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Ireland's big school secret: how a year off-curriculum changes teenage lives

theguardian.com

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Re: Ireland's big school secret: how a year off-curriculum changes teenage lives

#31

Post by alephnerd »

petesergeant wrote: post #25

> What he really wanted to close was the cultural gap between rich and poor This sounds great! > Then there is the financial aspect of TY: some parents just can’t afford it. oh for fuck's sake

Yep! Good extracurriculars are expensive.

I remember taking part in Debate, MUN, XC, DECA, Wrestling, Quiz Bowl, Volunteering (NHS/CSF), and a bunch of Olympiads in HS and there was always a cost associated with participating (either a fee or the need to travel to the place hosting the EC).

Unsurprisingly, this meant ECs would skew upper middle class and upper class. Sadly, these same ECs are also blockers for college admissions.

I might get hate for this on HN, but this is why I support unweighted GPA, relative class ranking, and SAT/ACT for college admissions - sort of like what the UCs do. It's the least bad option out of the other options. Alternatively, going open entry with university admissions and then ramping up the difficulty with weedout classes is a good option as well.

Re: Ireland's big school secret: how a year off-curriculum changes teenage lives

#32

Post by dyauspitr »

Eumenes wrote: post #27

My child is too young for school but my partner and I expect to homeschool. We've talked about gap years in the childs early/mid teens for travel/backpacking/nature excursions. I wish fellowship and apprentice work was more commonplace in the younger years too. Get out of the classroom and experience the real world.

How do you plan on your child building out their social skills? Surely a couple of playdates a week with a few other kids isn’t going to cut it.

Re: Ireland's big school secret: how a year off-curriculum changes teenage lives

#33

Post by cmcconomy »

In Quebec you find a similar program; elementary school is K-6, and high school is 7-11. Following this you can optionally attend an interstitial educational system called "CEGEP".

It's government funded and costs next to nothing.

CEGEP has two streams, pre-university or professional. For the latter, you learn skills like aircraft mechanics. For the former, you pick a stream that bulks up what would normally be first-year university courses like calculus, biology etc for a science stream.

However, you are required to take approx 15-20% of your courses in an "opposite" stream to force you to get acquainted with other alternatives before you commit to university. In addition, the structure is much like university (you pick your classes & schedule, class sizes are increased compared to HS, your responsibility is increased) which is a good transition for university if that's where you're headed.

I think it's a wonderful system and I wish it was more widespread.

Re: Ireland's big school secret: how a year off-curriculum changes teenage lives

#34

Post by KineticLensman »

LinuxAmbulance wrote: post #29
theodric wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'Bike shedding', in the context of the current Irish bike shed controversy - heh

What is the Irish bike shed controversy?

https://www.irishtimes.com/life-style/2024/09/06/its-not-eve...

Re: Ireland's big school secret: how a year off-curriculum changes teenage lives

#35

Post by sodality2 »

alephnerd wrote: post #31
petesergeant wrote: post #25

> What he really wanted to close was the cultural gap between rich and poor This sounds great! > Then there is the financial aspect of TY: some parents just can’t afford it. oh for fuck's sake

Yep! Good extracurriculars are expensive. I remember taking part in Debate, MUN, XC, DECA, Wrestling, Quiz Bowl, Volunteering (NHS/CSF), and a bunch of Olympiads in HS and there was always a cost associated with participating (either a fee or the need to travel to the place hosting the EC). Unsurprisingly, this meant ECs would skew upper middle class and upper class. Sadly, these same ECs are also blockers for colleg…

Open entry would change a lot of things - lots of schools and rankings use drop out rate as a proxy for how useful attending there is, because of the assumption that if the dropout rate is higher, there's a worse education. It would at least upend the old saying about the hardest part about some colleges is getting in.

I agree with the SAT/ACT part - they pushed "holistic review" during Covid but ultimately SAT prep is way lower barrier (Khan Academy) than gobs of ECs.

Re: Ireland's big school secret: how a year off-curriculum changes teenage lives

#36

Post by snozolli »

sixo wrote: post #13
soperj wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like Bill Gates has gotten a hold of your school system as well.

sounds like you have something to say but can't be bothered to say it

I was curious, so I googled it. I'm guessing GP is talking about this:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2018/06/...

