4 ms·

This is a natural consequence of the American myth/narrative that everyone is suited for academic high school and university. Other countries simply sort people

This is a natural consequence of the American myth/narrative that everyone is suited for academic high school and university. Other countries simply sort people into different schools much earlier, and spend the high school years teaching meaningful vocational skills to those not on the academic track, rather than wasting everyone's time.

sefrost 5y ago
Which countries do that and which countries don't?
- usrn 5y ago
  Germany famously does. Children are given a test and depending on the score they go to Gymnasium (in perpetration for university) or one of two other options which trains them for either trades or labor.
- brummm 5y ago
  Germany splits students into different schools starting 5th grade and it's absolutely great.
  - TulliusCicero 5y ago
    Deciding the future of your life in 4th grade (when students are evaluated in Bavaria, at least) is maybe not great. Was living in Munich for five years and I'm glad we left before our son got sorted. There's also a strong racial/class component to who gets into Hauptschule/Realschule/Gymnasium, surprise surprise.
    - Lev1a 5y ago
      Here in M-V I had to go through "Orientierungsstufe"¹ which I partly blame for my learning difficulties and anger issues later in school, since in those two years we later had to find out that we missed 1-1,5 years of material and/or learning methods depending on the subject. I mean... e.g. in Philosophy the teacher was absent for most of those two years resulting in us having to entertain ourselves for those "lessons". When we finally entered Gymnasium at 7th grade we received a culture shock when we had to learn the "Zauberlehrling" by Goethe in 1,5-2 weeks for recital in the first weeks. Realschule felt more like Kindergarten from the treatment by teachers like their attitude while teaching and them not being interested in bullying unless it turned really physical, then protected the bullies when the bullied hit back. What I'm saying is, as the slightly fat kid who also didn't get all the shiny new things from his parents I was bullied by a group of other students surrounding and harassing me almost every single day during breaks those incompetent "teachers" only had the "advice" to basically let the bullies tire themselves out from bullying but heaven forbid once trying to break out of the encirclement i tried to hit one of those bullying lowlives, the teachers descended like vultures isolating me in a room for the rest of the break questioning why I did that instead of "just ignoring the bullies". Those bullies never received any kind of discipline/punishment. Later in Gymnasium, I once had a very heated verbal altercation with a classmate within earshot of a teacher, we were taken aside, our parents called in for an evening sitdown that same week, there we resolved our differences with some guidance from a teacher and remain friends even now. Both schools were only staffed by older teachers with the youngest being late-40s/early-50s and several teachers retiring during my stay at the Gymnasium, so probably little to no influence from education during newer eras of teaching. Honestly I wish I could smack that idiot Brodkorb for all the stupid shit he did as education minister. ¹: no split after 4th grade, instead have everyone go through Realschule for 5th and 6th grade, only starting the split at grade 7.
      - TulliusCicero 5y ago
        I've heard pretty terrible things about Germany tolerating bullying, +1 for that count I guess.
      - Lev1a 5y ago
        Clarification (can't edit the above post anymore): > our parents called in should be our parents were called in
  - watwut 5y ago
    It is genuinly too soon.
- morelisp 5y ago
  In Germany you can be sorted into a Hauptschule around age 10. At this point you will definitely not get a university education via any usual path. Increasingly even "the trades" are closed off to graduates and people expect a Realschule (HS/GED equivalent) degree for those. I don't think university is appropriate for everyone and I dearly wish skilled trades had a higher position in society, and generally don't believe in the idea of "unskilled labor". But the German system is ultimately as cruel as the American one.
