Ireland's big school secret: how a year off-curriculum changes teenage lives
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
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 typewriter)
took part in the Irish language school music competition
took German
was in a play
got an award at the Young Scientist
I really developed as a person. I hadn't ever really stopped to think what my life would be like without that development but I suspect it was very beneficial. It certainly wasn't a "doss" - and it started to grow a self determination muscle - find your own work experience, find projects you want to try etc.
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.
Eh, my experience is the opposite. A lot more exploitation in grad school than in industry. It's a lot easier to change jobs than change professors/universities.
I recall multiple cases of formal/semi-formal interventions where other professors or the department had to force an advisor to let the person graduate (they wanted to keep milking them for more papers).
And then when you do graduate, forget a career in research if you can't get recommendation letters from him.
But otherwise, I agree. A ton of benefits if you go to graduate school and don't have an abusive advisor.
(I also took a year off after high school. Never understood why everyone said I was making a big mistake...).
>I recall multiple cases of formal/semi-formal interventions where other professors or the department had to force an advisor to let the person graduate (they wanted to keep milking them for more papers).
That's kind of what I mean though. In grad school other professors you've worked with might still keep an eye out for you. Under an exploitative employer, the way I was previously, I wouldn't know any better, I had no sense for the value of my time/work and I used to panic about having to send simple emails to people, quitting a job used to sound equivalent to suicide.
For me there's also the factor that as an international student, it's a lot easier for employers to exploit me than a school.
Edit: Although, come to think of it, I do know of other departments at my uni where even other professors can't be relied on to help in such cases. So I guess you're right.
Seems the lessons you learned as a grad student are the lessons I learned as an employee :-)
My first job was exploitative. I eventually gave them the middle finger and left. Everyone told me I was crazy: "All jobs are like this. You have to suck it up"
Eh, no. None of my jobs since then have been that bad. Half of them I actually enjoyed.
This is very relevant: https://xkcd.com/1768/
I was much happier getting out of school as soon as I possibly could like yourself.
OP sounds like he was in a gaelscoil - an Irish language school. The 'epidemiological institute' in question was either RCSI or UCD - fairly standard for 3rd level institutions to have relationships/programmes/open days with various feeder Schools.
The big red herring was the engine module. No 'affluent' school would remotely consider offering a course in stripping an engine over a semester in 1998 - far more likely that those Students were put learning classics, latin or ancient greek.
As a result both of them just got pushed into something at the end.
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.
CEGEP provided an excellent transitionary structure where you had both more responsibility for your actions and results, and also a forgiving safety net. You’re forced to do near-university-level study of subjects in an environment where the professors are able to hold your hand a bit more, will tolerate late assignments, and if you screw up it won’t permanently tank your future academic prospects.
The tuition at CEGEP was free. You just paid a few fees to the school and the student union, which added up to about $120/semester at the time. This made it a lot more palatable to try out a math- or science-heavy stream and switch out of it if you decided it wasn’t something you’d want to continue in university. The gen ed classes were also great.
" Ireland actually has this interesting thing called “transition year,” this year between two major exams of high school or at least Ireland’s high school equivalent.Transition year is a formally designated year that’s optional, where you can go and pursue things that you might not otherwise naturally tend to pursue, and the school tends to be much more permissive of going and spending three months abroad or going and doing some work experience in this area or whatever the case may be. And so, in that year, I basically decided to spend as much of it as possible programming, and so I did that.”"
https://networkcapital.beehiiv.com/p/stripe-ceo-patrick-coll...
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 to just like play with all kinds of stuff when he was young just to see what it would sound like.
I listened to an intel exec (after pat came back) and he talked about how he was disassembling and reassembling the house electronics as a kid.
Or me - I would just code for fun and my dad got me some books on it. I hardly ever did any school on it.
If we let kids just do what they want and have fun, I think they would get good at what they love and have fulfilling careers.
If you have to do what your told your whole life - who even wants to live it?
So maybe we just let kids have their freedom. I know it sounds crazy but what if we applied the rights to life liberty and pursuit of happiness to them? I think they would amaze us. Kids are so clever, I think we would have so much creativity our minds would be blown!
To conclude I think that we have a dearth of people who know what to do. So many employees and fewer small businesses. I think if we give kids freedom, the chance to figure out what they like doing, and how to do it, as adults they will be able to start businesses better and manage them.
Just my thoughts!
If there are 10 people who want to be plumbers but the economy is signalling it needs 20 plumbers then it'd be best if 10 people who don't enjoy plumbing all that much do it for the money. If there are 100 people who want to make a living as an artist and only demand for 1 it'd be better if most of them overruled their instincts and found something more useful to do. Paint as a hobby and live as something else.
