It works on the other end of the spectrum too. Much of my class just wanted to leave school at 16 to work on the family farm. TY gave them practical experience of running a business, stripping an engine, how to use an manage credit etc. before they went out in the world.
Ireland's big school secret: how a year off-curriculum changes teenage lives
41–50 of 141 posts
Re: Ireland's big school secret: how a year off-curriculum changes teenage lives
#42In 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…
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I googled "quebec educational attainment" and found https://statistique.quebec.ca/en/communique/university-gradu..., which says that "Québec has the highest proportion of people aged 25 to 64 with any postsecondary certificate, diploma or degree (71.2%).". According to https://www.statista.com/statistics/467078/median-annual-fam..., Quebec's median annual family income in 2021 was 96,910, almost the same as the median 98,390. The top "provinces" are Northwest Territories and Yukon, whose ways of doing things, for better or worse, cannot be easily copied to other provinces.
Re: Ireland's big school secret: how a year off-curriculum changes teenage lives
#43Sounds like a great idea. In England, I've seen education get consistently more rigid and inflexible over the years. All about tests, tests and more tests. Teachers leave the profession, children turn off. And as it consistently fails to produce better results, the answer is always to do more of what has failed. Bring something like this to England, please!
> it consistently fails to produce better results
The performance of the English education system has improved markedly over the past couple of decades. At least, as measured by tests!
Re: Ireland's big school secret: how a year off-curriculum changes teenage lives
#44In 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…
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Stats Canada data disagrees with this. Do you have a source?
Re: Ireland's big school secret: how a year off-curriculum changes teenage lives
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
> 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.
I mean... yes, it seems reasonable to learn social skills from a school setting? Interacting with other people, some of whom dislike/disagree with each other, interacting with other adults, etc. This seems like a reasonable step toward what you describe as 'the adult world' - which, yes, is rather different from school, but that seems a good thing; throwing a child into 'the adult world' without preparation would be crazy, right?
(I'm not trying to deny that one can learn the necessary social skills while being homeschooled, just disagree with the implication that school is not also a good place to develop them)
Re: Ireland's big school secret: how a year off-curriculum changes teenage lives
#46My 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.
Plenty of family/friends nearby with young families. I'm in a rural area with a tradition of homeschooling so there's weekly/biweekly events/classes. Not really worried about the socialization. Over socializing can be bad too.
Re: Ireland's big school secret: how a year off-curriculum changes teenage lives
#47> 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…
unweighted GPA, relative class ranking, and SAT/ACT for college admissions - sort of like what the UCs do
Relative class ranking is a poor measure for students who gained entry (by merit) to a selective high school.
Like if you do well in middle school and get into Lowell by the skin of your teeth, should you be penalized for being in the bottom 10%?
Re: Ireland's big school secret: how a year off-curriculum changes teenage lives
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
> 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. I mean... yes, it seems reasonable to learn social skills from a school setting? Interacting with other people, some of whom dislike/disagree with each other, interacting with other adults, etc. Thi…
“Children learn what they live. Put kids in a class and they will live out their lives in an invisible cage, isolated from their chance at community; interrupt kids with bells and horns all the time and they will learn that nothing is important or worth finishing; ridicule them and they will retreat from human association; shame them and they will find a hundred ways to get even. The habits taught in large-scale organizations are deadly.”
― John Taylor Gatto
Re: Ireland's big school secret: how a year off-curriculum changes teenage lives
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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. I mean... yes, it seems reasonable to learn social skills from a school setting? Interacting with other people, some of whom dislike/disagree with each other, interacting with other adults, etc. Thi…
“Children learn what they live. Put kids in a class and they will live out their lives in an invisible cage, isolated from their chance at community; interrupt kids with bells and horns all the time and they will learn that nothing is important or worth finishing; ridicule them and they will retreat from human association; shame them and they will find a hundred ways to get even. The habits taught in large-scale orga…
> cage
> isolation
> interruptions
> ridicule
> shame
I wonder if this person's view on schools is at all biased.
Re: Ireland's big school secret: how a year off-curriculum changes teenage lives
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
“Children learn what they live. Put kids in a class and they will live out their lives in an invisible cage, isolated from their chance at community; interrupt kids with bells and horns all the time and they will learn that nothing is important or worth finishing; ridicule them and they will retreat from human association; shame them and they will find a hundred ways to get even. The habits taught in large-scale orga…
> cage > isolation > interruptions > ridicule > shame I wonder if this person's view on schools is at all biased.
I'd say someone who taught in NYC public schools for 30 years and won teacher of the year award is a good resource to learn from? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Taylor_Gatto