19 ms·

Let's Abolish High School

132 points by absconditus 17y ago

mannicken 17y ago
Limited to yard work/baby sitting/uninteresting jobs? Where exactly? After I turned 16 I enrolled in a community college, fully paid by high school, using a local dual enrollment program. When I was 15 I started working as a C++ developer, which was quite fun. Yes, I was a freak and still am a completely asocial misanthrope. But no one is limited -- it is solely by choice (and probably fear of the unknown) that children stay in high school.
- jmillikin 17y ago
  In many locations, employment of minors (< 18 years old) is limited to family businesses.
  - mannicken 17y ago
    Here (USA, Washington state) we have major limitations and it's hard to employ minors. Signing contracts, however, isn't hard and so I worked as an independent contractor (1099) :)
- TallGuyShort 17y ago
  >> it is solely by choice (and probably fear of the unknown) Or because of the social benefits. You state that you consider your former self a freak, and consider your current self a completely asocial misanthrope. I was following a very similar path to you, but realized that I was on my way to being a social outcast. To me, being a C++ programmer was not my purpose in life (although it was a very interesting field I ended up making my career). A great deal of what I see as the "purpose of life" consists of those social relationships. If I didn't have those, C++ wouldn't make me happy, so what would be the point of it all? I don't mean to sound argumentative - I'm just pointing out that although I was capable of doing more, I chose to stay close to my own age group because of a legitimate quality-of-life benefit. You did state that it's by choice, but I think that's an aspect a lot of people don't consider, especially the author in question.
  - ShabbyDoo 17y ago
    It is only because high school is the default that those who choose other options feel isolated. Those >25 usually find friends without resorting to spending most of their day in the same overcrowded fishbowl. If 16 year-olds were spread out across various activities, they would make the effort to find each other, but it's easy to exclude those few kids who aren't seen at their lockers everyday when school is the norm.
makmanalp 17y ago
I like the ;?> on the top left. The title is a little misleading, the article is actually much more rational than the title sounds. I’m a father of four children, and about 10 years ago I noticed—I couldn’t help but notice—that my 15-year-old son was remarkably mature. He balanced work and play far better than I did, and he seemed quite ready to live on his own. For parents that help educate their children, stimulate their interest and set an example this might be so, but for others, school might be a better alternative.
- ErrantX 17y ago
  Agreed. I know if I, for example, had been let loose on the world at 15 things would have turned out BAD.
  - frossie 17y ago
    Yeah. It's a damage limitation exercise - sure, some kids are mature enough to run their own lives at 15, but many are not - and you can screw your life far more comprehensively by making bad choices at 15 than at 25 (or 35 or 45). My impression is that kids that are that mature at 15 find non-school ways to improve their lives/skills/education. The rest need the extra time (and of course for some, no amount of time is enough).
  - jerf 17y ago
    Did you go to normal school? A lot of people in this discussion are trying to use the product of the putatively broken system (themselves or others they know) to prove that the putatively broken system must be left in place. This is simply begging the question (in the original sense), not an argument. Edit: Fine, I'll spell it out. You can't counter an argument that says we have a system that is generating excessively dysfunctional 15-year-olds by pointing out that the 15-year olds generated by the system are excessively dysfunctional, and then follow it up with the conclusion that therefore we need the current system. That doesn't disprove the point, because the point in the first place is that the system is broken. You can cite millions of examples of actions taken by publicly-schooled 15-year-olds that were stupid, but none of them actually provide any useful information about the argument. My post here isn't an argument either way about the issue; it's just simple logic. Arguing that of course 15-year olds are stupid and need to be in school is begging the question, or circular logic, and an invalid argument. It doesn't prove anything either way, it's not even evidence either way. Modding it down doesn't change that. This isn't all spelled out in the exact post I'm replying to, but this bad logic is shot through this entire comment thread.
tokenadult 17y ago
There is a lot that independent learning by teenagers can do to help them grow faster and more happily. My son likes Project Euler http://projecteuler.net/ http://projecteuler.net/ as a framework for practicing computer programming related to pure mathematics, and runs his own literary discussion website both to learn about online community administration (including coding site features) and about creative writing. The most annoying aspects of his teen years, for him and for me, have been his closest approaches to "high school" experiences. Senior year of high school for him should be mostly dual enrollment at our friendly state university and a distance learning course in advanced microeconomics.
- scott_s 17y ago
  Is he not allowed to do that? I grew up in Virginia, and two of my friends chose to spend their senior years of high school by taking classes at a local university or the local community college. (They were, in fact, brother and sister and had spent six years in Denmark as the children of foreign service officers. They did not take well to American high school.)
  - tokenadult 17y ago
