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Sometimes parents don't care. You realize that right? Sometimes parents fall into the same traps and don't help in opening up doors for their children. This is

• abraxasz 14y ago
  You seem to be exclusively concerned with those "late bloomers" who have both their parents and the system against them. Now: 1) Like the parent's comment said, nobody's trying to prevent these kids from succeeding. It's the role of the education system to detect these kids, and have them transfer if necessary to the most appropriate section. 2) You don't seem to care about the brightest students whose potential is dampened by being bored in class, and who end up not going to the best colleges because they didn't push themselves as a result. Nor do you seem to care about those who don't want, or don't have the abilities to go to college and who have to spend years being miserable, lagging behind the rest of the group.
  • lilsunnybee 14y ago
    Also what about the kids that would bebefit from vocational training, but because they receive none are forced to take minimum wage jobs after high school, or after dropping out of college. Also i graduated with honors from a state university, and only wish i could earn the type of income those in vocational jobs do.
    • dinkumthinkum 14y ago
      I think this is very misleading, If you want to go into one of those vocational positions are receive training in them, what barriers do you really have? Whatever they are, I assure, the barriers are much more for the reverse. If you have graduated with honors from a university, I think becoming a welder is well within your spectrum of opportunities. Also, while you may like propping up this argument or bring up some rich plumber that owns his own business, I think this dismisses people in these positions that barely earn a living enough to support their families. I feel like we are being very coy about this.
  • dinkumthinkum 14y ago
    I think this group potentially represents a very large percentage of kids. I think this group represents a large amount of adults currently "stuck" in their situations, now. For #1, I think the education system has failed these kids in a very significant manner. Again, I think a large amount of people that feel there is no way out of labor jobs (and no this is not a slight against labor or a propping up of similar dead end jobs in offices but if you think everyone vocation jobs are content with what options their educational circumstances have given them, I think you may be delusional). As for #2.1, I never claimed that at all. I do not claim that students should not be able to have separate sections to allow more advanced students to move at a brisk pace. I simply claim we should not throw the other kids out of the academic track and into a vocational track; this is a completely different issue. One point is about pace and the other is about not being on the track at all. As for the last point, we're not talking about deep analyses of Kant and Hegel or quantum physics here. We are talking about high school, if I remember correctly. Many kids are miserable in high schools because of factors much different from being forced to read Animal Farm or having to factor quadratic equations. Further, if you don't think there are clear skews toward vocational tracks from particular socioeconomic classes or you think that is just so happens that those kids from those classes are exactly those that should be in vocational tracks then I don't think you really understand the matter at all. I think it is interesting on HN when we see views about how "everyone should learn to program" or things like "we need to prepare for knowledge based economy and citizenry" or "labor jobs will be replaced by robots" we get one common theme of views but when this issue of splitting tweens and teens into educational tracks that will affect the rest of their lives we get this popular divergent view as the norm; seems like a very interesting "contradiction."
• just2n 14y ago
  So why can't it be an ongoing thing? Counselors are a thing, and should help a student through the process and decide for themselves whether their placement is right for them. It should never be a "this is what you're taking, period!" If a student feels like school is too easy, they should be encouraged to make it known and be moved to something more appropriate for them. If it's too hard, the same applies. And if the parent does want to get involved, then it should be at the discretion of the counselor whether or not the student or parent's request should be met. This way we have a filter against parents who would otherwise impede their children for any given reason. I don't think the honors/AP thing is silly. I think it's a system that tries very much to do (without too much success) what I am suggesting here. You have a swath of classes that are honors-level, and a swath that are AP-level above that, and then the normal classes. I wasn't AP-level in everything, nor was I honors-level in everything. It was a clear mix. But it's very much non-standard and very awkwardly done right now. Now, no one is claiming there should be a stigma on a lower level at all. Just because someone is at AP-level (for lack of a better name at the moment) in a subject and would do well at a higher end university studying that subject doesn't mean someone who's not even at the honors level wouldn't also be able to go to the same school for the same subject a few years later when they're actually ready for it. I feel awkward about the whole highschool -> college thing. It's just about continued education. College isn't necessarily "higher" education, as it could very much be an extension of high school for later bloomers. As a society, I believe we think about these things all wrong, and we put stigmas where there should be none. But I do agree that there should be some way for students to be protected from indifferent, apathetic, or malicious parents.