5 ms·

Or better yet, bring back apprenticeship and give them something to do other than worthless high school. I almost didn't get my first programming job because I

by shawn 8y ago

Or better yet, bring back apprenticeship and give them something to do other than worthless high school. I almost didn't get my first programming job because I had to be paid under the table at 17 due to child labor laws. If you want to enrich teenagers' lives, offering them something other than a prison sentence where kids ruthlessly torment each other seems a decent way. It worked for most of history.

renjimen 8y ago
Each to their own. An apprenticeship wouldn't work for something like the sciences where you need to understand the theory before you can work under someone more senior. But you're right, for vocational training where you learn by doing having the option of an apprenticeship may be far more fruitful than staying in school. I believe Germany has this kind of system.
- adamnemecek 8y ago
  There are apprenticeships for programming and electrical engineering.
  - barry-cotter 8y ago
    Can you link to the electrical engineering apprenticeship? To confirm the obvious you don’t mean an electrician apprenticeship, right? Edit: Never mind Electrical Engineering https://www.ausbildung.de/berufe/elektrotechniker/ https://www.ausbildung.de/berufe/elektrotechniker/ Electrician https://www.ausbildung.de/berufe/elektroniker/ https://www.ausbildung.de/berufe/elektroniker/
    - namibj 8y ago
      You seem to mix them up. Elektrik == Big motors, house wiring etc. Elektronik == vacuum tubes or semiconductors in circuits
- earthnail 8y ago
  German here. We have this kind of system, and it works extremely well for most professions that don’t require a master’s degree, and where the field doesn’t change too quickly. It is a mix of school and apprenticeship. Great, for example, for becoming a nurse, less great for programming since the field moves so fast. For higher education, we still have the old school university system. Students usually leave university with little industry experience beyond a few internships, but especially the technical universities put a lot of focus on preparing their students as well as possible for the real world. All in all it works quite well.
  - bosie 8y ago
    Not sure why it wouldn't work for "fast" changing fields like programming as well. The basics are the basics. Learn the basics at school and the day-to-day activities through the apprenticeship? Not sure what else would be better than the dual-system
    - earthnail 8y ago
      It‘s just an observation. The apprenticeship system stems from the old guilds. There is no support yet for learning programming that way. It will take a while, the system evolves very slowly.
      - detaro 8y ago
        You can become a web designer/developer through apprenticeship at least. And there's the "dual studium" ideas that at least follow a similar model in some ways, which a bunch of large technical companies offer.
- StreakyCobra 8y ago
  Switzerland is "kind of" a famous for his apprenticeship system. I myself went trough an apprenticeship, and that didn't prevented me to get a University Master's degree later on. A random web search gave me this relatively recent article [1] presenting it. It says that 2/3 of students goes through apprenticeship: «In Switzerland, two-thirds of students in the final stage of secondary education opt for vocational training, mostly in three or four year “dual” programmes combining classroom study with workplace training.» [1] https://www.ft.com/content/98e06036-d99b-11e7-a039-c64b1c09b482 https://www.ft.com/content/98e06036-d99b-11e7-a039-c64b1c09b...
- barry-cotter 8y ago
