Hacker News Reader

Comment by lukeschlather | Hacker News Reader

The system cannot easily be fixed. Some students might be able to get by with just 12 years of schooling, for some jobs. Some students may need 18 years of schooling to be able to effectively hold down a minimum-wage job.

Most students who go into skilled trades probably need at least 12 years of schooling. But knowing which 12 years is the hard part. Sure, somebody who knows they want to be an electrician at the age of 10 can probably be competent by 18, but we shouldn't be locking people into that kind of flat job progression.

Even if we accept that simple trade schools are the ideal, I'd still argue we should be encouraging people to study a liberal mix of arts taking 17-20 years (just with liberal arts mixing trades instead of academics.)

View on HN

Germany has a different model for education, but they had to lose World War 2 and had it imposed upon them by the Allies. https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/10/why-ger...

> but they had to lose World War 2

A better way of putting it would be to say that "Germany had a different model for education but when they lost World War 2, the standard model of education was imposed upon them by the Allies."

Otherwise it kinda comes off sounding like "if only Germany didn't lose WW2" which most folks agree would have been a poor outcome.

You are reading it wrong.

The GP is saying that they had a pretty conservative system, and could only change it for something that works after losing a war and having change imposed from foreigners.

Thanks, tried too hard to be succinct, and made it slightly ambiguous.

I guess could see a reading of it like that and will leave the original wording so your comment makes sense, and in 2017 we have to be explicit that I don't mean to condone Nazis, genocide, racial hatred, other things we associated with the German policies of WW 2 or for that matter Japanese atrocities on civilians in occupied territories or Allied prisoners.

This type of stuff is hard to figure out but where I currently live there are a lot of people who would be much better off if they were locked into a career progression to become an electrician at age 10.

This is (I'm told by my cousins) what they do in Europe and it terrifies me. When I was 10, I was kind of a shit-head and didn't know what I wanted to do, and wasn't really on a path to go to college. You would have locked me in to a career progression to become an electrician. Instead, I worked part time here and there and went to school on my own time and am now ABD in a PhD program.

Who are you to look at 10 year old me and say "no, let's keep this kid in votech and deny them access to higher ed"?

Your cousins are misrepresenting the situation in Europe at least with respect to Germany.

People in Germany do not generally make binding decisions on their specific career path until they are sixteen and after that career switches do happen.

In your particular case you might have been recommended for a vocational path at age 10 or so and then you could have disregarded that recommendation (possible at least in Germany's most populous State). If you had followed that path, you would have still been able to switch after any semester if your grades were considered sufficient. Or you would have completed that path and started an apprenticeship as an electrician. This would also allow you to enroll at any state university in a related major (e.g. electrical engineering). There are also courses that you can take to obtain the general university entrance qualification necessary for enrolling in any field of your choice.

The point I am making is that there is much more flexibility in Germany than you currently imagine. There are many who still criticize the German system otherwise (me included), because straying from the recommendation that your elementary school teacher gives you does come with some friction. Also, there is some empirical evidence that the recommendations can depend on the social class of the child (i.e. kids with rich parents are put on the academic path) in practice. However nobody is "locked in" to any career progression.

That doesn’t happen in the UK at the moment; specialisation starts (mildly) at 14 at the level of “pick one language, pick one humanity, pick one of art or music”; from 16 to 18, one must either be in full-time education or training; post 18 is 3-5 years as an undergrad at university.

Edit: there are occasional calls to return to the previous system of the “11 plus”, which I don’t understand but which is probably relevant.

The 11 plus separated kids at age 11 (on Sep 1) into either "grammar schools" or "secondary moderns". The idea was those with acedemic aptitude concentrated on those subjects more acedemic (traditionally Latin, classics etc), where those more practical had those skills encouraged (metalwork etc)

The reality of it now is that richer parents spend lots on tuition to get their kids into the grammars, which breaks the system quite significantly.

This only applies in a few areas of the country though.

I think the only UK PMs to be elected that had a state school upbringing went to grammar schools.

> This only applies in a few areas of the country though.

To clarify slightly: this system used to apply throughout the country, but in the '70s local authorities were given the option to get rid of it, and instead have 'comprehensive' schools where everyone goes; almost all did.

