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Comment by jteppinette | Hacker News Reader

If students are coming out of 12 years of general education needing more general education, that is a failure of the public school system. We should fix that instead of pushing people into more school. After 12 years of general education, how do you justify more?

In my opinion, we should be pushing specialized education at a younger age. When students exit high school, they should have skills that they can expand or fallback on. They can then use that fallback as a safety net to explore other options without extreme risk or debt.

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> After 12 years of general education, how do you justify more?

A lot of the concepts you explore in university arts classes are things that a 12 year old just won't understand. Exploring subjects in a deep and meaningful way isn't possible until you've got your full adult toolkit of emotions and experience.

> In my opinion, we should be pushing specialized education at a younger age. When students exit high school, they should have skills that they can expand or fallback on. They can then use that fallback as a safety net to explore other options without extreme risk or debt.

How would you see that training going? I went to a rural school that had a graduating class of ~100, and there was little to no funding for extra courses - my choices of vocational training was comprised of "mechanics" or "woodworking".

12 years of school, not 12 years of age. In the US, a student would be 17 or 18 after their full 12 years.

I understand this - I didn't assume that the student would start at age zero. If we're going into vocational training in their teen years, they'll have to starting teaching the classics and philosophy to tweens.

Oh. I see what you mean, although I’m not convinced that 12-year-olds couldn’t handle these topics, at least at a slower pace.

Maybe, but if we can't have "Diary of Anne Frank" in class, I wonder how people would feel about the renaissance art viewings.

It can be useful to learn things early and able to revisit them later with a fuller understanding.

I went to a school where they did try to introduce these subjects to us from a young age. I'm talking the age of 10 onward and it really was pointless.

Of course you can teach things about Roman Legions, or Athenian ships etc, but if you want to debate and discuss the ideas and foundations of these civilizations (and any philosophy) I honestly think you are fighting an uphill battle until at least 17-18.

Your mind is just not developed enough to handle the kind of ambiguitiy and complexity needed to analyse and judge these ideas. Many people never even reach this ability during university and just parrot ideas that are told to them.

There is a reason teaching children to adhere to a religion from a young age is so controversial in some circles.

I think you may be surprised how much more ready they are for those than STEM details at that age.

There are two purposes to modern high schools in the US:

* College prep for the college-bound

* Day-care for the non-college-bound

In contemporary high schools, if you're not college-bound, you might as well not exist. You will be ignored by teachers, administrators, and guidance counselors (unless you are a troublemaker).

I was not college bound and was not ignored. Has this changed now or are you generalizing?

You could devote your whole life to the pursuit of knowledge and still not have a good understanding of the world.

That is how I'd justify the fact that 12 years of access to education is not enough.

By "access", do you mean "forced"? There is no limit to the access of free education today as continuing education after forced public school.

I completely agree that people should continue their education throughout their entire lives. However, I do not think it should be forced, and I don't think that people who pursue a different style of education should be looked down upon. Especially when the standard and accepted system has so many flaws.

Your brain isn't developed (it keeps developing till at least 30) to the point that you are capable of acquiring that expansive world view during those first 12 years. There is a reason we don't trust teenage drivers, and part of college is that transition from being a teenager to being an adult. In high school you are still only seeing people from your neighborhood but people go far away for college where they meet people who are totally not like them.

(Yes, people mature at different rates and some can acquire some of that world view in High School.)

I agree. It's a known fact that guys don't develop fully until well into their late 20's, early 30's. For example: I took accounting and finance courses in college and I hated them. I did not understand accounting concepts and felt stupid while others seemed to grasp them. Fast forward, I am now in my early 30's and the same concepts now make sense. I actually enjoy looking at finance topics (not so much accounting, but I understand a lot more of it now). I've often questioned the timeline on education and why we try to learn the most important topics in our early 20's when half of us cannot comprehend them entirely until late 20's. Sure, there are always those who do get the information and advance quickly, then go on to achieve great things, but what percentage of the whole population does this?

The problem is not the school system but rather too much education and commodification of education. 100 years ago , knowing how to read and write and do basic math was special and made one employable, but now such skills are so commonplace, so more advanced education is needed to differentiate one's self

Back then, high school graduation had an exam and a higher standard that most folks could do now. Can you amortize a loan? Close a ledger? Calculate return on an investment from a series of data points? Most can't today, regardless of college education.

So, real education still has value.

Back then, most people finished school at grade 8.

Those who went to High School were smart and motivated to further their education. So curricula could be correspondingly more challenging/faster-paced.

I'm 44yo now... my great grandmother was a school teacher starting in the 1930s, and her 5th grade books for English alone was far more difficult than anything I had through H.S.

What kind of book, grammar, literature? What made it so difficult?

"5th Grade English" a lot of the content itself was centered around proper use of grammar. In practice, these days, it feels like nobody really cares.

It doesn't help that most prescriptivist poppycock is flat-out wrong, either.

reading and math and education in general aren't meaningless values in zero sum games, they enable the creation of wealth. The purpose of attainment of education and skills is not to differentiate yourself, it is to enable you to do things that you were unable to do before.

> After 12 years of general education, how do you justify more?

You cheat yourself by treating it as an overpriced trade school but delude yourself into thinking its something more grand. The average college graduate in the US has a 9th grade reading level at best and many cannot follow simple instructions.

You can start with the hiring process by differentiating between skills and education. I would hope the people that are hired to a given job are competent in their skills but instead people are often hired according to the candidates available in the marketplace. When in doubt you can at least discriminate against some of the unqualified candidates by education level.

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