The aim was to create teacher evaluation systems that depended on student standardized test scores and observations by “peer evaluators.” These systems, it was conjectured, could identify the teachers who were most effective in improving student academic performance.

(it's not clear to me if this created any standardized tests for students, or just depended on existing ones)

Sounds like it ran from 2009-2015ish. If Bill Gates is going to be brought up, then I guess George W. Bush should be, too, with No Child Left Behind. AFAIK that's what kicked off the trend of standardized testing for students in the U.S.

Re: Ireland's big school secret: how a year off-curriculum changes teenage lives

#37

Post by stetrain »

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote: post #30
stetrain wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't call the quality and readability of the written text "tangential", it's not about the CSS styling. I don't think it's quite as bad as the above commenter seems to think it is, but they're welcome to that opinion.

> I wouldn't call the quality and readability of the written text "tangential" The topic in this comment section is the "transition year" in Irish secondary schools. The format of the website which introduces that topic is tangential to that topic. I don't know where one would get the idea that a tangent that's not about CSS styling is not a tangent.

The topic is also a specific article about that transition year. I don't think that commenting about an article being particularly well-written, easy to understand, or having nice examples would be against the guidelines here.

If discussion of anything but the underlying subject of the link - including references to the writer, quality, and content of the writing - were considered tangential to the point of being against the guidelines to discuss, then surely so would commenting that another comment is against the guidelines.

Re: Ireland's big school secret: how a year off-curriculum changes teenage lives

#38

Post by AnimalMuppet »

dyauspitr wrote: post #32
Eumenes wrote: post #27

My child is too young for school but my partner and I expect to homeschool. We've talked about gap years in the childs early/mid teens for travel/backpacking/nature excursions. I wish fellowship and apprentice work was more commonplace in the younger years too. Get out of the classroom and experience the real world.

How do you plan on your child building out their social skills? Surely a couple of playdates a week with a few other kids isn’t going to cut it.

We homeschooled. When we worried about our kids' socialization, we yanked them into the bathroom and beat them up for their lunch money.

I'm kidding, but... you want school to build your kids' social skills? Apart from all the pathologies common in schools, you want your kids to grow up to live in an adult world, which is almost completely unlike school.

Yeah, homeschooling can be done where the kids are isolated and never interact with anyone outside the family. It doesn't have to be, though.

Re: Ireland's big school secret: how a year off-curriculum changes teenage lives

#39

Post by WorkerBee28474 »

cmcconomy wrote: post #33

In Quebec you find a similar program; elementary school is K-6, and high school is 7-11. Following this you can optionally attend an interstitial educational system called "CEGEP". It's government funded and costs next to nothing. CEGEP has two streams, pre-university or professional. For the latter, you learn skills like aircraft mechanics. For the former, you pick a stream that bulks up what would normally be first…

.

Re: Ireland's big school secret: how a year off-curriculum changes teenage lives

#40

Post by dotnet00 »

sollewitt wrote: post #26

In TY in 1998 I: worked at an architect's, an archeologist's, a hospital, an epidemiological research institute where I got to use _my own computer_ all day - decided I needed to work with computers, got a summer job there. earned the President's Award medal had one class where we stripped an engine over the term got my first aid certificate learned how to develop film took night classes touch typing (on an electric…

I often mention to people that graduate research helped me mature for this same reason. Prior to grad school, I just followed the strict well-defined path modern schooling tends to have - spend most time studying, very limited investment in hobbies and out-of-school friendships, get good grades, focus only on moving to the next year. My grades were great, but it left me as an underdeveloped anxious mess of a person who was incapable of being independent.

Having a few years where I had to do things mostly on my own while still being somewhat 'sheltered' (because a research advisor doesn't have time to babysit, but also won't exploit you the way an employer can) helped me a lot to become my own person and to stop having panic attacks over trivial decisions. At a younger age, the same effect could've been achieved with one year.

Plus, while everyone used to act like missing a year of ~high school would be a permanent blemish on a career, having gone through all this education, I feel that high school was the least consequential part of it. It could easily be replaced with a year of professional 'exploration' with no loss. Especially nowadays, where undergraduate degrees are very common (high school grades can already be entirely forgotten after obtaining a degree), and undergrad programs spend much of the first year redoing a lot of high school material to bring everyone up to the same level.

As a result, when I have children of my own, I plan to emphasize this sort of exploration a lot more.

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