  - TulliusCicero 5y ago
    I don't think either system is great right now. From an American perspective, I really wish that there were still trade-type classes in high school, and those were more accepted as a viable career path at that stage of life for those who want it. One path could be partnerships with local community/technical colleges. My high school participated in a program called "Middle College" where high school students took classes at a local community college (can't remember if it was all or just some) and that seemed to work well.
- pmyteh 5y ago
  England mostly doesn't (though there's some local variation). Most secondary (11-16/18) schools are 'comprehensive', covering the full range of abilities. It is standard to set pupils by ability in most subjects, but uncommon to track/stream pupils by general ability across the whole curriculum. We previously ran a split system, with exams splitting pupils at 11 into academic ('grammar') and non-academic ('secondary modern') schools. Many grammar schools were good; most sec mods were awful. The exams also famously had pretty poor predictive power for underlying academic ability as an adult, so pathways had to be developed to allow bright pupils to go to higher education despite being mis-sorted in the original exam - which somewhat undermines the point of the system. Comprehensivisation has never been nationally mandated, but nearly all areas have now done away with academic selection at 11. The remaining holdouts are mostly suburban Conservative areas where political power is in the hands of the well-heeled upper middle classes who are strongly in favour of grammars (and expect their own children to go there). Interestingly, Margaret Thatcher (as Education Secretary under Heath) was responsible for more grammar school closures than Labour was. Vocational/academic choices are now being made at age 14 and 16 either within the secondary schools or by moving to local further education colleges (similar to US community colleges and trade schools). Vocational classes are low status. Britain no longer has a strong industrial sector to use such skills, and although both parties advocate for better vocational education essentially everyone who matters would be most unhappy if their darling children were diverted from a university track in the direction of trades. That's something they want other (poorer) people's children to do, not their own. We've never developed good vocational training for offices/services jobs, and although such courses do exist they're not taken particularly seriously by employers, despite several rounds of national reforms.
  - selimthegrim 5y ago
    I think Northern Ireland still does the 11+
- School-Cotton 5y ago
  France does.
OnlyMortal 5y ago
The Netherlands been an example.
frostburg 5y ago
I'm not sure it's merely that. Most vocational track high schools types (except the hotel / restaurant ones that are well designed) here in Italy are honestly bad, not really helping students reach their full potential, but the content of the courses isn't on-its-face farcical like that "data science" course. There are clearly decision makers detached from reality involved here.
brightball 5y ago
The approach makes sense. How are claims of bias within the process handled? That’s the only thing I can imagine from a similar system here.
- frostburg 5y ago
  At least here you can just go to the school that you want. People that don't like math or the idea of studying dead languages do not pick the lyceums. Obviously indirect social stratification is still at work in the process.
texaslonghorn5 5y ago
It's possible this is a good thing. Though it's also possible sorting too early determines someone's life path before they are mature to understand their talents and abilities. So I don't think early sorting is superior to the American model because at least the American model can uplift late bloomers.
- bigcat123 5y ago
- DoingIsLearning 5y ago
