key is choice, whether it be in a traditional school setting or in a virtual school online. I tend to agree with Papert, technology may change the face of school and be the impetus for changing the very structure and nature of school, but I don't see the idea of school becoming extinct. Even when we are learning on our own, we have questions and seek clarificati0ns. The role of school may shift to a more consultive guiding role rather than that of a dispenser of specific bits of knowledge.
Arguing that school is needed in order to socialize children is absurd. There are many other means and opportunites for children to learn social norms. School is not like real life in the sense that at no other time in your life do you spend such a good deal of time with a group of people who are the same age as you. In the real world, we interact with people of all ages. Can you imagine your work place if it was only for 42 year olds? A more realistic socialization process might include activities where mixed age groupings (like that of a family) are the norm. Yes there might be two seven year olds, but there may also be tweens and teens as well as adults. Perhaps re-thinking the outdated notion of same age groupings will be part of modifications that will take place.