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> what is an apprenticeship, really? Is it not merely an education with very low student-teacher ratio? No. There are legal requirements for it [1]. In partic

by ken 7y ago

> what is an apprenticeship, really? Is it not merely an education with very low student-teacher ratio? No. There are legal requirements for it [1]. In particular, it is a job. Even if you taught algebra one-on-one to students, that would not be an apprenticeship, because the teacher isn’t a worker using algebra for their job, and the student isn’t earning $15 an hour to learn how algebra is used in that profession. [1]: https://www.dol.gov/apprenticeship/toolkit/toolkitfaq.htm#1b https://www.dol.gov/apprenticeship/toolkit/toolkitfaq.htm#1b

chongli 7y ago
Yeah, so the original article doesn't make any sense as an approach for society. Parents want their kids to learn algebra in the hope that they might get into an engineering program. Apprenticeships don't enter into the picture at all. Imagine a mathematics professor trying to apprentice a teenager. It wouldn't work, since the knowledge gap between a high school grad and a working mathematician is huge. The kid wouldn't have anything useful to contribute for a very long time. Perhaps this is why we only see apprenticeships in trades and the like. Those jobs don't require a huge base of knowledge just to be able to understand what's going on.
- jacobolus 7y ago
  > Imagine a mathematics professor trying to apprentice a teenager. It wouldn't work, [...] Not quite a high school student, but cf. https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-path-less-taken-to-the-peak-of-the-math-world-20170627/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-path-less-taken-to-the-peak...
  - chongli 7y ago
    This is an amazing story. I don’t think it’s what the author of the article had in mind though. It sounds like the original argument for apprenticeships is supposed to be a large scale thing, for potentially all students. I can’t see that working for the vast majority of stem students, only the very rare gifted ones.
6gvONxR4sf7o 7y ago
>because the teacher isn’t a worker using algebra for their job That might be another issue with the current system. People who use what they're teaching develop a different view of it. That could be useful.
franciscop 7y ago
I think this article is not advocating for the legal apprenticeship, but instead for the theory behind. A _good_ apprenticeship would not need pay because the education side would compensate the work side. But of course then lots of "entrepreneurs" would take advantage of this, and so it's not possible to do it for free. As a closely related example, internships can be free in Spain, and it happens quite often that the business just rotates interns without teaching them anything. So when the maximum legal time of unpaid internship is over, they just find a new intern. Sometimes they do pay, but pennies on the dollar because there's no minimum requirements.
- ken 7y ago
  That sounds like making up a new definition of "apprenticeship". Why would an apprentice not need to be paid? Is this only for the independently wealthy, or do they have to get a second job on the side in order to eat?
  - franciscop 7y ago
    Because they would be actively taught. It's somewhere between a university class (where the student pays) and a job (where the employer pays), the question is more IMHO about where the line of learning vs working falls. Apprenticeship seems to be catalogued as more work than learning, but that's exactly what the article discusses, how it didn't use to be this way. It seems like this now*: -$$$ focused tutoring, maximum learning -$$ cram schools, high focused learning -$$ private schools, good learning -$ public schools, mediocre learning (US-based) ?? apprenticeship +$ 0-1 internships, learn by following +$$ normal job, no specific learning time +$$$ senior/executive, just work Note: I'm not 100% confident with these numbers since in my home country things are a bit different, e.g. public university is better than private one, and internships are normally free. Example: I taught in a bootcamp. Students paid a non-trivial amount of money for learning, and they were taught in classes of ~20 students. I think that would have been the perfect situation for an apprenticeship. I would not mind teaching someone programming if they help me with design for example. Help going both ways seems just like a normal exchange.

by ken 7y ago

chongli 7y ago

Yeah, so the original article doesn't make any sense as an approach for society. Parents want their kids to learn algebra in the hope that they might get into an engineering program. Apprenticeships don't enter into the picture at all. Imagine a mathematics professor trying to apprentice a teenager. It wouldn't work, since the knowledge gap between a high school grad and a working mathematician is huge. The kid wouldn't have anything useful to contribute for a very long time. Perhaps this is why we only see apprenticeships in trades and the like. Those jobs don't require a huge base of knowledge just to be able to understand what's going on.

jacobolus 7y ago
> Imagine a mathematics professor trying to apprentice a teenager. It wouldn't work, [...] Not quite a high school student, but cf. https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-path-less-taken-to-the-peak-of-the-math-world-20170627/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-path-less-taken-to-the-peak...
- chongli 7y ago
  This is an amazing story. I don’t think it’s what the author of the article had in mind though. It sounds like the original argument for apprenticeships is supposed to be a large scale thing, for potentially all students. I can’t see that working for the vast majority of stem students, only the very rare gifted ones.

6gvONxR4sf7o 7y ago

>because the teacher isn’t a worker using algebra for their job That might be another issue with the current system. People who use what they're teaching develop a different view of it. That could be useful.

franciscop 7y ago

I think this article is not advocating for the legal apprenticeship, but instead for the theory behind. A _good_ apprenticeship would not need pay because the education side would compensate the work side. But of course then lots of "entrepreneurs" would take advantage of this, and so it's not possible to do it for free. As a closely related example, internships can be free in Spain, and it happens quite often that the business just rotates interns without teaching them anything. So when the maximum legal time of unpaid internship is over, they just find a new intern. Sometimes they do pay, but pennies on the dollar because there's no minimum requirements.

ken 7y ago
That sounds like making up a new definition of "apprenticeship". Why would an apprentice not need to be paid? Is this only for the independently wealthy, or do they have to get a second job on the side in order to eat?
- franciscop 7y ago
  Because they would be actively taught. It's somewhere between a university class (where the student pays) and a job (where the employer pays), the question is more IMHO about where the line of learning vs working falls. Apprenticeship seems to be catalogued as more work than learning, but that's exactly what the article discusses, how it didn't use to be this way. It seems like this now*: -$$$ focused tutoring, maximum learning -$$ cram schools, high focused learning -$$ private schools, good learning -$ public schools, mediocre learning (US-based) ?? apprenticeship +$ 0-1 internships, learn by following +$$ normal job, no specific learning time +$$$ senior/executive, just work Note: I'm not 100% confident with these numbers since in my home country things are a bit different, e.g. public university is better than private one, and internships are normally free. Example: I taught in a bootcamp. Students paid a non-trivial amount of money for learning, and they were taught in classes of ~20 students. I think that would have been the perfect situation for an apprenticeship. I would not mind teaching someone programming if they help me with design for example. Help going both ways seems just like a normal exchange.