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I'm from Switzerland and the reality that you miss is that a lot of students will be thrown into the Realschule (lowest tier of secondary education in Switzerland) for a variety of reasons, including spiteful teachers or foreign parents who fail to understand the magnitude of this decision. Often the path is already being set at the Kindergarten age with inept teachers who are unable to properly educate foreign speaking pupils. From then on it's a direct path to the Realschule and later a string of two or three failed attempts at getting a professional education (as a semi-skilled cook, hair stylist, whatever)

My brother was sent to the Realschule because of a primary teacher who habitually hit the pupils he hated - he was a sadistic tyrant.

Roughly a decade later, My brother graduated in law and is now on path of becoming a very successful (and rich) international arbitration specialist.

Now obviously, not everyone will be able to turn the tide.

Another reality you seem to ignore is the fact that even intelligent people can be rowdy assholes.

My Gymnasium (high school) class was filled with them. They smoked blunts all day, lighted up books in front of the teachers, even brought some teachers to tears, they bullied kids and so on. They were very excellent students and didn't have to learn for exams.

As an introverted nerd this had the following effect on me: In order to fit in I started to smoke joints myself and missed 50% of the last year. I didn't have problems getting good grades so I didn't prepare for the Matura. In hindsight it was also dumb luck, not just my ingenuity that made me pass the Matura with good grades still. While I was still introverted, it helped ease tensions and I made a couple of good friends in the process.

In conclusion, from personal experience the Swiss education system has deep flaws.

> I'm from Switzerland and the reality that you miss is that a lot of students will be thrown into the Realschule (lowest tier of secondary education in Switzerland) for a variety of reasons, including spiteful teachers or foreign parents who fail to understand the magnitude of this decision. Often the path is already being set at the Kindergarten age with inept teachers who are unable to properly educate foreign speaking pupils. From then on it's a direct path to the Realschule and later a string of two or three failed attempts at getting a professional education (as a semi-skilled cook, hair stylist, whatever)

This is true and it is a problem with this splitting up system. What has to be said is that when you have the will you can still move out of it. There are briges at every level. Even when you are one your way to become a hairdresser you can to the "matura" and get into some universety.

This has to be added to the list of problems, with this kind of system.

> Another reality you seem to ignore is the fact that even intelligent people can be rowdy assholes.

My Gymnasium (high school) class was filled with them. They smoked blunts all day, lighted up books in front of the teachers, even brought some teachers to tears, they bullied kids and so on. They were very excellent students and didn't have to learn for exams.

Sure there allways assholes but I think its fair to say that less of that stuff goes on in such a split system. Smart kids slacking of is pretty common (I would guess that weed is more popular in these schools), the question is how bad would it have been in a uniform high school.

What form of bulling? Was there really physical stuff?

Im really into individual learning its the only way to prevent better studends from slacking of and distrupting class, bored people always act stupid.

> In conclusion, from personal experience the Swiss education system has deep flaws.

I had more or less good experiences. I just wanted to show the diffrence in the system, not praise it.

In my opinion its time for a huge reform in most education systems but that not really the thread to talk about that.

I was talking with my neighbor (a second grade teacher) about this over the weekend. I think there are two problems: first, everybody is lumped into the same groupings, so the "advanced" kids are bored and the "slower" kids are lost. That leads to conflict on its own, but then we make it worse by expecting everybody to go college track with one other option: drop out.

For many kids, the college track education is worthless. My neighbor believes she can spot kids who are likely to drop out in second grade (there is a LOT of confirmation bias in that, I'm sure, but probably some truth). By making them all move ahead lock-step, we are, ironically, guaranteeing they are going to fragment and have problems.

It is encouraging to see some signs of change in education (at least here in Utah). There are a lot more trade options (ability to get a CNA in high school or starting apprenticeships in trades, for example). The math program is being re-built in an attempt to change it from "this grade learns algebra, so if you aren't learning algebra in this grade, you are dumb". On the flip side, my kids' high school has partnered with the local state university to provide kids with the ability to have an associates degree by the time they graduate high school.

