Because you’re being prepared for a lifetime of work

You’re in school. Maybe elementary school, maybe high school, maybe university.

Most of what you’re expected to learn is mind-numbingly boring.

Most of what you’re expected to learn will find no practical application in your life.

Occasionally you come into contact with an inspiring teacher, and you learn things that expand your mind and your opportunities, but that’s almost accidental.

You’re there to be inured to work: to turning up at a prescribed place at a prescribed time, day after day, to perform purposeless tasks under close supervision.

You receive a piece of paper at the end of it to certify that you’ve proved sufficiently pliant to submit to such a regime.