    Is he not allowed to do that? The dual enrollment is allowed here (one must apply to the college that offers the dual enrollment classes). This choice is not used by as many students as could benefit from it. Many seek the "socialization" of high school. Yeesh.
TravisLS 17y ago
There was a post on HN some time back from former house speaker Newt Gingrich, who is a fairly outspoken advocate on this issue: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_45/b4107085289974.htm http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_45/b41070852...
bufordtwain 17y ago
"and he had no choice but to attend high school for several more years" This is a very common misconception. It's quite possible and legal in many (most?) US states to remove a child from school and keep them home to let them learn at their own pace.
- absconditus 17y ago
  http://www.hslda.org/laws/default.asp http://www.hslda.org/laws/default.asp
  - absconditus 17y ago
    NY for instance seems rather restrictive: http://www.hslda.org/laws/analysis/New_York.pdf http://www.hslda.org/laws/analysis/New_York.pdf
- trafficlight 17y ago
  This worked for me and I am definitely better off than if I had stayed in high school. That said, most kids, don't have the necessary drive and motivation to make this work.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
markbao 17y ago
> Teenagers are inherently highly capable young adults I'm currently a teenager. This is mostly false. -- On a serious note, interesting idea. It won't happen, since the US education system (and the public sector in general) is not open to, well, any kind of change. But as the founder of 9 startups, high school wasn't a huge help for me in any ways other than somewhere to socialize. However, this is the special case. High school works decently enough for the rest of the 95%. Dropping out is not an option. You 100% will have a much harder time with acceptance with most colleges (and asian parents.)
- absconditus 17y ago
  "High school works decently enough for the rest of the 95%." Toward what end? Babysitting teenagers? Forcing people to memorize information that they forget a day after the final exam?
  - markbao 17y ago
    The way I see it, high school doesn't really teach content, it teaches learning, which we've been learning (cout << recursive_meta_joke) for about eight years now. The second thing that high school gives is a one-year introduction to the various careers that can be taken on. For example, I notice one thing with many of the people I talk to, to this regard: high school is where the transition from "YEAH MAN, I'm going to be a pro athlete when I grow up dude" to "I thought physiology was pretty cool in bio class, so I'm going to go and do premed." But of course, this doesn't work for a lot of people. It doesn't work with me, because I've personally already have found my passion (and it has been for three years.) It also didn't work for Richard Branson. Everyone complains about high school. And there's definitely a lot of rote memorization. But for some people, they might not gain this important "oh, this is actually pretty cool" moment.
    - jacoblyles 17y ago
      Those of us who went to school in old North Carolina tobacco towns did not learn how to learn in High School.
    - 17y ago
scott_s 17y ago
The assertion that teenagers have an 'immature' brain that necessarily causes turmoil is completely invalidated when we look at anthropological research from around the world. That children and teens have an immature brain is supported by biological research: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1899715 http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1899715 http://harvardmagazine.com/2008/09/the-teen-brain.html http://harvardmagazine.com/2008/09/the-teen-brain.html http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/09/15/health/20080915-brain-development.html http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/09/15/health/2008091... I was not happy in high school (only ten years ago), so I think efforts to improve that period of people's lives are well spent. But I can't support something that starts from what I consider a faulty premise, which is the assumption that children and teens are miniature adults.
- thewiglaf 17y ago
  But that's not the point. People with brains that are still developing are perfectly capable of functioning in 'adult' society. Many teenagers, and perhaps society as a whole, would benefit it we allowed those willing young people to make 'adult' contributions.
  - scott_s 17y ago
    Your point is too nebulous for me to know what you're really trying to say. What do you mean by "functioning in 'adult' society"? What, specifically, do you think should be different? My point is that teenagers are mentally not adults, and as such, they should not be in the same place as society as adults. I'm not saying they should be completely divorced from it, but I worry when people claim that the concept of a "teenager" is completely a cultural construction. Neurological research indicates it is not.
    - thewiglaf 17y ago
      I'm agreeing that they are different. I'm merely stating that the physical and neurological differences are not enough to legislate what young people can and can't do. Society will always view young people as inexperienced, and those youngsters who haven't proven themselves will always have their place in society. What would I make different? Not that it's practical (or even non-nebulous), but I would restore the "child-adult continuum" that the article mentions, because I agree with the author when he says the age-based restrictions tend to delay the onset of real, actual, adulthood. Which is bad.
sgoraya 17y ago
Whatever happened to the idea of an 'apprenticeship'? Not all teenagers want to pursue 'traditional' studies and would be much better off learning a specific trade or craft that they are interested in.
hackinthebochs 17y ago