  A famous example of this that absolutely blew my mind is Uğur Şahin. For those not familiar, he is the founder of BioNTech, the German researchers who developed Pfizer's SARS-COV2 mRNA vaccine. Uğur moved from Turkey to Germany at age 4. At the end of primary school his teacher had assigned him to 'hauptschule'. It was only because of a neighbour's intervention that he was later put through 'Gymnasium' i.e. on track to study 'higher' studies. The rest is history, after med school he did a doctorate in Imunotherapy, he founded a 18billion revenue biotech company and saved countless lives with what we now call the Pfizer mRNA covid vaccine. Had that primary teacher's decision been held it really would have been a 'butterfly effect' of catastrophic proportions for Humanity.
  - School-Cotton 5y ago
    You don't know the counterfactual, though: how many Americans' talent is wasted because they are forced to sit through watered-down school until age 18 before they can begin serious studies?
    - DoingIsLearning 5y ago
      Absolutely fair. This one example just stuck with me when I read it because of how serindipitous his mRNA research turned out to be during an all out worldwide pandemic.
    - Czarcasm 5y ago
zozbot234 5y ago
Unfortunately, tracking is awful for the low-track students because guess what, no self-respecting teacher wants to be stuck teaching underperformers. So the students are trapped in that situation, being taught by terrible teachers who don't actually care for their educational achievement, and unable to improve. You see those outcomes across the board, including in the celebrated German system of academic vs. vocational school tracks. Yes, there are ways to cross through to the highest tracks, but very few students can avail themselves of those practically.
- alimov 5y ago
  > “…no self-respecting teacher wants to be stuck teaching underperformers.” If you look at people that are not academically inclined and call them under performers then maybe that’s part of the issue. I think everyone has strengths and weaknesses, and if someone is more inclined to do vocational training rather than the standard track I think their strengths and interests should be developed / encouraged. An educator teaching someone that is actually interested in what they are being taught sounds like a more rewarding experience than lecturing a class where maybe 5 of 40 (not an actual stat) students are actually engaged.
  - zozbot234 5y ago
    > If you look at people that are not academically inclined and call them under performers then maybe that’s part of the issue. It's not me doing that, it's education schools telling prospective teachers that their students will just be "learning their math by themselves", and the teachers can simply be facilitators. It must be a comfy job teaching math class to little Carl Friedrich Gauss and the like, but what about the remaining 99% of students - who will need actual teaching?
    - alimov 5y ago
      Sorry, I should have worded that better.
  - pessimizer 5y ago
    It's not whether people are more suited for vocational or "standard track." It's our aptitude for judging that in children.
micromacrofoot 5y ago
I've talked to some high school students about going to college despite high costs, and there was a general fear (statistically backed) that they would make less over their lifetimes without a degree and that not going to college would put them in a worse position to do basic things like buy a house as costs continue to rise.
Bostonian 5y ago
Yes, but if you do sort students by academic achievement, you will send a smaller fraction of blacks and Hispanics to academic high schools than whites, and a smaller fraction of whites than Asians, since there are differences in academic achievement by race. I say so be it, but currently many people assume that disparate outcomes prove racism.
- adamomada 5y ago
  The irony of course is that focusing on who they are not what they do has to be more racist by a rational definition
  - throwawayboise 5y ago
    If it's based on ability, it should not matter what percentage of advanced students are white, black, asian, or other. All that matters is that if you're good enough, you get in.
tshaddox 5y ago
That doesn't explain what has changed within American public education, if it's true what the parent commenter said: "large swaths of the student population will fail if expected to perform at the prior standards of rigor"
ghostbrainalpha 5y ago
How do they deal with the late bloomers? I didn't really find my academic ability, and programming until I was in my twenties.
- saint_fiasco 5y ago
  How did they deal with you, if I may ask? Is there something you wish they had done differently?

