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Comment by alexashka | Hacker News Reader

Rather than learning how to read, it'd do everyone a whole lot more good to admit that some people are not cut out for school and to send them off to work when they're teenagers.

This poor guy has felt bad his entire life when he could've been an excellent coal miner instead.

Every place I've worked is filled with people like this guy to one extent or another - fearful parents pushing their kids to go to school and pretend to be something they're not. Then people who have an affinity for thinking have to navigate these insecure idiots (sorry, medical term) their entire careers.

It makes workplaces hell for everyone involved, both the idiots and the capable.

People ought to do what they are capable of doing. People ought to be treated with dignity and respect. If we get that far this century, boy, that'd really be something.

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> It makes workplaces hell for everyone involved, both the idiots and the capable.

I think your attitude is what makes the hell tbh.

We should definitely teach everyone to be literate, and not just decide they should be "excellent coal miner"s instead.

Slight devils advocate. Is everyone happier with mandatory schooling for longer? It isn't that we shouldn't give everyone the chance to learn, but maybe some people really would be happier dropping out at 14 and just getting a job. Being at school where all you do is fail does not make for a good life experience!

I think the answer is probably that we don't want parents pulling kids out of school early just to earn money for the family? So legally requiring they stay at school longer protects.

Just a thought

14-year-olds are likely not equipped to make such a decision. If all you're doing at school is failing, then the school itself should provide better support mechanisms.

Better support to what end? Walking out of school age 16 with 4 GCSE passes is not much of an improvement on 2, and maybe we should accept that there exist people who cannot via standard schooling do better than that? Maybe those two additional years of special measures is not better than a couple of years learning on a job?

Unless your claim is that with sufficient support everyone can leave school at 16 with good grades, which is simply not a school of thought I ascribe to.

My grandfather went to school until he was 14, but he was also highly literate, had a keen technical insight, and was generally fairly smart.

He wasn't unhappy in life, or the way his career as a factory worker turned out. At least, as near as I can determine those kind of things: he was an old-fashioned kind of man who didn't have a heart to heart with his grandchildren. He never ate pizza in his life, and refused to eat it when I offered to take him out to try it.

But at the same time I've always felt he could have achieved much more if he continued school. The reason he didn't was because his family was poor and another child working was needed to put bread on the table. A big reason this mandatory schooling exists is for these kind of reasons.

That being said, I do think there's too much emphasis on degrees; not having a college degree is almost something you're embarrassed of. My brother did basically a useless "animal care" study because he felt like he had to do A study (note: it's not a useless education, but there are tons of people doing it and very few jobs, almost no-one who graduates gets a job in that field and the impression I had from his friends is that it's mostly the kind of thing people do when they don't know what else to do).

> maybe some people really would be happier dropping out at 14 and just getting a job.

Note that in Europe, mandatory schooling ends in 15-16 in most states.

My (much) older brother has severe dyslexia. He's bright, and now owns his own business, but in his school, they'd already reached the capacity for SEN provision, and he was refused a diagnosis. He could have massively improved his literacy if help was just available, but at that time, it simply wasn't. Branding anyone who doesn't immediately take to school an "idiot" is incredibly myopic.

Replace the word idiot with 'fool' and see if your point still applies.

In other words, the problem is not stupid people (or people with learning disabilities, which I happen to have btw), who undoubtedly exist. The problem is foolish people who think they can cheat their way through life.

My contention is that we're sinking under the weight of foolish people cheating their way into positions they have no business being in.

Foolish as in lacking wisdom. Not foolish as in lacking ability to do calculus. We have plenty of calculus, we severely lack wisdom :)

He's not an idiot, he would have gotten much further, and had a better life, if school had helped him to learn to read and write. Some children need extra help/support lessons (and nowadays usually get it).

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