  > An apprenticeship wouldn't work for something like the sciences where you need to understand the theory before you can work under someone more senior. Do you have any evidence for that or is it an assertion? I feel very confident that the top decile of those who complete an apprenticeship as a Chenistry lab tech or as a Computer Programmer could go straight into a UK doctoral programme. If the proportion of academically inclined entrants increased so would the proportion capable. I’m sure they’d have massive gaps in their knowledge compared to those who went through a theory focused Bachelor’s but you learn plenty of theory with one to two days a week of class and you can apply it immediately so you’re going to remember it. On a more Anglophone note lambda school seem to be doing great at training web programmers and data scientists in six months of full time project based work. It’s not an apprenticeship but it looks a lot more like it than any university.
- captainmuon 8y ago
  > An apprenticeship wouldn't work for something like the sciences where you need to understand the theory before you can work under someone more senior. At the university, we actually had a very successful internship program for high school students (in particle physics). It turns out there is a lot you can learn by "learning by doing". Also the actual day-to-day work of a master or PhD student is not too different from an apprentice in crafts - but very different from a school or univerity student. You learn by being embedded in a working group and performing actual work, instead of only sitting in class and learning from books.
fiblye 8y ago
School's purpose is to introduce kids to things they otherwise wouldn't have a chance to learn. Coming from a poor, working class family, an apprenticeship-driven society like those of centuries ago would've resulted in me being trapped doing back-breaking labor and having no chance to escape. But I got a chance to study tech and other languages, got interested in things my family could never understand, and moved to another country to pursue what made me happy. I think offering a choice of apprenticeships would be good, but discouraging schooling in any way in favor of them would lead back to cycles of poverty and and end to the upward movement we've seen in the past century with the introduction of widespread public education.
- shawn 8y ago
  Meanwhile in Ameriburger, the kids tear each other to shreds. It sounds like the educational opportunities you got were what I spent years fantasizing about, wondering if there was anything better than going from mostly-dead teacher to mostly-dead teacher and forced to memorize pointless geographical facts in exchange for ... nothing at all, as far as I could tell.
  - fiblye 8y ago
    I went to a school in America at a school where fights happened at least weekly. I still took advantage of what I was offered.
    - shawn 8y ago
      Yes, an environment where prisoners fight other prisoners sounds much preferable to learning a trade. Anyway, the mods have deemed "thou shalt only post five comments every three hours," so... See you tomorrow. Also the right teacher can make all the difference. Telling victims "Shut up and deal with it" isn't too productive, though it's the usual advice. EDIT: Since I can't reply, I'll just post it here. You'd be surprised. Economic activity is the only reason we don't resort to violence on a daily basis. Giving kids something to do other than posture might go a long way. Woo, replying via edit is fun. I wonder how long I can troll the HN mods before all my comments drop to the bottom automatically again. After all, when no justification is given and your emails are ignored, why obey arbitrary rules or put in effort toward being a good community member? EDIT2: Hmm, if I implied manual labor, I didn't mean to. A programming apprenticeship would have been amazing, and most trades are becoming knowledge-based anyway. Even a mechanic is less manual labor and more creative diagnostic.
captainmuon 8y ago
In practice, apprenticeship/traineeship starts too late. As you said, there should be something like it during / instead of high school, not after high school. We had an apprentice at work (in Germany) who was going to a Waldorf school I think. They do a half-year apprenticeship as opposed to three weeks as the others do.