I believe this is true. Children are adults-in-training and need to be treated as such. Yet we create these unnatural environments and wonder why teenagers act so irresponsibly. And when they finally do become "adults", they can't function as adults. I believe the majority of teenagers will rise to the responsibility given to them, if it is genuine. You can't expect them to act responsibly on one hand but then subtly treat them as nothing more than overgrown children.
sound2man 17y ago
Basically what they are proposing is the system of education currently in use in Germany. Once you hit high school you have the choice of preparing for a white or blue collar job. Blue collar jobs gets you out of school and into an apprenticeship at 15 or 16, white collar gets you into high school, or further education at least. Seems to work quite well.
robryan 17y ago
I think if a 15 year old was put into the position of having to make adult decisions and behave like an adult they would be perfectly capable. It's just that they either don't have the chance or given the option, prefer to cruse through and muck around for as long as possible before being force to get serious.
- evgen 17y ago
  The objective reality of the sort of decisions made by fifteen year-oldsters on a routine basis show this to be demonstably false.
  - absconditus 17y ago
    The point that many of us are attempting to make is that this is so because of how we currently treat teenagers. When you treat someone like a child they tend to act like a child.
    - stavrianos 17y ago
      I've known a couple of people who grew up too fast, and that can be kind of ugly sometimes. I'm all in favor of the emancipation of children and the abolishment of school, but atta same time, there's gotta be some kinda line.
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
  - whatusername 17y ago
    The objective reality of the soft of decisions made by twenty-five or thirty-five year oldsters on a routine basis shows that we have a problem. Extending childhood is not the answer.
- grandalf 17y ago
  I think you're right. I recall noticing that after I turned 12 my approach to situations was fundamentally adultlike... I don't think I've changed much cognitively since then either... Just the slow accretion of experience, etc. I did learn how to be more self-actualized, etc. since then, since a good portion of even the best K-6 education constitutes obedience training... which I had to unlearn.
sridharvembu 17y ago
I came to the same conclusion (based on my own experience in teenage, and observations later) that there is a lot of talent waiting to be tapped in teenage years, and treating teenagers respectfully as young adults and giving them responsibility is good for them and good for society. That is one of the reasons we like to hire 17 year olds in Zoho and combine education with work. Labor laws won't let us hire any sooner, but if it were my own family members, I would hire them sooner.
- 3pt14159 17y ago
  That is amazing. I work for the competition (FreshBooks) but I would have relished working right out of high school in a high tech position. Good on ya.
lionhearted 17y ago
It's not a terribly good use of time for people who actually like to learn. I dropped out of two high schools, including a gifted and talented program - who the hell knows how I got into that one, but I dropped it as well. It really seemed like obedience school to me - capricious, arbitrary, with a focus on discipline and not on learning. A number of times, I would fail a class where I was in the top five most talented people in it. I didn't see much point in doing what they prescribed - I'd rather go explore the world or play around on a computer or read books or go make some money. I left home at 16, and eventually wound up graduating high school by going into an adult learning center at age 17 or so. I said, "I am fully emancipated, and living as an adult. I would like to complete the adult program." After some talking with a very nice fellow and being politely evasive, he agreed. I took a series of competency exams, completed the silliest multiple choice packet of American history I've ever seen, and I was awarded a diploma. I went and took the standardized tests and got into university. They were kind enough to loan or grant me almost my full tuition, though I dropped out of university once as well. Same reasons. Anywho, with a quick perusal of history, it's pretty obvious that maturity does not come from age, it comes from having unique experiences and learning from them. If you see someone who is forced to become "head of household" at a young age due to parents illness and cares for his/her siblings, they are very mature and adultlike even in their mid-teens. Likewise, people dragged into a war move differently, with less naivete - characteristics you'd usually see in someone in their 40's. There's kids in their mid-20's with that look. At least, that's the hypothesis I made: Unique experiences and learning from them = maturity. So I set out to have a lot of unique experiences, and I think I did rather a good job. I've had an interesting, enjoyable life. The only part I regret is wasting my age 13/14/15/16 years in middle school and high school. I had some fun with extracurricular activities and friends, but I could have done something so much more interesting during the actual classtime. Yuck. One in particular that made me wake up when I read it was Tokugawa Ieyasu. He was third of Japan's great unifiers. In the 1600's, he founded the Tokugawa Shogunate - his family ruined in almost complete peace for 250 years after one of the most lawless and brutal times in Japanese history. Ieyasu married for the first time at age 13 or 14, and was Captain of a small division of troops around the 14/15 years. He did a pretty admirable job of it, grew up fast, and the rest is history. But I think the flipside is true, too - if you don't let someone have responsibility, if you treat them like a child, they'll stay childlike and immature. Being an American who has traveled, I see people who are age 26-28 who are barely