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This really resonates for me. High school was a colossal waste of time, and a very unhealthy environment, that I think made me a worse person for a time. I’ve

This really resonates for me. High school was a colossal waste of time, and a very unhealthy environment, that I think made me a worse person for a time. I’ve been thinking a lot about how to help my kids skip high school, but I don’t quite know how to do it. As the author, I don’t think that it should be banned, but I agree that kids should not be forced to attend. If anything, merely removing the mandate might make the experience of those who stay a lot better. For me a lot of the stress came from the hostility and bullying that the kids who did not want to be there inflicted on anyone who dared to show interest in class, ask questions, or, gasp, pass classes. Has anyone found an alternative path for their kids to avoid high school, and if so how did it go?

krrrh 5y ago
No sure about your state but I’ve known people in Canada who avoided it by doing core subjects via correspondence programs. It freed up time for them to pursue other interests or work. It didn’t seem to be a barrier to them getting into any public universities, but I don’t know how that works in the US where elite education seems to matter a lot more.
browningstreet 5y ago
We are homeschooling my son and he’s be a senior this next term. It’s gone very well for us, academically and socially and the like, but now we have to make him a transcript for college applications and he followed a job-standard curriculum. We were counting on the SAT scores being an important part of his transcript, we’ll see how changes in that vein work out. Every year we ask him if he’d like to return to conventional schooling, he’s not tempted at all. His not-school devotions are numerous, so it’s also been rewarding from a family perspective.
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  > he followed a job-standard curriculum What's a 'job-standard curriculum'?
  - linux_is_nice 5y ago
    I assume they meant "non-standard curriculum"
    - egman_ekki 5y ago
      Then the question is perhaps even more relevant.
      - artificialLimbs 5y ago
        Not OP, but could be something like ‘radical unschooling’, where the kids set the curriculum.
    - browningstreet 5y ago
      Yes, sorry for not catching this in the edit window.
  - notsureaboutpg 5y ago
    'bog-standard'?
- spoonjim 5y ago
  What does a typical day look like for him and in what ways does he form and enjoy friendships?
ajsnigrutin 5y ago
> For me a lot of the stress came from the hostility and bullying that the kids who did not want to be there inflicted on anyone who dared to show interest in class Are american schools really that shitty? I thought it was a movie trope.
- NickBusey 5y ago
  I was walking down a hallway once in middle school and a kid I had never even talked to just walked up and punched me in the ear. Just an idea of the random violence that happens, as well as the psychological warfare campaigns these kids are capable of launching. It is definitely not just a movie trope.
  - zozbot234 5y ago
    Isn't that a pretty serious crime? I hope you reported it.
    - GoOnThenDoTell 5y ago
      Teachers often won’t/can’t do anything about it, why would the child think the cops would care
      - snicker7 5y ago
        Teachers get a lot of (empty) praise in the US. But many of them allow bullying. Many ARE the bullies. I've known a teacher who sold drugs to students. I remember a classmate who was r*ped by a teacher.
        DataJunkie 5y ago
        I had a few good teachers in high school. I had excellent teachers in middle school. It is a profession that should be respected but there is a chicken and egg problem: 1) teachers are not respected by parents, administrators and politicians, 2) so very few of the people that would make great teachers go into teaching And in some states like California, it's very easy to become a teacher on an emergency credential. In the mid to late 90s when I was in school, most of our teachers were like 23 or 24 and were on emergency credentials. They were not the good ones.
hpoe 5y ago
I had a buddy that too the GED at 16 then went and got accepted to University when he was 17. He was home schooled and one smart cookie but he turned out alright.
- zepto 5y ago
  > but he turned out alright. Why the ‘but’? Wouldn’t you expect a smart home schooled person to turn out ok?
Yajirobe 5y ago
homeschooling
calvinmorrison 5y ago
I did 2 years in high school then did an GED program through my community college. I had 2 years of college done by the time my peers were graduating high school.
dalbasal 5y ago
I hated school too, and I sympathise with your quest to "save" your kids from it. At the risk of presumption, I'd advise to be wary of overprojecting though. Different people have very different experiences, and your kids' may not be the same as your experience. Observe and react.
- russh 5y ago
  My high school experience is specifically one of the reasons I didn’t have kids. I wasn’t going to subject anyone to the shit I experienced in high school.