by shawn 8y ago

renjimen 8y ago

Each to their own. An apprenticeship wouldn't work for something like the sciences where you need to understand the theory before you can work under someone more senior. But you're right, for vocational training where you learn by doing having the option of an apprenticeship may be far more fruitful than staying in school. I believe Germany has this kind of system.

adamnemecek 8y ago
There are apprenticeships for programming and electrical engineering.
- barry-cotter 8y ago
  Can you link to the electrical engineering apprenticeship? To confirm the obvious you don’t mean an electrician apprenticeship, right? Edit: Never mind Electrical Engineering https://www.ausbildung.de/berufe/elektrotechniker/ https://www.ausbildung.de/berufe/elektrotechniker/ Electrician https://www.ausbildung.de/berufe/elektroniker/ https://www.ausbildung.de/berufe/elektroniker/
  - namibj 8y ago
    You seem to mix them up. Elektrik == Big motors, house wiring etc. Elektronik == vacuum tubes or semiconductors in circuits
earthnail 8y ago
German here. We have this kind of system, and it works extremely well for most professions that don’t require a master’s degree, and where the field doesn’t change too quickly. It is a mix of school and apprenticeship. Great, for example, for becoming a nurse, less great for programming since the field moves so fast. For higher education, we still have the old school university system. Students usually leave university with little industry experience beyond a few internships, but especially the technical universities put a lot of focus on preparing their students as well as possible for the real world. All in all it works quite well.
- bosie 8y ago
  Not sure why it wouldn't work for "fast" changing fields like programming as well. The basics are the basics. Learn the basics at school and the day-to-day activities through the apprenticeship? Not sure what else would be better than the dual-system
  - earthnail 8y ago
    It‘s just an observation. The apprenticeship system stems from the old guilds. There is no support yet for learning programming that way. It will take a while, the system evolves very slowly.
    - detaro 8y ago
      You can become a web designer/developer through apprenticeship at least. And there's the "dual studium" ideas that at least follow a similar model in some ways, which a bunch of large technical companies offer.
StreakyCobra 8y ago
Switzerland is "kind of" a famous for his apprenticeship system. I myself went trough an apprenticeship, and that didn't prevented me to get a University Master's degree later on. A random web search gave me this relatively recent article [1] presenting it. It says that 2/3 of students goes through apprenticeship: «In Switzerland, two-thirds of students in the final stage of secondary education opt for vocational training, mostly in three or four year “dual” programmes combining classroom study with workplace training.» [1] https://www.ft.com/content/98e06036-d99b-11e7-a039-c64b1c09b482 https://www.ft.com/content/98e06036-d99b-11e7-a039-c64b1c09b...
barry-cotter 8y ago
> An apprenticeship wouldn't work for something like the sciences where you need to understand the theory before you can work under someone more senior. Do you have any evidence for that or is it an assertion? I feel very confident that the top decile of those who complete an apprenticeship as a Chenistry lab tech or as a Computer Programmer could go straight into a UK doctoral programme. If the proportion of academically inclined entrants increased so would the proportion capable. I’m sure they’d have massive gaps in their knowledge compared to those who went through a theory focused Bachelor’s but you learn plenty of theory with one to two days a week of class and you can apply it immediately so you’re going to remember it. On a more Anglophone note lambda school seem to be doing great at training web programmers and data scientists in six months of full time project based work. It’s not an apprenticeship but it looks a lot more like it than any university.
captainmuon 8y ago
> An apprenticeship wouldn't work for something like the sciences where you need to understand the theory before you can work under someone more senior. At the university, we actually had a very successful internship program for high school students (in particle physics). It turns out there is a lot you can learn by "learning by doing". Also the actual day-to-day work of a master or PhD student is not too different from an apprentice in crafts - but very different from a school or univerity student. You learn by being embedded in a working group and performing actual work, instead of only sitting in class and learning from books.

fiblye 8y ago

School's purpose is to introduce kids to things they otherwise wouldn't have a chance to learn. Coming from a poor, working class family, an apprenticeship-driven society like those of centuries ago would've resulted in me being trapped doing back-breaking labor and having no chance to escape. But I got a chance to study tech and other languages, got interested in things my family could never understand, and moved to another country to pursue what made me happy. I think offering a choice of apprenticeships would be good, but discouraging schooling in any way in favor of them would lead back to cycles of poverty and and end to the upward movement we've seen in the past century with the introduction of widespread public education.

shawn 8y ago
Meanwhile in Ameriburger, the kids tear each other to shreds. It sounds like the educational opportunities you got were what I spent years fantasizing about, wondering if there was anything better than going from mostly-dead teacher to mostly-dead teacher and forced to memorize pointless geographical facts in exchange for ... nothing at all, as far as I could tell.
- fiblye 8y ago
  I went to a school in America at a school where fights happened at least weekly. I still took advantage of what I was offered.
  - shawn 8y ago
    Yes, an environment where prisoners fight other prisoners sounds much preferable to learning a trade. Anyway, the mods have deemed "thou shalt only post five comments every three hours," so... See you tomorrow. Also the right teacher can make all the difference. Telling victims "Shut up and deal with it" isn't too productive, though it's the usual advice. EDIT: Since I can't reply, I'll just post it here. You'd be surprised. Economic activity is the only reason we don't resort to violence on a daily basis. Giving kids something to do other than posture might go a long way. Woo, replying via edit is fun. I wonder how long I can troll the HN mods before all my comments drop to the bottom automatically again. After all, when no justification is given and your emails are ignored, why obey arbitrary rules or put in effort toward being a good community member? EDIT2: Hmm, if I implied manual labor, I didn't mean to. A programming apprenticeship would have been amazing, and most trades are becoming knowledge-based anyway. Even a mechanic is less manual labor and more creative diagnostic.

captainmuon 8y ago

In practice, apprenticeship/traineeship starts too late. As you said, there should be something like it during / instead of high school, not after high school. We had an apprentice at work (in Germany) who was going to a Waldorf school I think. They do a half-year apprenticeship as opposed to three weeks as the others do.