If it aligns it's cool and you can reach for the stars, but there is a wide scope of activities that won't make a living. Especially given our origins as hunter-gatherers or explorers, for someone with similar predispositions, what can they really do that fits that? Most likely they'd end spending most of their time playing video games to satiate those urges than to
This is essentially the philosophy of unschooling[0], which the recurse center[1] follows. I definitely agree with you! Pursuing fun and curiosity has led me to my most productive and moments.
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 not alone.
If I don't have some sort of exterior structure or motivator, I will literally get nothing done, and I have no desire to.
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 also highly school dependent, which is either totally expected or a complete surprise, given that the rest of the curriculum and tests are all national level standards.
This article paints a far rosier picture than I've really seen from the local experiences, but that's probably as much the lack of drive at the school than anything else.
My eldest's TY experience with us was great -- we took the opportunity to AirB&B around Europe, at least till Covid hit. But we were totally comfortable with dealing with the home schooling part of that for the three of them.
Unlike some other systems where students stud a broad spectrum of subjects (with core subjects like maths, english and science being compulsory), students typically only study 3 (or maybe 4) subjects a A level (with subjects being things like "maths", "geography", "chemistry", etc), with no compulsory subjects.
O levels got replaced back in the 80's. A levels never got renamed.
So for my final two years of high school, I only studies math, physics and bio.
In the same way that an AP can sometimes give you a semester's credit at a university, an A-Level can sometimes give you a full year's credit. (Only in US universities, though. In the UK you're expected to have done them, so you don't get extra credit. Though, for the same reason, a bachelors degree in the UK is typically only three years, not four.)
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!
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.
- https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/got-dough-how-billio...
I’m Irish but unfortunately never bothered with TY. I live in the UK now so I’ve a limited understanding of TY and the ‘Gap year’.
Clearly not the same as taking time off before university when you are already an adult though. Participation in some activities is required, so it's a bit more structured - and I don't think you can take off on your own to travel the world!
Many countries allow young people (under 30) to live and work in-country under a Working Holiday visa. Both are effectively Young People travelling (aka backpacking).
Transition Year is the 4th year of 2nd Level in Ireland - the conclusion of the 'Junior Cycle' of secondary school, culminating with the 10-14 Subject 'Junior Certificate' exam at the end of 3rd year. It is a regular year in terms of school attendance, but rather than academic modules structure against a strict curriculum, students tend to do a mix of practical and theoretical skills.
Things like intro to psychology, philosophy, an esoteric language or other college accession style intro classes are popular. Photography/Film Making, Cooking, Self-Defense/Martial Arts classes are all popular on the practical side.
Most of the religious schools (i.e. about 80% of all schools) tend to have a charity component as well - seeing TY students out collecting for Irish Cancer Society or packing bags in a supermarket to fund a local Hospice is pretty standard.
The performance of the English education system has improved markedly over the past couple of decades. At least, as measured by tests!
we spent a whole class looking at an old O Level question from an exam.
all of us, including the boffins in the class, were completely stumped by it.
he explained it to us at the end, but it did solidify an appreciation in me that, at least 20ish years ago, we definitely had it easier than folks before us.
Same in the USA. The old student question "will this be on the test?" is now also asked by teachers and administrators. If the answer is "no" they skip it.
Throw in the fact that in much of the country, teachers have to do things like pull second jobs to get by and beg parents for basic supplies like scissors and paper towels, and it's no wonder everything is falling apart.
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 get through the exam material. We didn't mind; he had hooked us on the subject.
But that is now rare. Increasingly teachers just teach to the test. And the number of tests the kids have to take keeps rising.
The best you can say about it is everyone gets the same tedious and stressful introduction to everything, which only proves their ability to remember lots of stuff under time pressure.
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.
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).
The problem is it might come too late to change their self-perception. A year is a lot of time when you’re nine
Think it varies a lot school to school and sometimes even year to year.
It heavily depends on the school, I would guess, however, but often those who need "more time in the oven" come just as much from the academically inclined side as from the less academically inclined side. For both, it allows them a broader window on who they might be.
As it happened, I worked through 4 big space books and realized that I was really passionate about space. When I started college it was easy to plan my direction and be motivated because I knew the area I wanted to work in.
I've heard reasons for not doing it, but it's so good for broadening the horizons of who you think you are that almost all of those reasons are almost moot.
For my work placement, I worked in a folk instrument store and learned a lot about acoustic instruments, but also the basics of showing up on time, getting things done, and more. It was invaluable. The reduced pressure meant I could also work at the local McDonald's, and the income from 6 months of shift-work there made a big difference for me and my family. It was a start of some modest savings that allowed me to even consider going to college later (I still had to work through college, but at least it was doable).
Transition Year, the introduction of Free Third Level Education, and the blinded CAO application process for universities were all game changers for me. I grew up in Ballyfermot, a working class part of Dublin, and when I went to college I found out there was still only a tiny handful of people from there who'd had that opportunity. Still so thankful.
Closing schools during covid might seem to support it, but there was also a global pandemic going on at the time.