  - Spooky23 5y ago
    You probably should talk to someone if it affected you that strongly.
    - mypalmike 5y ago
      I'm in the same boat, and at almost 50 years of age I never even slightly regret not having children. Now, who should I talk to?
      - dvtrn 5y ago
        No one. You made a personal reproductive choice, that should rightly be enough, shouldn't it?
      - Spooky23 5y ago
        That’s a personal choice that is yours to make. To me, the notion that school was so horrible that having children if off the table says that was a traumatic experience that hurts to this day. Not healthy to carry that. I say that as someone who was bullied in elementary school to the point that I was afraid to go outside or have my picture taken. People who cared intervened and helped me overcome that, and anyone in that situation deserves the same.
Jarwain 5y ago
I did a dual-enrollment program that was a normal ish 9th grade, and took college courses for 10-12th grade. Could see if there are similar programs in your area. More generally, magnet or charter programs kinda select for people who are interested in the program (and in some cases people forced in by their parents), which could provide a better environment
- testesttest 5y ago
  State program? What state?
  - Jarwain 5y ago
    Kinda? It was in South Florida, but it was a test-lab school kinda program. My brother did an alternative where he could take some credits at the local CC, but it was still part of the standard high school experience. Seems a little closer to your experience in your other comment There was definitely more camaraderie among the students in the program I did, mainly because of being all stuck together in 9th grade and how Everyone ended up taking classes at the uni (oftentimes together, since there's a lot of overlap in undergrad programs).
    - testesttest 5y ago
      Yea, camaraderie would have been nice. Only 2 kids from my high school participated in the program. For financial reasons, I had to fully commit to college and couldn't do part time. Anyway, cool, I really liked the program and think it is a good option for some kids.
tropshop 5y ago
A submission not so long ago made it sound pretty straightforward: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26653788 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26653788
testesttest 5y ago
Lots of states have programs where you can go to college and earn highschool credit (duel credit). Alternatively, drop out, get a GED and go to college. This hard commits you to finishing college but I have a few friends that did it. I did the dual credit thing and avoided paying for a few years of college (state covered books and tuition). Be careful though, lots of kids aren't really ready to leave all their friends they have known for 10+ years. If you go to college at 16 you miss onboarding and the "college experience". In many ways you are alone. It fit me but not everyone.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > Lots of states have programs where you can go to college and earn highschool credit (duel credit). “Dual credit”. Duel credit might be available in New Jersey, though (everything is legal in New Jersey.)
  - testesttest 5y ago
    Thats what you get on a phone :P
YZF 5y ago
My older daughter was 95% home schooled. She just graduated from university, top student. She did decide to take a few specific courses in high school when she was 16 but that was her choice, she never went full time to school. So you can totally do it, it can go great. Try and find a local community to be a part of. I should note that technically she has always been a distant learner which is a distinction made locally (British Columbia, Canada). She was enrolled in basically what is a school for home learners which counts a school but just acts as a support mechanism for home learners, you can do whatever you want. I have a younger daughter who was also mostly home schooled but is now attending high school full time by her choice. So she is taking a somewhat different path and she is a top student as well despite basically having never studied the previous curriculum. Our style of home schooling has been study whatever you're interested in, not following any specific curriculum.
- nate_meurer 5y ago
  What's your experience with homeschool curricula? Have you found any that you really like?
  - YZF 5y ago
    Like I said we didn't really. We generally let the kids explore. Lots of reading, just everything. My older daughter spent some time studying how to perform magic tricks. She did a lot of art, jewelry, painting, sculptures. There is a local community that organized some activities like science fairs, various day trips etc.
mind-blight 5y ago