sefrost 5y ago

Which countries do that and which countries don't?

usrn 5y ago
Germany famously does. Children are given a test and depending on the score they go to Gymnasium (in perpetration for university) or one of two other options which trains them for either trades or labor.
brummm 5y ago
Germany splits students into different schools starting 5th grade and it's absolutely great.
- TulliusCicero 5y ago
  Deciding the future of your life in 4th grade (when students are evaluated in Bavaria, at least) is maybe not great. Was living in Munich for five years and I'm glad we left before our son got sorted. There's also a strong racial/class component to who gets into Hauptschule/Realschule/Gymnasium, surprise surprise.
  - Lev1a 5y ago
    Here in M-V I had to go through "Orientierungsstufe"¹ which I partly blame for my learning difficulties and anger issues later in school, since in those two years we later had to find out that we missed 1-1,5 years of material and/or learning methods depending on the subject. I mean... e.g. in Philosophy the teacher was absent for most of those two years resulting in us having to entertain ourselves for those "lessons". When we finally entered Gymnasium at 7th grade we received a culture shock when we had to learn the "Zauberlehrling" by Goethe in 1,5-2 weeks for recital in the first weeks. Realschule felt more like Kindergarten from the treatment by teachers like their attitude while teaching and them not being interested in bullying unless it turned really physical, then protected the bullies when the bullied hit back. What I'm saying is, as the slightly fat kid who also didn't get all the shiny new things from his parents I was bullied by a group of other students surrounding and harassing me almost every single day during breaks those incompetent "teachers" only had the "advice" to basically let the bullies tire themselves out from bullying but heaven forbid once trying to break out of the encirclement i tried to hit one of those bullying lowlives, the teachers descended like vultures isolating me in a room for the rest of the break questioning why I did that instead of "just ignoring the bullies". Those bullies never received any kind of discipline/punishment. Later in Gymnasium, I once had a very heated verbal altercation with a classmate within earshot of a teacher, we were taken aside, our parents called in for an evening sitdown that same week, there we resolved our differences with some guidance from a teacher and remain friends even now. Both schools were only staffed by older teachers with the youngest being late-40s/early-50s and several teachers retiring during my stay at the Gymnasium, so probably little to no influence from education during newer eras of teaching. Honestly I wish I could smack that idiot Brodkorb for all the stupid shit he did as education minister. ¹: no split after 4th grade, instead have everyone go through Realschule for 5th and 6th grade, only starting the split at grade 7.
    - TulliusCicero 5y ago
      I've heard pretty terrible things about Germany tolerating bullying, +1 for that count I guess.
    - Lev1a 5y ago
      Clarification (can't edit the above post anymore): > our parents called in should be our parents were called in
- watwut 5y ago
  It is genuinly too soon.
morelisp 5y ago
In Germany you can be sorted into a Hauptschule around age 10. At this point you will definitely not get a university education via any usual path. Increasingly even "the trades" are closed off to graduates and people expect a Realschule (HS/GED equivalent) degree for those. I don't think university is appropriate for everyone and I dearly wish skilled trades had a higher position in society, and generally don't believe in the idea of "unskilled labor". But the German system is ultimately as cruel as the American one.
- TulliusCicero 5y ago
  I don't think either system is great right now. From an American perspective, I really wish that there were still trade-type classes in high school, and those were more accepted as a viable career path at that stage of life for those who want it. One path could be partnerships with local community/technical colleges. My high school participated in a program called "Middle College" where high school students took classes at a local community college (can't remember if it was all or just some) and that seemed to work well.
pmyteh 5y ago
England mostly doesn't (though there's some local variation). Most secondary (11-16/18) schools are 'comprehensive', covering the full range of abilities. It is standard to set pupils by ability in most subjects, but uncommon to track/stream pupils by general ability across the whole curriculum. We previously ran a split system, with exams splitting pupils at 11 into academic ('grammar') and non-academic ('secondary modern') schools. Many grammar schools were good; most sec mods were awful. The exams also famously had pretty poor predictive power for underlying academic ability as an adult, so pathways had to be developed to allow bright pupils to go to higher education despite being mis-sorted in the original exam - which somewhat undermines the point of the system. Comprehensivisation has never been nationally mandated, but nearly all areas have now done away with academic selection at 11. The remaining holdouts are mostly suburban Conservative areas where political power is in the hands of the well-heeled upper middle classes who are strongly in favour of grammars (and expect their own children to go there). Interestingly, Margaret Thatcher (as Education Secretary under Heath) was responsible for more grammar school closures than Labour was. Vocational/academic choices are now being made at age 14 and 16 either within the secondary schools or by moving to local further education colleges (similar to US community colleges and trade schools). Vocational classes are low status. Britain no longer has a strong industrial sector to use such skills, and although both parties advocate for better vocational education essentially everyone who matters would be most unhappy if their darling children were diverted from a university track in the direction of trades. That's something they want other (poorer) people's children to do, not their own. We've never developed good vocational training for offices/services jobs, and although such courses do exist they're not taken particularly seriously by employers, despite several rounds of national reforms.
- selimthegrim 5y ago
  I think Northern Ireland still does the 11+
School-Cotton 5y ago
France does.

OnlyMortal 5y ago

The Netherlands been an example.

frostburg 5y ago

I'm not sure it's merely that. Most vocational track high schools types (except the hotel / restaurant ones that are well designed) here in Italy are honestly bad, not really helping students reach their full potential, but the content of the courses isn't on-its-face farcical like that "data science" course. There are clearly decision makers detached from reality involved here.

brightball 5y ago

The approach makes sense. How are claims of bias within the process handled? That’s the only thing I can imagine from a similar system here.

frostburg 5y ago
At least here you can just go to the school that you want. People that don't like math or the idea of studying dead languages do not pick the lyceums. Obviously indirect social stratification is still at work in the process.