It would be interesting to compare TY during the pandemic vs. non-pandemic years.
Your question sounds like you are baiting, like you are pretending to be so naive that you are not aware that men and women face different expectations and circumstances growing up, and moreso there is something wrong with expressing concern for boys without also including girls.
Maybe, hopefully, I'm reading you wrong.
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 over nothing.
I think there are a lot of challenges faced by boys that are worthy of attention and resourcing. Some of them may be biological some may be socially constructed. To an extent, it doesn't matter the causes, because the issues still exist.
FWIW, I consciously tried to phrase my question as not some kind of set up for a dunk. As much as you might think people are sometimes woke baiting, for lack of a better term, the counterreaction is just as much of a minefield.
This is non-withstanding the Western Educational premise of treating 'misbehaving' boys as 'broken' girls, as opposed to facilitating them in a mutually acceptable learning style.
And we still did some academic classes. Maths, anyway. And I think some others.
In my school, most of the kids didn't do TY, so there was just one class in TY, which meant that the maths, in particular, was fairly basic: there weren't enough of us for streaming. And jumping back into higher level maths in Fifth Year was, frankly, a bit of a shock to the system.
I used to teach public middle school, and I developed a profound belief that how we educate students is entirely backwards.
The things that make an off year effective scales to an entire K-12 program! See the free democratic schools like https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudbury_school I believe the majority of students would thrive in such a school, if they had the chance.
They have no formal classes, no teachers, no tests. Yet students still learn to read earlier, they read more and at a higher level. They graduate from college at higher rates, and have higher rates of entrepreneurship. I believe this model is a superior pedagogical model for the majority of the population.
"The Sudbury pedagogical philosophy may be summarized as the following: Learning is a natural by-product of all human activity. Learning is self-initiated and self-motivated.
The educational model states that there are many ways to learn and that learning is a process someone does, not a process that is done to him or her; According to the model the presence and guidance of a teacher is not necessary. "
Check out:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Sudbury_schools
https://www.phillyfreeschool.org/why-it-works
The problem is we are stuck with our current model - even when alternatives have better outcomes, parents just say "well my kid would not do well with that, they are too lazy to even do what we ask." They do not realize that our current model is so broken that disinterest in a student is a perfectly rational response.
For example, I think video game addiction is a natural response to being forced to do something you hate 8-12 hours a day. The fact that the Philly Free School has very few students ever even playing video games at all (but they are allowed to all day if they want) paints a very clear picture that video games are a symptom not a cause.
And finally, a damning indictment of our current model; https://cantrip.org/gatto.html
This sounds great!
> Then there is the financial aspect of TY: some parents just can’t afford it.
oh for fuck's sake
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.
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.
https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/docserver/eag_highlights-2010-...
Notably the US has the lowest dropout rate, so obviously they are pre-filtering students hard. That necessarily means that there are lots of people who /could/ have succeeded but were excluded at the admissions stage. The degree to which that's the right choice probably depends on whether you think doing a year of university and then leaving is a huge waste, a horrible failure, or a worthwhile experiment.
(The unique economics of US universities obviously interact with this calculus in pretty major ways.)
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%?
Ope. I forgot that changed after COVID.
Pre-COVID SAT/ACT was required.
> 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%?
Someone is always going to be penalized no matter what. Most schools in California as well as nationally are not specialized or gatekept via entrance exams like Lowell was.
Most schools in California as well as nationally are not specialized or gatekept via entrance exams like Lowell was.
Imagine the top 10% of middle school students in SF go to Lowell. Half of those will be in the bottom half of the graduating class.
So 5% of students in SF (half of the best 10%) might not get into their UC of choice, just because they managed to get into Lowell.
That's a lot of students' futures we're talking about. Why penalize half of the best students in SF?
Third level admissions have been done via a points system based on your top six Leaving Certificate (final second level exam) results for decades. It's an impersonal system, but at least fairer than most.
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.
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)
I wonder if this person's view on schools is at all biased.
For what it's worth, I look back on my time in school with relative fondness. Certainly I don't agree with anything like it 'being a cage' or feeling isolated from other people (????)
I think homeschooling could work for some combinations of parents and kids, but so many discussion sounds like "Of course it's going to work for my kids because I'm different!"
Sounds like a typical day for a regular school kid. Most school kids up to a certain age need a parent to wake them up, and don't get to pick their clothes or their food. And get shepherded into the bed.
Not sure what any of this has to do with homeschooling. It's just basic life.
In fact, from the parents I know who home school, the kids actually have more freedoms than school kids do. Their work is tailored to their skill level, so no BS tedious homework. As long as the parents have time, the schedule is flexible as well. If your kid performs better at noon - great! Start then.
Let's not cherry pick. Plenty of people have adverse social outcomes due to school.
Oh and drank a lot of beer. Great times!
If they were smart they would start with adding more and reducing it.