I got out of my junior and senior years by taking the GED and going straight to college. I think that benefitted me a lot more than just graduating college a couple years early. The environment was radically different and freeing. Teachers weren't babysitters. They wanted us to do well, but they weren't going to coddle us. I noticed that immediately, and it really changed how I approached my classes. I didn't have to be there if I didn't want to, so I really invested myself in a way that I don't think would be possible if I were being forced. In Oregon at least, colleges must consider a GED score over 600 equivalent to a high school diploma. I went to the local college (SOU) for one year to get a solid transcript, then used that to transfer to a state college (U of O). I'm really glad that I did
- lordalch 5y ago
  How were you able to take the GED exam at 16? I looked into doing this while I was in high school, and found that I wouldn't be able to take the exam until I was 19, defeating the point. Perhaps it varies by state? If so, I applaud Oregon for not forcing students into a daycare program for any longer than necessary. If I were a policymaker, I would even be comfortable with lowering the minimum age to 14 or lower.
  - gedy 5y ago
    California at least has the CHSPE[0] which is 16+ [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_High_School_Proficiency_Exam https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_High_School_Profi...
    - dreadlordbone 5y ago
      I did it in 1999 when I was 15, immediately started working two different 4 hour jobs and stacked dosh.
  - mind-blight 5y ago
    I'm not sure what the minimum age here is, but it never came up for me. The one thing I know was somewhat unique to Oregon at the time was making all public universities accept the GED
irrational 5y ago
It depends on where you live, but kids are not forced to attend in places where homeschooling is allowed. A homeschooling option where I live is you attend classes at a local community college. Once you have completed enough credits you get a GED diploma and an associates degree.
waheoo 5y ago
It depends how it goes. If they start wasting their time there I'll take them out, they can work or go to Polytech. If they are using their time wisely they can stay. It really doesn't make much sense to go an alternative route unless you need to. If they're at risk of dropping out and doing more harm than good, get them out of there.
- rablackburn 5y ago
  > …they can work or go to Polytech Sincere question: can they work? Does anywhere hire high-school aged kids for work that isn’t non-trivial/grunt work? If the goal is to not waste their time I can’t imagine working a casual job is more stimulating than being in a classroom. Maybe a year working casually would inspire them back to school the next year?
  - IG_Semmelweiss 5y ago
    At that age , work is hardly a waste of time. You learn real world skills, the value of a dollar, work ethic, business processes, and get to build relationships and network with people of varied ages, unlike school. Plus, you learn the importance of the customer.
  - waheoo 5y ago
    Not really about wasting their time, its about wasting their time at school and the likely drugs theyll take up if it continues long enough. I saw a lot of kids go on to higher education only to mostly waste it. They were there because their parents made them, not because they wanted to be there. I worked for a year before going to uni, after that, I really wanted to be there. Working sucked. I wanted a better job. When I hit uni, I was extremely motivated to learn.
roland35 5y ago
My high school offered a post secondary program. A student could go to a local university (Kent State in Ohio in our case) and take many of the general education classes you needed anyways. I wish I took advantage, it would have saved me some time in college! I think it was only for Juniors and seniors however.
- jcims 5y ago
  They still have something like this in Ohio, it’s called College Credit Plus: http://education.ohio.gov/Topics/Ohio-Education-Options/College-Credit-Plus http://education.ohio.gov/Topics/Ohio-Education-Options/Coll... It’s available through quite a few schools now i believe. My oldest only had half days her senior year in high school and entered college with enough credits to be a sophomore. It’s not particularly revolutionary but a nice option.
NateEag 5y ago
I was homeschooled up until college. I had finished standard high school course work by around sixteen, so my parents had me start taking CLEP tests. At seventeen, in what would have been my senior year of high school, I took a few classes at our local community college. Basically, even in the strictest states (I grew up in one of them), homeschooling is a good mechanism for opting out of the stupid parts of high school.
- cgb223 5y ago
  I’ve always been fascinated by Homeschooling and it’s outcomes How did you feel it affected your ability to learn social skills and have a friend group? Did your parents teach you or was there some kind of group of place you went to be homeschooled?
  - BeFlatXIII 5y ago
    It’s not just homeschooled students who never figure out social skills or gain a stable friend group until college.
    - spoonjim 5y ago
      Sure but there’s a correlation. I don’t know if it’s causative though. The socially awkward kids getting bullied at public school are those that are most likely to get pulled out and homeschooled.