capable of functioning in the world, and I sometimes see people age 14-18 doing amazing things. This could be the norm, if we wanted it to. I had a 17 year old fellow apply to work for me - he was half-generation American, if I've got the terminology right - he immigrated here with his parents around age 10 or so. I didn't wind up hiring him, but I became a mentor to him. We'd go get tea or coffee every couple weeks and I'd give him some generally no-BS advise. A very good guy, he's done some really impressive things in a short period of time - all he had to do was shake off the reigns and shackles, but that is harder than it sounds to do. At least in the average American school, they punish you swiftly, thoroughly, and publicly if you try to abstain or dare to question them. There's the occasional good teacher - I had maybe a dozen excellent professional teachers in my life, which I count myself quite lucky to have had. But the rest? Well, I guess we shouldn't be too hard on them. They're just doing what they were taught, too.
leecho0 17y ago
>John Taylor Gatto has long warned about the dangers of artificially extending childhood, and has blamed our schools for damaging families and stifling creativity and a love of learning. I think it's ridiculous that it is now normal (or actually preferable) now to be in school until you are done with 1/4 to 1/3 of your life without seeing what "the real world" was like. This means the average person won't be able to do anything significant until they have already wasted their best years in school and low level positions. I can get decent grades pretty easily (much like many people here) and so slacking off and procrastination was just a smart way of using my time. Now that I think I'm of the age where I can make something of myself, I need to unlearn a lot of the bad habits learned in school in order to get things done. Many smart, ambitious people I know do not try to start independant projects because they are still "just students," but then go on to do amazing things after graduating and finding their purpose in life. Much of this can be prevented with an early firsthand exposure to a life outside of the artificial punishment and reward system of school. Chances are, even after reform people will probably still go on the same path -- highschool, college, graduate school, but they will have a much better reason to do well, since it will be what they chose to do.
mattmaroon 17y ago
I largely agree with his conclusion, but don't like it when people point out history to support it. Sure kids didn't have to go to school in 1850, but black people and women couldn't vote, most people didn't have indoor plumbing (let alone electricity), slavery was still legal. The fact that kids didn't have to go to school back then is not at all an argument in support of them not doing so now and should be left out of a serious essay in favor of that position.
PostOnce 17y ago
High schools are so unreliable here that we need an AA degree to compensate for it.
arundelo 17y ago
See also Grace Llewellyn's Teenage Liberation Handbook: http://www.amazon.com/Teenage-Liberation-Handbook-School-Education/dp/0962959170/ http://www.amazon.com/Teenage-Liberation-Handbook-School-Edu...
xexers 17y ago
I completely agree with this point and I wish he went into more detail about it: "Finally, a wealth of data shows that when young people are given meaningful responsibility and meaningful contact with adults, they quickly rise to the challenge, and their inner adult emerges."
b-man 17y ago
In case anyone is curious, there are proposals for systems that respect the individual, are libertarian and are passive in the sense that the individual is the active part, choosing when, how, and what he will learn. Take a look at this article of mine for instance http://cnxs.com.br/posts/an-emergent-participatory-design-framework-for-higher-education http://cnxs.com.br/posts/an-emergent-participatory-design-fr... .
fburnaby 17y ago
Maybe it isn't all about your profession. Maybe you should try to know some of the basics taught in high school in order to be a good citizen. Not to say that the high school I went to wasn't a waste of time, but that doesn't mean high school has to be a waste of time. People are good at being smug, and thinking they know everything. The best way to realize that there's actually some depth to a topic is to study it a bit. Since (from reading other comments here) none of us would have wanted to learn some of these topics, maybe we'd all still think that those other topics are all a stupid waste of time, and people who do them are also useless.
steveplace 17y ago
Without yet reading the actual post, let me put my thoughts in there. After the age of 16, make school non-compulsory. At the end of the 10th grade year, have everyone take the GED/ACT/SAT and if they get a threshold level, congrats, you can now move on. So when kids start misbehaving, you don't have to keep them there.
ColemanF 17y ago
Eliminating high school would cut the amount of taxes needed for public schooling, and would instead increase tax revenue by putting more people in the workforce. Not to mention that a more experienced (real-world experience) workforce might be more productive.
teeja 17y ago
If you get a crappy education in HS, despite your abilities, you're far behind your peers who got a very good one. Whether you then apply yourself in college, you remain behind those people because they keep on keepin on. That's not so true today as it once was for kids who have access to the internet. If you've got a hunger to learn, there's plenty of fodder. My life would have been quite different if I'd had the net to learn from. As to whether it's necessary depends on what you feel life is all about, and/or what real talents (not addressed by mainstream ed) you have. Highly self-motivated people (or who fortune smiles on) can usualy live without HS. Most of the rest of us need it to cope in an ever-more-complex world.