Well, sort of. I believe that some authorities make all children sit the exam, and then give high scorers the option of going to grammar school. More authorities give children the option of sitting the exam, again giving high scorers the option of going to grammar school. Most areas don't have the 11+ at all.

On top of that, in the '90s the government gave all schools the option to be partially selective (ie selecting some fraction of pupils somehow, not by 11+), and some took it up; the option was withdrawn soon after, but the schools which had exercised it stayed selective.

Other schools and instead allocate school places by geographic proximity - which in the presence of better and worse schools, results in de facto selection by parental wealth, because houses near good schools are more expensive.

Oh, and there are also faith schools that can select by religion.

No, this doesn't make any sense. This is Britain.

> Oh, and there are also faith schools that can select by religion.

> No, this doesn't make any sense. This is Britain.

This is why my atheist father had me baptised Catholic, even though the state religion of the UK is Church of England.

It is specifically what we do in Germany (I'm not aware of any other country), and even here it has been seen quite critical for decades. Keep in mind that it has always been possible to switch between tracks and go to university even if you only made it into the "manual laborer" track - but then you really have to want it and work very hard for it.

wasn't making that possible forced by the EU

As a rule, if you hear something is "enforced by the eu", it's probably nothing of the sort.

TUPE is though some eu countries didn't implement the spirit of the Law cough spain

It Might have been part of the Bologna Process though

Clearly they should’ve enforced English education. Spain is at the bottom when it comes to that, as parent shows.

We do the career thing in my part of Europe. Not at 10 but at 14 when it’s tine to decide what kind of high school you can go to.

There are ways out if it later on. You can do another 2 years on top of a 3 year vocational school to get the right type of final exam to apply for college. You can take extra classes to switch from a just-a-college to a uni degree. Then you’re free to go do masters and phds just like anyone who went to the right type of high school at 14.

Except now you’re older and more mature and probably likelier to graduate than all us shitheads who got in the normal way.

Trade school route doesn't mean you're denied access to university for life. But you'll have to put in some extra effort to get in there.

On the other hand, if shitheads-at-10yo stay on university route, they don't get good enough grades to get into university anyway. They'd probably be better off becoming electricians. Once they'd realise they do want education after all, then they could put in extra effort.

As a side effect, electrician-headed shitheads don't stop education-oriented kids from making progress. Which is nice too.

They really need better counseling, not better education.

People talk about administration as if it were a waste of money, but really most counselor's offices are glorified registrars and can't do any actual counseling (which is really one of the bigger problems.)

There's no magic bullet, and at a high level there's no substitute for more 1-on-1 instruction (and counseling is just a little more explicitly 1-on-1 targeted at kids that need it.)

The problem I see in the area I grew up is that no one thinks about anything related to their career or future until they're graduating high school. The sole focus seemed to be drinking and getting high and school was considered a place to socialize and get into fights by the average student. I think a lot of places in the US are like this to be honest. The concept of a school that fits everyone does not make sense past grammar school in my opinion. It's led to masses of aimless adults who seem to have no purpose or goals in life.

Yep.

In my country (which is not Germany), the big jump is at ~15. While elementary (1-4) and middle schools (5-8) are +/- the same, gymnasiums/high schools (9-12 or 9-10) do differ. For smart kids, 15 is the age to try to get into the elite profile schools in science or art. Or jump to an overall better school. And shitheads are encouraged to go to "main" 9-10 schools which are straight way to trade schools. Although majority of kids stay in mainstream schools and do what you described. But the system offers a way out for both smart kids troublemakers. Which is nice.

Personally I wish kids were more encouraged to aim for a better school at that age. I'm still salty I didn't even try to get into the elite schools since commute seemed too long. Although I did jump to a wee better (and closer) school to escape the overall attitude.

There is no such thing as "they do in Europe". There are really big differences between countries and even schools within the same city.

I live in Europe. Yes, closing options too early is bad. But, a lifetime of debt slavery chasing an academic dream is worse. The big problem is cost. We havs part of the cost answer in moocs - khan academy is great. The rest of the flipped classroom must come from p2p learning and tutor networks.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com