      - giantg2 5y ago
        Is there a correlation? The homeschooled kids I knew of weren't pulled out for bullies or any other issues.
        spoonjim 5y ago
        Not necessarily bullies but who is a parent likely to pull out of school (ignoring the parents doing it for selfish reasons like religious extremism)? The kid who hates school and has no friends and sulks when it’s time to go or the kid who can’t wait to go and has tons of friends and is involved in school activities?
bsder 5y ago
> As the author, I don’t think that it should be banned, but I agree that kids should not be forced to attend. Here is the problem: high school is mostly not meant for those of us who wound up on HN. My father taught English for almost 4 decades in a US rural school district. His comments were: "I'm not really here for the good students. They'll do fine no matter what I do, so my job for them is to keep them engaged and moving forward. All I have to do is not kill their motivation." "I'm not really here for the worst students. I can't fix simply not doing the work or reveling in being stupid. I can't do much to fix a student's terrible home life other than providing a sympathetic ear and space for a little while." "I'm mostly here for the average students. They don't want to be here, would rather be doing anything else and will do as little as possible to skate through. If I can push a few of those to care just a little more and have just a bit of internal motivation, I've done a good job. For the rest, I set the average bar to the point that they have to learn what I want them to to get the grade they need to." "And I'm really here for a few of the below-average students. This is probably the last chance before they slide into being useless. Most of them have a bit of smarts, or they'd have slipped into the worst category long ago. They probably hang out with the wrong people. They get harassed if they accomplish something. Their home life is deteriorating. If I can reverse any of these, I've done a really good thing." "In the meantime, I teach English."
- Swizec 5y ago
  Here’s an anecdata: Many of my high school teachers put me squarely in the “too far gone to help” camp, others put me in the “lazy and unmotivated” camp ... but if I liked your class, if I respected you as a person, if you seemed like you knew what you were doing, then I became the “hot damn get out of their way this kid is a steamroller” kind. My English professor (2nd language) used to grade my essays with a dictionary because my vocabulary was so big, my coding professor said he can’t help but is happy to give me time and space to work on my opensource projects (for credit), my Slovenian professor (1st language) said it’s a shame I’m going to study CS because my essays are a joy to read and he always learns something new. But my chemistry professor? Straight F. German? D- It took me 5 years to finish high school and I had summer school every year except last. Because summer school senior year impacts when you can apply for college and I didn’t wanna risk that. And my grades at matura (kinda like the SAT) were higher than my high school GPA. Most of the time I was too busy coding all day and night to care about grades and I was definitely too cool for school.
aufhebung 5y ago
>for me a lot of the stress came from the hostility and bullying that the kids who did not want to be there In Australia students are allowed to drop out of school in year 10 (age 15-16) if they have work lined up. When all these people left my grade got much better.
- nicwilson 5y ago
  This was also available for people who were going into apprenticeships
- XorNot 5y ago
  The problem is the one's with rich parents don't leave. They're going nowhere in life, but they're at least vaguely aware of how much their life will radically decay if they stop giving the impression of progress to the purse-strings.
barry-cotter 5y ago
> I’ve been thinking a lot about how to help my kids skip high school, but I don’t quite know how to do it. I’ve enjoyed reading Bryan Caplan occasionally describe how he home schooled his children through middle school and high school[1]. It started off with middle school on the basis that no one cares at all about middle school grades or achievements, with them doing an AP exam a year. On trying out high school once they were off an age they decided to keep on homeschooling and just ramped up the pace on the APs, while ensuring there was daily Math learning and eventually independent research. Most of the posts discussing it are here[2]. [1] https://www.econlib.org/archives/2015/09/why_im_homescho.html https://www.econlib.org/archives/2015/09/why_im_homescho.htm... [2] https://search.econlib.org/search/#njDqBtLLytoDH9kCdAfS2ZJRlvI= https://search.econlib.org/search/#njDqBtLLytoDH9kCdAfS2ZJRl...
corndoge 5y ago
What if your kids want to date? Practically speaking, how are they going to meet people outside a high school environment? Might seem trivial but it's a formative set of years for learning courtship rituals. High school imparts a lot of non academic experience that are, I think, pretty important.