132 points by absconditus 17y ago

Limited to yard work/baby sitting/uninteresting jobs? Where exactly? After I turned 16 I enrolled in a community college, fully paid by high school, using a local dual enrollment program. When I was 15 I started working as a C++ developer, which was quite fun. Yes, I was a freak and still am a completely asocial misanthrope. But no one is limited -- it is solely by choice (and probably fear of the unknown) that children stay in high school.

jmillikin 17y ago
In many locations, employment of minors (< 18 years old) is limited to family businesses.
- mannicken 17y ago
  Here (USA, Washington state) we have major limitations and it's hard to employ minors. Signing contracts, however, isn't hard and so I worked as an independent contractor (1099) :)
TallGuyShort 17y ago
>> it is solely by choice (and probably fear of the unknown) Or because of the social benefits. You state that you consider your former self a freak, and consider your current self a completely asocial misanthrope. I was following a very similar path to you, but realized that I was on my way to being a social outcast. To me, being a C++ programmer was not my purpose in life (although it was a very interesting field I ended up making my career). A great deal of what I see as the "purpose of life" consists of those social relationships. If I didn't have those, C++ wouldn't make me happy, so what would be the point of it all? I don't mean to sound argumentative - I'm just pointing out that although I was capable of doing more, I chose to stay close to my own age group because of a legitimate quality-of-life benefit. You did state that it's by choice, but I think that's an aspect a lot of people don't consider, especially the author in question.
- ShabbyDoo 17y ago
  It is only because high school is the default that those who choose other options feel isolated. Those >25 usually find friends without resorting to spending most of their day in the same overcrowded fishbowl. If 16 year-olds were spread out across various activities, they would make the effort to find each other, but it's easy to exclude those few kids who aren't seen at their lockers everyday when school is the norm.

makmanalp 17y ago

I like the ;?> on the top left. The title is a little misleading, the article is actually much more rational than the title sounds. I’m a father of four children, and about 10 years ago I noticed—I couldn’t help but notice—that my 15-year-old son was remarkably mature. He balanced work and play far better than I did, and he seemed quite ready to live on his own. For parents that help educate their children, stimulate their interest and set an example this might be so, but for others, school might be a better alternative.

ErrantX 17y ago
Agreed. I know if I, for example, had been let loose on the world at 15 things would have turned out BAD.
- frossie 17y ago
  Yeah. It's a damage limitation exercise - sure, some kids are mature enough to run their own lives at 15, but many are not - and you can screw your life far more comprehensively by making bad choices at 15 than at 25 (or 35 or 45). My impression is that kids that are that mature at 15 find non-school ways to improve their lives/skills/education. The rest need the extra time (and of course for some, no amount of time is enough).
- jerf 17y ago
  Did you go to normal school? A lot of people in this discussion are trying to use the product of the putatively broken system (themselves or others they know) to prove that the putatively broken system must be left in place. This is simply begging the question (in the original sense), not an argument. Edit: Fine, I'll spell it out. You can't counter an argument that says we have a system that is generating excessively dysfunctional 15-year-olds by pointing out that the 15-year olds generated by the system are excessively dysfunctional, and then follow it up with the conclusion that therefore we need the current system. That doesn't disprove the point, because the point in the first place is that the system is broken. You can cite millions of examples of actions taken by publicly-schooled 15-year-olds that were stupid, but none of them actually provide any useful information about the argument. My post here isn't an argument either way about the issue; it's just simple logic. Arguing that of course 15-year olds are stupid and need to be in school is begging the question, or circular logic, and an invalid argument. It doesn't prove anything either way, it's not even evidence either way. Modding it down doesn't change that. This isn't all spelled out in the exact post I'm replying to, but this bad logic is shot through this entire comment thread.

tokenadult 17y ago

There is a lot that independent learning by teenagers can do to help them grow faster and more happily. My son likes Project Euler http://projecteuler.net/ http://projecteuler.net/ as a framework for practicing computer programming related to pure mathematics, and runs his own literary discussion website both to learn about online community administration (including coding site features) and about creative writing. The most annoying aspects of his teen years, for him and for me, have been his closest approaches to "high school" experiences. Senior year of high school for him should be mostly dual enrollment at our friendly state university and a distance learning course in advanced microeconomics.

scott_s 17y ago
Is he not allowed to do that? I grew up in Virginia, and two of my friends chose to spend their senior years of high school by taking classes at a local university or the local community college. (They were, in fact, brother and sister and had spent six years in Denmark as the children of foreign service officers. They did not take well to American high school.)
- tokenadult 17y ago
  Is he not allowed to do that? The dual enrollment is allowed here (one must apply to the college that offers the dual enrollment classes). This choice is not used by as many students as could benefit from it. Many seek the "socialization" of high school. Yeesh.