So while education has been broken for a long time, and is still bad, at least anecdotally, it is getting better. The factory training ground aspect is changing, but, unfortunately, the authoritarian part is still getting worse (see, for instance, the six year old who was arrested for throwing a tantrum).

I think the modle put forward by Khan Academy is promising. Keep people together but let them work there own pace and stop with grouping by age.

I don't think they have a well written document about all there concepts but you can pease it together with these videos. http://www.khanacademy.org/#talks-and-interviews

Im talking physical school not internet education.

I'm from the UK and I have the same reaction to most of these stories. Can it really be that bad? Is the American school system so dramatically different?

I went to a high school which was not split by grade. I was called a "geek" or "boffin" (basically the regional equivalent of nerd) because I was often top of the class, or made fun of because I have mild scoliosis. I managed to keep a good group of friends though and I mostly just told the bullies to fuck themselves and got on with my life.

I think there were people who were unable to deal with bullying, and that mostly comes down to a lack of social skills, rather than any extra persecution that they suffered because of their intelligence or appearance.

I would guess it's selection bias.

One of the big differences is just the size of the schools. I was in Ireland for 8th and 9th grade. The school I went to consisted of grades 6th-12th with a total of around 300 students, with 48 kids in my grade. My graduation class from high school back in the US was around 600. My high school consisted of 10th-12th grade with around 1800 students total. This difference in size makes a huge impact in the different cultures that have evolved in the different school systems.

My secondary/high school had 300-400 kids per year, about 1500 over the 4 years it covered. Though my previous two schools to that were much smaller, I think it's generally common here for junior schools to be smaller than senior schools. And I think you're right, smaller schools probably have less of a chance of large distinct social groups forming.

Perhaps there is a tipping point though, where these groups form, I certainly didn't experience such well defined and distinct groups as these kinds of stories portray. The other difference I suppose was school uniform, though I feel like that's unlikely to have made a significant difference.

There where only about 50 people in my age at the school, there is not as much diversety possible. You cant just hang out with 'the goths' or whatever, chances are there arn't enought to form a distinct social group. You get to know almost everybody, that means there is less jugment purly on visual marks.

I went to a high school of >2500 in New Zealand and I found that with so many other people it was easy to find others that were like-minded. I'm sure some people were bullied but to me it barely registered - nothing at all like it's depicted in American TV shows or movies.

US schools have a much broader social role than schools in Europe, and therefor tend to form a social universe of their own.

In Europe virtually all activities that are not directly related to being in a classroom happen outside the school, and so kids are more likely to have multiple social circles.

Or in other words: going to school in Europa resembles going to work as an adult much more than in the US.

I think thats an importen observation. I don't think the government has to for diffrent sport programmes. In the small (5000-6000) people village I live there are so many diffrent clubs you can go to, I don't think a school could practicly provid all the deversety.

What happens alot more in the US seams to be other kinds of clubs (movie-knowledge). You seem to have AudioVideo, Math, Spelling clubs that one rearly sees in Switzerland.

I have a very similar view. One thing that seems to be specific for US high schools is that there are relatively clearly defined and isolated groups. In the school I attended (in the Czech Rep), there were vague / fuzzy groups but basically everyone was friends with everyone.

Does this mean that if kid is underachieving in Elementary school he is screwed up for life? I've heard that similar system is in Germany. And at very early stage in someone life he could be relegated to be second-class citizen.

It is a problem but I think the system is pretty well optimized to allow to jump around.

If after three years you want to do the mid-level instead of the low one you can just add a year and do it.

If you do the mid-level you can go to something called "Kurzzeit Gymnasium" witch will take you four years but you end up with the same with the top-level kids.

Even if you do a educatonaly simple job with a start from the lowest level you can do a 'Berufsmatura' combined with working. This gives you almost the same thing as the normal top-level would give you. You can go to some university (there is no word for them in english but you get a beachlor all the same). With one extra year of school you can go to all of them.

In that respect im pretty happe with the system. Socialy it works out pretty good too, you arn't some kind of idiot if you go to the lowest level.

No. The GED (HS equivalency) and community college systems are highly effective at getting turn-around kids into top public universities (like UCLA, Michigan, etc.).