krrrh 5y ago

No sure about your state but I’ve known people in Canada who avoided it by doing core subjects via correspondence programs. It freed up time for them to pursue other interests or work. It didn’t seem to be a barrier to them getting into any public universities, but I don’t know how that works in the US where elite education seems to matter a lot more.

browningstreet 5y ago

We are homeschooling my son and he’s be a senior this next term. It’s gone very well for us, academically and socially and the like, but now we have to make him a transcript for college applications and he followed a job-standard curriculum. We were counting on the SAT scores being an important part of his transcript, we’ll see how changes in that vein work out. Every year we ask him if he’d like to return to conventional schooling, he’s not tempted at all. His not-school devotions are numerous, so it’s also been rewarding from a family perspective.

chrisseaton 5y ago
> he followed a job-standard curriculum What's a 'job-standard curriculum'?
- linux_is_nice 5y ago
  I assume they meant "non-standard curriculum"
  - egman_ekki 5y ago
    Then the question is perhaps even more relevant.
    - artificialLimbs 5y ago
      Not OP, but could be something like ‘radical unschooling’, where the kids set the curriculum.
  - browningstreet 5y ago
    Yes, sorry for not catching this in the edit window.
- notsureaboutpg 5y ago
  'bog-standard'?
spoonjim 5y ago
What does a typical day look like for him and in what ways does he form and enjoy friendships?

ajsnigrutin 5y ago

> For me a lot of the stress came from the hostility and bullying that the kids who did not want to be there inflicted on anyone who dared to show interest in class Are american schools really that shitty? I thought it was a movie trope.

NickBusey 5y ago
I was walking down a hallway once in middle school and a kid I had never even talked to just walked up and punched me in the ear. Just an idea of the random violence that happens, as well as the psychological warfare campaigns these kids are capable of launching. It is definitely not just a movie trope.
- zozbot234 5y ago
  Isn't that a pretty serious crime? I hope you reported it.
  - GoOnThenDoTell 5y ago
    Teachers often won’t/can’t do anything about it, why would the child think the cops would care
    - snicker7 5y ago
      Teachers get a lot of (empty) praise in the US. But many of them allow bullying. Many ARE the bullies. I've known a teacher who sold drugs to students. I remember a classmate who was r*ped by a teacher.
      - DataJunkie 5y ago
        I had a few good teachers in high school. I had excellent teachers in middle school. It is a profession that should be respected but there is a chicken and egg problem: 1) teachers are not respected by parents, administrators and politicians, 2) so very few of the people that would make great teachers go into teaching And in some states like California, it's very easy to become a teacher on an emergency credential. In the mid to late 90s when I was in school, most of our teachers were like 23 or 24 and were on emergency credentials. They were not the good ones.

hpoe 5y ago

I had a buddy that too the GED at 16 then went and got accepted to University when he was 17. He was home schooled and one smart cookie but he turned out alright.

zepto 5y ago
> but he turned out alright. Why the ‘but’? Wouldn’t you expect a smart home schooled person to turn out ok?

Yajirobe 5y ago

homeschooling

calvinmorrison 5y ago

I did 2 years in high school then did an GED program through my community college. I had 2 years of college done by the time my peers were graduating high school.

dalbasal 5y ago

I hated school too, and I sympathise with your quest to "save" your kids from it. At the risk of presumption, I'd advise to be wary of overprojecting though. Different people have very different experiences, and your kids' may not be the same as your experience. Observe and react.