TravisLS 17y ago

There was a post on HN some time back from former house speaker Newt Gingrich, who is a fairly outspoken advocate on this issue: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_45/b4107085289974.htm http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_45/b41070852...

bufordtwain 17y ago

"and he had no choice but to attend high school for several more years" This is a very common misconception. It's quite possible and legal in many (most?) US states to remove a child from school and keep them home to let them learn at their own pace.

absconditus 17y ago
http://www.hslda.org/laws/default.asp http://www.hslda.org/laws/default.asp
- absconditus 17y ago
  NY for instance seems rather restrictive: http://www.hslda.org/laws/analysis/New_York.pdf http://www.hslda.org/laws/analysis/New_York.pdf
trafficlight 17y ago
This worked for me and I am definitely better off than if I had stayed in high school. That said, most kids, don't have the necessary drive and motivation to make this work.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]

markbao 17y ago

> Teenagers are inherently highly capable young adults I'm currently a teenager. This is mostly false. -- On a serious note, interesting idea. It won't happen, since the US education system (and the public sector in general) is not open to, well, any kind of change. But as the founder of 9 startups, high school wasn't a huge help for me in any ways other than somewhere to socialize. However, this is the special case. High school works decently enough for the rest of the 95%. Dropping out is not an option. You 100% will have a much harder time with acceptance with most colleges (and asian parents.)

absconditus 17y ago
"High school works decently enough for the rest of the 95%." Toward what end? Babysitting teenagers? Forcing people to memorize information that they forget a day after the final exam?
- markbao 17y ago
  The way I see it, high school doesn't really teach content, it teaches learning, which we've been learning (cout << recursive_meta_joke) for about eight years now. The second thing that high school gives is a one-year introduction to the various careers that can be taken on. For example, I notice one thing with many of the people I talk to, to this regard: high school is where the transition from "YEAH MAN, I'm going to be a pro athlete when I grow up dude" to "I thought physiology was pretty cool in bio class, so I'm going to go and do premed." But of course, this doesn't work for a lot of people. It doesn't work with me, because I've personally already have found my passion (and it has been for three years.) It also didn't work for Richard Branson. Everyone complains about high school. And there's definitely a lot of rote memorization. But for some people, they might not gain this important "oh, this is actually pretty cool" moment.
  - jacoblyles 17y ago
    Those of us who went to school in old North Carolina tobacco towns did not learn how to learn in High School.
  - 17y ago

scott_s 17y ago

The assertion that teenagers have an 'immature' brain that necessarily causes turmoil is completely invalidated when we look at anthropological research from around the world. That children and teens have an immature brain is supported by biological research: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1899715 http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1899715 http://harvardmagazine.com/2008/09/the-teen-brain.html http://harvardmagazine.com/2008/09/the-teen-brain.html http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/09/15/health/20080915-brain-development.html http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/09/15/health/2008091... I was not happy in high school (only ten years ago), so I think efforts to improve that period of people's lives are well spent. But I can't support something that starts from what I consider a faulty premise, which is the assumption that children and teens are miniature adults.

thewiglaf 17y ago
But that's not the point. People with brains that are still developing are perfectly capable of functioning in 'adult' society. Many teenagers, and perhaps society as a whole, would benefit it we allowed those willing young people to make 'adult' contributions.
- scott_s 17y ago
  Your point is too nebulous for me to know what you're really trying to say. What do you mean by "functioning in 'adult' society"? What, specifically, do you think should be different? My point is that teenagers are mentally not adults, and as such, they should not be in the same place as society as adults. I'm not saying they should be completely divorced from it, but I worry when people claim that the concept of a "teenager" is completely a cultural construction. Neurological research indicates it is not.
  - thewiglaf 17y ago
    I'm agreeing that they are different. I'm merely stating that the physical and neurological differences are not enough to legislate what young people can and can't do. Society will always view young people as inexperienced, and those youngsters who haven't proven themselves will always have their place in society. What would I make different? Not that it's practical (or even non-nebulous), but I would restore the "child-adult continuum" that the article mentions, because I agree with the author when he says the age-based restrictions tend to delay the onset of real, actual, adulthood. Which is bad.

sgoraya 17y ago

Whatever happened to the idea of an 'apprenticeship'? Not all teenagers want to pursue 'traditional' studies and would be much better off learning a specific trade or craft that they are interested in.

hackinthebochs 17y ago

I believe this is true. Children are adults-in-training and need to be treated as such. Yet we create these unnatural environments and wonder why teenagers act so irresponsibly. And when they finally do become "adults", they can't function as adults. I believe the majority of teenagers will rise to the responsibility given to them, if it is genuine. You can't expect them to act responsibly on one hand but then subtly treat them as nothing more than overgrown children.

