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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

#131

Post by wiredfool »

piltdownman wrote: post #113
wiredfool wrote: post #19

In Ireland -- with one kid in Junior Cert and one who did Junior Cert, then had an external Transition Year, then self studied for A levels, and one who's done home school/self study through GCSE and now doing A levels. It's an optional, definitely not universal thing. Not all schools offer it, and even then I get the impression that it's well less than half the students take the opportunity. The implementation is al…

All private and boarder schools have it as mandatory for at least 20 years at this point. The public schools that don't tend to either be in extremely rural areas with low university accession to begin with (and a different focus on things like the Leaving Cert Applied and/or facilitating the Sileage/Farming season).

The school I’m talking about is a public school in one of the bigger towns in Ireland. It’s not predominantly rural, but it’s also not one of the ”good” schools, which here are Catholic.

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

#132

Post by datadrivenangel »

SoftTalker wrote: post #59
datadrivenangel wrote: post #10

I took a year off after high school in the US to work part time and take welding and accounting courses at the local community college. Great experience that convinced me that I did actually want to go to university.

I'm pretty sure that if I had taken auto shop or welding in high school (it was still offered, but I was "college-bound" and steered away from anything in that wing of the building) or in a "gap year" I would have ended up doing something in that field. I love making stuff and repairing stuff. I also was interested in computers and programming them, I think there's a lot of overlap there in terms of motivations.

I still love making and repairing stuff. The pay and physical toil are better behind a keyboard though.

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

#133

Post by [deleted] »

watwut wrote: post #121
asdasdsddd wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you, leftist universalism is really annoying to engage with. You could say, "its important to wash your hands" and they will ask you why you are being ableist and excluding people without hands.

In this case, someone asked completely inoffensive question in an inoffensive way asking for details ... you two went on an angry rant offended. This question literally could have a meaningful answer and someone even tried. Like, it is not clear whether any leftist even entered the discussion, the question could easily be asked by someone neutral or conservative. But it was definitely not a leftist who took offense o…

[deleted]

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

#134

Post by spywaregorilla »

MattPalmer1086 wrote: post #109
spywaregorilla wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not unreasonable if you have good tests that hit the right elements. My experience about 10 years ago with the AP exams were very positive. The tests were good, and even though the classes were taught to the test, they were some of the best classes I ever took.

Education should be about more than just passing standardised tests. I always remember my history teacher taking an entire term on the battles of the second world war. He brought in videos, old shell casings, all kinds of stuff. Everyone was into it, even kids who normally wouldn't pay attention. At the end of term he apologised to us, since none of that would be in the test, and now we would have to work harder to g…

Is that really kids liking history or is that kids thinking war is cool?

History is also largely a joke subject that's just interesting fun facts and dry US history repeated ad infinitum for most american grade schools.

I would say the only history class that was actually of any value for me in high school was AP modern european history.

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

#135

Post by kridsdale3 »

Hello71 wrote: post #42
WorkerBee28474 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

.

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 med…

Those two are very likely inflated incomes for people living in awful harsh conditions doing resource extraction.

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

#136

Post by [deleted] »

ativzzz wrote: post #128
h_tbob wrote: post #98

Everybody mocks me when I say this. But the most productive people in the world spent their time doing what they thought was fun. It’s like our biology is smarter than us. If it’s fun our brains are telling us there’s something about it we need. It’s like when you think a girl is cute for the first time. There’s no logic in it to you, but it’s the most logical thing in the world, that’s why it’s fun. Hans Zimmer used…

I want to play video games. I spent my childhood playing games in every waking moment of my free time that I could get away with. I did the same thing in my young adulthood, and now my current life. As an adult, unfortunately (lol), family and job take priority and I can't just play video games all day, despite my wishes. I would have approximately zero productivity if I just did what I thought was fun. I'm sure I'm…

[deleted]

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

#137

Post by MattPalmer1086 »

spywaregorilla wrote: post #134
MattPalmer1086 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Education should be about more than just passing standardised tests. I always remember my history teacher taking an entire term on the battles of the second world war. He brought in videos, old shell casings, all kinds of stuff. Everyone was into it, even kids who normally wouldn't pay attention. At the end of term he apologised to us, since none of that would be in the test, and now we would have to work harder to g…

Is that really kids liking history or is that kids thinking war is cool? History is also largely a joke subject that's just interesting fun facts and dry US history repeated ad infinitum for most american grade schools. I would say the only history class that was actually of any value for me in high school was AP modern european history.

It's just an example of a teacher engaging their students in a subject by not only teaching to the test.

Here's another one. I had a maths teacher who engaged his students about probability theory through learning about games of chance. We spent some lessons figuring out what advantage we could get in various card games. He also spent some lessons on just "cool" ideas like infinity, zeno's paradoxes and other mind blowing concepts. None of which were on the exam syllabus.

As an aside, history is very much not about facts. It's more about interpretation of incomplete data from many different sources, not all of which are reliable. My Dad said it's more like being a detective (he was a professor of history).

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

#138

Post by tumblrinaowned »

piltdownman wrote: post #116
tumblrinaowned wrote: post #104

Great. Let's model a failed country. If they were smart they would start with adding more and reducing it.

Lol. Cope harder.

Lel. By what measure Ireland is developed? Country is riddled with foreign population. Birtharates are falling to the point of no recovery. No access to abortion and health services are so far behind. Claims to be christian but can't even unite the broken part of country. So much violence in the country. Man, if you are rich and white, it's great. If you are not white, it is done deal and you will never get ahead. @piltdownman - Listen YWNBW and successful. Keep commenting here like you are birtch of HN.

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

#139

Post by piltdownman »

tumblrinaowned wrote: post #138
piltdownman wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol. Cope harder.

Lel. By what measure Ireland is developed? Country is riddled with foreign population. Birtharates are falling to the point of no recovery. No access to abortion and health services are so far behind. Claims to be christian but can't even unite the broken part of country. So much violence in the country. Man, if you are rich and white, it's great. If you are not white, it is done deal and you will never get ahead. @p…

What crazy fasco-nationalist rant are you indulging yourself in now? That poisonous diatribe is the product of a truly fractured mind.
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