russh 5y ago
My high school experience is specifically one of the reasons I didn’t have kids. I wasn’t going to subject anyone to the shit I experienced in high school.
- Spooky23 5y ago
  You probably should talk to someone if it affected you that strongly.
  - mypalmike 5y ago
    I'm in the same boat, and at almost 50 years of age I never even slightly regret not having children. Now, who should I talk to?
    - dvtrn 5y ago
      No one. You made a personal reproductive choice, that should rightly be enough, shouldn't it?
    - Spooky23 5y ago
      That’s a personal choice that is yours to make. To me, the notion that school was so horrible that having children if off the table says that was a traumatic experience that hurts to this day. Not healthy to carry that. I say that as someone who was bullied in elementary school to the point that I was afraid to go outside or have my picture taken. People who cared intervened and helped me overcome that, and anyone in that situation deserves the same.

Jarwain 5y ago

I did a dual-enrollment program that was a normal ish 9th grade, and took college courses for 10-12th grade. Could see if there are similar programs in your area. More generally, magnet or charter programs kinda select for people who are interested in the program (and in some cases people forced in by their parents), which could provide a better environment

testesttest 5y ago
State program? What state?
- Jarwain 5y ago
  Kinda? It was in South Florida, but it was a test-lab school kinda program. My brother did an alternative where he could take some credits at the local CC, but it was still part of the standard high school experience. Seems a little closer to your experience in your other comment There was definitely more camaraderie among the students in the program I did, mainly because of being all stuck together in 9th grade and how Everyone ended up taking classes at the uni (oftentimes together, since there's a lot of overlap in undergrad programs).
  - testesttest 5y ago
    Yea, camaraderie would have been nice. Only 2 kids from my high school participated in the program. For financial reasons, I had to fully commit to college and couldn't do part time. Anyway, cool, I really liked the program and think it is a good option for some kids.

tropshop 5y ago

A submission not so long ago made it sound pretty straightforward: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26653788 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26653788

testesttest 5y ago

Lots of states have programs where you can go to college and earn highschool credit (duel credit). Alternatively, drop out, get a GED and go to college. This hard commits you to finishing college but I have a few friends that did it. I did the dual credit thing and avoided paying for a few years of college (state covered books and tuition). Be careful though, lots of kids aren't really ready to leave all their friends they have known for 10+ years. If you go to college at 16 you miss onboarding and the "college experience". In many ways you are alone. It fit me but not everyone.

dragonwriter 5y ago
> Lots of states have programs where you can go to college and earn highschool credit (duel credit). “Dual credit”. Duel credit might be available in New Jersey, though (everything is legal in New Jersey.)
- testesttest 5y ago
  Thats what you get on a phone :P

YZF 5y ago

My older daughter was 95% home schooled. She just graduated from university, top student. She did decide to take a few specific courses in high school when she was 16 but that was her choice, she never went full time to school. So you can totally do it, it can go great. Try and find a local community to be a part of. I should note that technically she has always been a distant learner which is a distinction made locally (British Columbia, Canada). She was enrolled in basically what is a school for home learners which counts a school but just acts as a support mechanism for home learners, you can do whatever you want. I have a younger daughter who was also mostly home schooled but is now attending high school full time by her choice. So she is taking a somewhat different path and she is a top student as well despite basically having never studied the previous curriculum. Our style of home schooling has been study whatever you're interested in, not following any specific curriculum.

nate_meurer 5y ago
What's your experience with homeschool curricula? Have you found any that you really like?
- YZF 5y ago
  Like I said we didn't really. We generally let the kids explore. Lots of reading, just everything. My older daughter spent some time studying how to perform magic tricks. She did a lot of art, jewelry, painting, sculptures. There is a local community that organized some activities like science fairs, various day trips etc.