sound2man 17y ago

Basically what they are proposing is the system of education currently in use in Germany. Once you hit high school you have the choice of preparing for a white or blue collar job. Blue collar jobs gets you out of school and into an apprenticeship at 15 or 16, white collar gets you into high school, or further education at least. Seems to work quite well.

robryan 17y ago

I think if a 15 year old was put into the position of having to make adult decisions and behave like an adult they would be perfectly capable. It's just that they either don't have the chance or given the option, prefer to cruse through and muck around for as long as possible before being force to get serious.

evgen 17y ago
The objective reality of the sort of decisions made by fifteen year-oldsters on a routine basis show this to be demonstably false.
- absconditus 17y ago
  The point that many of us are attempting to make is that this is so because of how we currently treat teenagers. When you treat someone like a child they tend to act like a child.
  - stavrianos 17y ago
    I've known a couple of people who grew up too fast, and that can be kind of ugly sometimes. I'm all in favor of the emancipation of children and the abolishment of school, but atta same time, there's gotta be some kinda line.
- deleted 17y ago
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- whatusername 17y ago
  The objective reality of the soft of decisions made by twenty-five or thirty-five year oldsters on a routine basis shows that we have a problem. Extending childhood is not the answer.
grandalf 17y ago
I think you're right. I recall noticing that after I turned 12 my approach to situations was fundamentally adultlike... I don't think I've changed much cognitively since then either... Just the slow accretion of experience, etc. I did learn how to be more self-actualized, etc. since then, since a good portion of even the best K-6 education constitutes obedience training... which I had to unlearn.

sridharvembu 17y ago

I came to the same conclusion (based on my own experience in teenage, and observations later) that there is a lot of talent waiting to be tapped in teenage years, and treating teenagers respectfully as young adults and giving them responsibility is good for them and good for society. That is one of the reasons we like to hire 17 year olds in Zoho and combine education with work. Labor laws won't let us hire any sooner, but if it were my own family members, I would hire them sooner.

3pt14159 17y ago
That is amazing. I work for the competition (FreshBooks) but I would have relished working right out of high school in a high tech position. Good on ya.

lionhearted 17y ago

It's not a terribly good use of time for people who actually like to learn. I dropped out of two high schools, including a gifted and talented program - who the hell knows how I got into that one, but I dropped it as well. It really seemed like obedience school to me - capricious, arbitrary, with a focus on discipline and not on learning. A number of times, I would fail a class where I was in the top five most talented people in it. I didn't see much point in doing what they prescribed - I'd rather go explore the world or play around on a computer or read books or go make some money. I left home at 16, and eventually wound up graduating high school by going into an adult learning center at age 17 or so. I said, "I am fully emancipated, and living as an adult. I would like to complete the adult program." After some talking with a very nice fellow and being politely evasive, he agreed. I took a series of competency exams, completed the silliest multiple choice packet of American history I've ever seen, and I was awarded a diploma. I went and took the standardized tests and got into university. They were kind enough to loan or grant me almost my full tuition, though I dropped out of university once as well. Same reasons. Anywho, with a quick perusal of history, it's pretty obvious that maturity does not come from age, it comes from having unique experiences and learning from them. If you see someone who is forced to become "head of household" at a young age due to parents illness and cares for his/her siblings, they are very mature and adultlike even in their mid-teens. Likewise, people dragged into a war move differently, with less naivete - characteristics you'd usually see in someone in their 40's. There's kids in their mid-20's with that look. At least, that's the hypothesis I made: Unique experiences and learning from them = maturity. So I set out to have a lot of unique experiences, and I think I did rather a good job. I've had an interesting, enjoyable life. The only part I regret is wasting my age 13/14/15/16 years in middle school and high school. I had some fun with extracurricular activities and friends, but I could have done something so much more interesting during the actual classtime. Yuck. One in particular that made me wake up when I read it was Tokugawa Ieyasu. He was third of Japan's great unifiers. In the 1600's, he founded the Tokugawa Shogunate - his family ruined in almost complete peace for 250 years after one of the most lawless and brutal times in Japanese history. Ieyasu married for the first time at age 13 or 14, and was Captain of a small division of troops around the 14/15 years. He did a pretty admirable job of it, grew up fast, and the rest is history. But I think the flipside is true, too - if you don't let someone have responsibility, if you treat them like a child, they'll stay childlike and immature. Being an American who has traveled, I see people who are age 26-28 who are barely capable of functioning in the world, and I sometimes see people age 14-18 doing amazing things. This could be the norm, if we wanted it to. I had a 17 year old fellow apply to work for me - he was half-generation American, if I've got the terminology right - he immigrated here with his parents around age 10 or so. I didn't wind up hiring him, but I became a mentor to him. We'd go get tea or coffee every couple weeks and I'd give him some generally no-BS advise. A very good guy, he's done some really impressive things in a short period of time - all he had to do was shake off the reigns and shackles, but that is harder than it sounds to do. At least in the average American school, they punish you swiftly, thoroughly, and publicly if you try to abstain or dare to question them. There's the occasional good teacher - I had maybe a dozen excellent professional teachers in my life, which I count myself quite lucky to have had. But the rest? Well, I guess we shouldn't be too hard on them. They're just doing what they were taught, too.