texaslonghorn5 5y ago

It's possible this is a good thing. Though it's also possible sorting too early determines someone's life path before they are mature to understand their talents and abilities. So I don't think early sorting is superior to the American model because at least the American model can uplift late bloomers.

bigcat123 5y ago
DoingIsLearning 5y ago
A famous example of this that absolutely blew my mind is Uğur Şahin. For those not familiar, he is the founder of BioNTech, the German researchers who developed Pfizer's SARS-COV2 mRNA vaccine. Uğur moved from Turkey to Germany at age 4. At the end of primary school his teacher had assigned him to 'hauptschule'. It was only because of a neighbour's intervention that he was later put through 'Gymnasium' i.e. on track to study 'higher' studies. The rest is history, after med school he did a doctorate in Imunotherapy, he founded a 18billion revenue biotech company and saved countless lives with what we now call the Pfizer mRNA covid vaccine. Had that primary teacher's decision been held it really would have been a 'butterfly effect' of catastrophic proportions for Humanity.
- School-Cotton 5y ago
  You don't know the counterfactual, though: how many Americans' talent is wasted because they are forced to sit through watered-down school until age 18 before they can begin serious studies?
  - DoingIsLearning 5y ago
    Absolutely fair. This one example just stuck with me when I read it because of how serindipitous his mRNA research turned out to be during an all out worldwide pandemic.
  - Czarcasm 5y ago

zozbot234 5y ago

Unfortunately, tracking is awful for the low-track students because guess what, no self-respecting teacher wants to be stuck teaching underperformers. So the students are trapped in that situation, being taught by terrible teachers who don't actually care for their educational achievement, and unable to improve. You see those outcomes across the board, including in the celebrated German system of academic vs. vocational school tracks. Yes, there are ways to cross through to the highest tracks, but very few students can avail themselves of those practically.

alimov 5y ago
> “…no self-respecting teacher wants to be stuck teaching underperformers.” If you look at people that are not academically inclined and call them under performers then maybe that’s part of the issue. I think everyone has strengths and weaknesses, and if someone is more inclined to do vocational training rather than the standard track I think their strengths and interests should be developed / encouraged. An educator teaching someone that is actually interested in what they are being taught sounds like a more rewarding experience than lecturing a class where maybe 5 of 40 (not an actual stat) students are actually engaged.
- zozbot234 5y ago
  > If you look at people that are not academically inclined and call them under performers then maybe that’s part of the issue. It's not me doing that, it's education schools telling prospective teachers that their students will just be "learning their math by themselves", and the teachers can simply be facilitators. It must be a comfy job teaching math class to little Carl Friedrich Gauss and the like, but what about the remaining 99% of students - who will need actual teaching?
  - alimov 5y ago
    Sorry, I should have worded that better.
- pessimizer 5y ago
  It's not whether people are more suited for vocational or "standard track." It's our aptitude for judging that in children.

micromacrofoot 5y ago

I've talked to some high school students about going to college despite high costs, and there was a general fear (statistically backed) that they would make less over their lifetimes without a degree and that not going to college would put them in a worse position to do basic things like buy a house as costs continue to rise.

Bostonian 5y ago

Yes, but if you do sort students by academic achievement, you will send a smaller fraction of blacks and Hispanics to academic high schools than whites, and a smaller fraction of whites than Asians, since there are differences in academic achievement by race. I say so be it, but currently many people assume that disparate outcomes prove racism.

adamomada 5y ago
The irony of course is that focusing on who they are not what they do has to be more racist by a rational definition
- throwawayboise 5y ago
  If it's based on ability, it should not matter what percentage of advanced students are white, black, asian, or other. All that matters is that if you're good enough, you get in.

tshaddox 5y ago

That doesn't explain what has changed within American public education, if it's true what the parent commenter said: "large swaths of the student population will fail if expected to perform at the prior standards of rigor"

ghostbrainalpha 5y ago

How do they deal with the late bloomers? I didn't really find my academic ability, and programming until I was in my twenties.

saint_fiasco 5y ago
How did they deal with you, if I may ask? Is there something you wish they had done differently?