mind-blight 5y ago

I got out of my junior and senior years by taking the GED and going straight to college. I think that benefitted me a lot more than just graduating college a couple years early. The environment was radically different and freeing. Teachers weren't babysitters. They wanted us to do well, but they weren't going to coddle us. I noticed that immediately, and it really changed how I approached my classes. I didn't have to be there if I didn't want to, so I really invested myself in a way that I don't think would be possible if I were being forced. In Oregon at least, colleges must consider a GED score over 600 equivalent to a high school diploma. I went to the local college (SOU) for one year to get a solid transcript, then used that to transfer to a state college (U of O). I'm really glad that I did

lordalch 5y ago
How were you able to take the GED exam at 16? I looked into doing this while I was in high school, and found that I wouldn't be able to take the exam until I was 19, defeating the point. Perhaps it varies by state? If so, I applaud Oregon for not forcing students into a daycare program for any longer than necessary. If I were a policymaker, I would even be comfortable with lowering the minimum age to 14 or lower.
- gedy 5y ago
  California at least has the CHSPE[0] which is 16+ [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_High_School_Proficiency_Exam https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_High_School_Profi...
  - dreadlordbone 5y ago
    I did it in 1999 when I was 15, immediately started working two different 4 hour jobs and stacked dosh.
- mind-blight 5y ago
  I'm not sure what the minimum age here is, but it never came up for me. The one thing I know was somewhat unique to Oregon at the time was making all public universities accept the GED

irrational 5y ago

It depends on where you live, but kids are not forced to attend in places where homeschooling is allowed. A homeschooling option where I live is you attend classes at a local community college. Once you have completed enough credits you get a GED diploma and an associates degree.

waheoo 5y ago

It depends how it goes. If they start wasting their time there I'll take them out, they can work or go to Polytech. If they are using their time wisely they can stay. It really doesn't make much sense to go an alternative route unless you need to. If they're at risk of dropping out and doing more harm than good, get them out of there.

rablackburn 5y ago
> …they can work or go to Polytech Sincere question: can they work? Does anywhere hire high-school aged kids for work that isn’t non-trivial/grunt work? If the goal is to not waste their time I can’t imagine working a casual job is more stimulating than being in a classroom. Maybe a year working casually would inspire them back to school the next year?
- IG_Semmelweiss 5y ago
  At that age , work is hardly a waste of time. You learn real world skills, the value of a dollar, work ethic, business processes, and get to build relationships and network with people of varied ages, unlike school. Plus, you learn the importance of the customer.
- waheoo 5y ago
  Not really about wasting their time, its about wasting their time at school and the likely drugs theyll take up if it continues long enough. I saw a lot of kids go on to higher education only to mostly waste it. They were there because their parents made them, not because they wanted to be there. I worked for a year before going to uni, after that, I really wanted to be there. Working sucked. I wanted a better job. When I hit uni, I was extremely motivated to learn.

roland35 5y ago

My high school offered a post secondary program. A student could go to a local university (Kent State in Ohio in our case) and take many of the general education classes you needed anyways. I wish I took advantage, it would have saved me some time in college! I think it was only for Juniors and seniors however.

jcims 5y ago
They still have something like this in Ohio, it’s called College Credit Plus: http://education.ohio.gov/Topics/Ohio-Education-Options/College-Credit-Plus http://education.ohio.gov/Topics/Ohio-Education-Options/Coll... It’s available through quite a few schools now i believe. My oldest only had half days her senior year in high school and entered college with enough credits to be a sophomore. It’s not particularly revolutionary but a nice option.

NateEag 5y ago

I was homeschooled up until college. I had finished standard high school course work by around sixteen, so my parents had me start taking CLEP tests. At seventeen, in what would have been my senior year of high school, I took a few classes at our local community college. Basically, even in the strictest states (I grew up in one of them), homeschooling is a good mechanism for opting out of the stupid parts of high school.

cgb223 5y ago
I’ve always been fascinated by Homeschooling and it’s outcomes How did you feel it affected your ability to learn social skills and have a friend group? Did your parents teach you or was there some kind of group of place you went to be homeschooled?
- BeFlatXIII 5y ago
  It’s not just homeschooled students who never figure out social skills or gain a stable friend group until college.
  - spoonjim 5y ago
    Sure but there’s a correlation. I don’t know if it’s causative though. The socially awkward kids getting bullied at public school are those that are most likely to get pulled out and homeschooled.
    - giantg2 5y ago
      Is there a correlation? The homeschooled kids I knew of weren't pulled out for bullies or any other issues.
      - spoonjim 5y ago
        Not necessarily bullies but who is a parent likely to pull out of school (ignoring the parents doing it for selfish reasons like religious extremism)? The kid who hates school and has no friends and sulks when it’s time to go or the kid who can’t wait to go and has tons of friends and is involved in school activities?