leecho0 17y ago

>John Taylor Gatto has long warned about the dangers of artificially extending childhood, and has blamed our schools for damaging families and stifling creativity and a love of learning. I think it's ridiculous that it is now normal (or actually preferable) now to be in school until you are done with 1/4 to 1/3 of your life without seeing what "the real world" was like. This means the average person won't be able to do anything significant until they have already wasted their best years in school and low level positions. I can get decent grades pretty easily (much like many people here) and so slacking off and procrastination was just a smart way of using my time. Now that I think I'm of the age where I can make something of myself, I need to unlearn a lot of the bad habits learned in school in order to get things done. Many smart, ambitious people I know do not try to start independant projects because they are still "just students," but then go on to do amazing things after graduating and finding their purpose in life. Much of this can be prevented with an early firsthand exposure to a life outside of the artificial punishment and reward system of school. Chances are, even after reform people will probably still go on the same path -- highschool, college, graduate school, but they will have a much better reason to do well, since it will be what they chose to do.

mattmaroon 17y ago

I largely agree with his conclusion, but don't like it when people point out history to support it. Sure kids didn't have to go to school in 1850, but black people and women couldn't vote, most people didn't have indoor plumbing (let alone electricity), slavery was still legal. The fact that kids didn't have to go to school back then is not at all an argument in support of them not doing so now and should be left out of a serious essay in favor of that position.

PostOnce 17y ago

High schools are so unreliable here that we need an AA degree to compensate for it.

arundelo 17y ago

See also Grace Llewellyn's Teenage Liberation Handbook: http://www.amazon.com/Teenage-Liberation-Handbook-School-Education/dp/0962959170/ http://www.amazon.com/Teenage-Liberation-Handbook-School-Edu...

xexers 17y ago

I completely agree with this point and I wish he went into more detail about it: "Finally, a wealth of data shows that when young people are given meaningful responsibility and meaningful contact with adults, they quickly rise to the challenge, and their inner adult emerges."

b-man 17y ago

In case anyone is curious, there are proposals for systems that respect the individual, are libertarian and are passive in the sense that the individual is the active part, choosing when, how, and what he will learn. Take a look at this article of mine for instance http://cnxs.com.br/posts/an-emergent-participatory-design-framework-for-higher-education http://cnxs.com.br/posts/an-emergent-participatory-design-fr... .

fburnaby 17y ago

Maybe it isn't all about your profession. Maybe you should try to know some of the basics taught in high school in order to be a good citizen. Not to say that the high school I went to wasn't a waste of time, but that doesn't mean high school has to be a waste of time. People are good at being smug, and thinking they know everything. The best way to realize that there's actually some depth to a topic is to study it a bit. Since (from reading other comments here) none of us would have wanted to learn some of these topics, maybe we'd all still think that those other topics are all a stupid waste of time, and people who do them are also useless.

steveplace 17y ago

Without yet reading the actual post, let me put my thoughts in there. After the age of 16, make school non-compulsory. At the end of the 10th grade year, have everyone take the GED/ACT/SAT and if they get a threshold level, congrats, you can now move on. So when kids start misbehaving, you don't have to keep them there.

ColemanF 17y ago

Eliminating high school would cut the amount of taxes needed for public schooling, and would instead increase tax revenue by putting more people in the workforce. Not to mention that a more experienced (real-world experience) workforce might be more productive.

teeja 17y ago

If you get a crappy education in HS, despite your abilities, you're far behind your peers who got a very good one. Whether you then apply yourself in college, you remain behind those people because they keep on keepin on. That's not so true today as it once was for kids who have access to the internet. If you've got a hunger to learn, there's plenty of fodder. My life would have been quite different if I'd had the net to learn from. As to whether it's necessary depends on what you feel life is all about, and/or what real talents (not addressed by mainstream ed) you have. Highly self-motivated people (or who fortune smiles on) can usualy live without HS. Most of the rest of us need it to cope in an ever-more-complex world.