bsder 5y ago

> As the author, I don’t think that it should be banned, but I agree that kids should not be forced to attend. Here is the problem: high school is mostly not meant for those of us who wound up on HN. My father taught English for almost 4 decades in a US rural school district. His comments were: "I'm not really here for the good students. They'll do fine no matter what I do, so my job for them is to keep them engaged and moving forward. All I have to do is not kill their motivation." "I'm not really here for the worst students. I can't fix simply not doing the work or reveling in being stupid. I can't do much to fix a student's terrible home life other than providing a sympathetic ear and space for a little while." "I'm mostly here for the average students. They don't want to be here, would rather be doing anything else and will do as little as possible to skate through. If I can push a few of those to care just a little more and have just a bit of internal motivation, I've done a good job. For the rest, I set the average bar to the point that they have to learn what I want them to to get the grade they need to." "And I'm really here for a few of the below-average students. This is probably the last chance before they slide into being useless. Most of them have a bit of smarts, or they'd have slipped into the worst category long ago. They probably hang out with the wrong people. They get harassed if they accomplish something. Their home life is deteriorating. If I can reverse any of these, I've done a really good thing." "In the meantime, I teach English."

Swizec 5y ago
Here’s an anecdata: Many of my high school teachers put me squarely in the “too far gone to help” camp, others put me in the “lazy and unmotivated” camp ... but if I liked your class, if I respected you as a person, if you seemed like you knew what you were doing, then I became the “hot damn get out of their way this kid is a steamroller” kind. My English professor (2nd language) used to grade my essays with a dictionary because my vocabulary was so big, my coding professor said he can’t help but is happy to give me time and space to work on my opensource projects (for credit), my Slovenian professor (1st language) said it’s a shame I’m going to study CS because my essays are a joy to read and he always learns something new. But my chemistry professor? Straight F. German? D- It took me 5 years to finish high school and I had summer school every year except last. Because summer school senior year impacts when you can apply for college and I didn’t wanna risk that. And my grades at matura (kinda like the SAT) were higher than my high school GPA. Most of the time I was too busy coding all day and night to care about grades and I was definitely too cool for school.

aufhebung 5y ago

>for me a lot of the stress came from the hostility and bullying that the kids who did not want to be there In Australia students are allowed to drop out of school in year 10 (age 15-16) if they have work lined up. When all these people left my grade got much better.

nicwilson 5y ago
This was also available for people who were going into apprenticeships
XorNot 5y ago
The problem is the one's with rich parents don't leave. They're going nowhere in life, but they're at least vaguely aware of how much their life will radically decay if they stop giving the impression of progress to the purse-strings.

barry-cotter 5y ago

> I’ve been thinking a lot about how to help my kids skip high school, but I don’t quite know how to do it. I’ve enjoyed reading Bryan Caplan occasionally describe how he home schooled his children through middle school and high school[1]. It started off with middle school on the basis that no one cares at all about middle school grades or achievements, with them doing an AP exam a year. On trying out high school once they were off an age they decided to keep on homeschooling and just ramped up the pace on the APs, while ensuring there was daily Math learning and eventually independent research. Most of the posts discussing it are here[2]. [1] https://www.econlib.org/archives/2015/09/why_im_homescho.html https://www.econlib.org/archives/2015/09/why_im_homescho.htm... [2] https://search.econlib.org/search/#njDqBtLLytoDH9kCdAfS2ZJRlvI= https://search.econlib.org/search/#njDqBtLLytoDH9kCdAfS2ZJRl...

corndoge 5y ago

What if your kids want to date? Practically speaking, how are they going to meet people outside a high school environment? Might seem trivial but it's a formative set of years for learning courtship rituals. High school imparts a lot of non academic experience that are, I think, pretty important.