First, the education system here is based on some industrial-conformity training system devised by industrialists in the 1800s, or therabouts.
It is not really natural or right for kids of a certain age to be sitting in a desk all day. Boys especially need to have a break at certain stages of their growth, usually about 13-15 yo, when they should be sent away from home to some sort of boarding school/military school/vocational school arrangement, at least for a time. It all depends on the kid.
Boys especially need to have a break at certain stages of their growth, usually about 13-15 yo, when they should be sent away from home to some sort of boarding school/military school/vocational school arrangement, at least for a time. It all depends on the kid.
I guess I was one of those kids that didn't need that. What kids do need is to go to college AWAY from home... When I mean AWAY I mean outside of a single day's drive. No going home on the weekends for laundry, food, family time. These people need to stay the fuck at school and experience the "half-way house" experience that College helps to create.
Sending someone off to boarding/military/vocational schools when they are in their mid-teens will do nothing but help to alienate the child in a time when they might be alienated enough.
Kids need time to be apart *AND* they need time to grow but seperating them from their family at this point of their lives is hardly the way to do it. Wait for them to be of a mature enough age 18+ here in the States and don't let the little bastards come back.
You learn a lot, grow a lot, and change a lot in those years but you are still under the light security blanket that the college envrionment creates.
I don't think there is a one-size-fits-all solution. Some people need a more structured environment to grow, and become self diciplined. Others who are more free thinkers would just be aliented by that sort of environment. College isn't for everybody, the military isn't for everybody, travelling the world isn't for everybody. I've seen each of these experiences help friends figure their way through life, I also can see how being forced into the wrong situation could do more harm. It's really an individual
However, doing it in the early teens gets the kids being more self-reliant for things earlier in their lives.
Which, to me, is a good thing.
Get them dealing with problems themselves, instead of running to mommy and daddy. A boarding school environment may not, exactly, be the wrong place. It would depend a LOT on how the school was ran.
And if they feel they need to talk to their parents, modern communications make this utterly cake-walk.
Make the kids start to deal with teachers and their parents as if
It would appear that 100 years ago, one could apprentice themselves into a trade, and become a journeyman at it in thier teens, and a journeyman was considered an "adult" and could open their own shop. However, this thought is completely held as wrong in the current social environment, as 16-18yos aren't "mature" enough to be allowed to do such things.
100 years ago the majority of people didn't have education past 8th grade (nevermind past 12th grade) and they didn't have an average life expectancy of nea
You can put my grandfather into that category (actually, stopped at the 7th grade). That in no way hampered is ability to be very intelligent, read any book he could get his hands on, become a sucessful businessman, and instill a strong work-ethic into both his kids and his grand-kids.
Why? because while he hadn't gone on to school (dirt poor and needed money growing up), he still valued learning (no cares about education, but learning was key).
Always quick to teach small lessons about things, the way th
Lies. 18 yr olds were shopowners, and parents. They seemed to do just fine then, you need to read Gatto's book.
Most people, even the young ones, didn't work the factories and sweatshops that you're probably imagining. It's even said that asking someone "who they worked for" was an insult... most were proud to work for themselves, doing whatever it was that they did.
My own grandfather became a father at age 18. He likes to play the hick, the dufus... but you'd never meet a more capable man. Hard to imagine
Just because you have the physical attributes of an adult doesn't mean that you have the mental ones.
According to who? Evolution keeps the characteristics that work; and in this case it seems to have worked out very, very well, given that their are more than six billion of us on the planet. The idea that teenagers are somehow mentally incompetent is a bogus one; if it were true then the species would have either adapted for earlier maturation or died out, especially in light of the fact that for more th
The point, however, is that they somehow managed to, two hundred plus years ago, defeat the british and write a masterpiece of constitutional though, at an age that most of us here on/. were still getting made fun of my the senior class at our colleges...
Intellectual maturity. What a pseudo-intellectual, lame excuse for saying that you hit 21, and still haven't accomplished anything with you life except receive papers saying that one day you will.
Get them dealing with problems themselves, instead of running to mommy and daddy.
Unfortunately, you need to start earlier than the teens to make those lessons stick. It seems like once kids have reached their teens, barring any life-altering experiences, their basic attitudes about life & society have solidified and they will resist any attempts to "retrain" them.
I've read some interesting case studies dealing with sibling rivalries (disclaimer: IANAParent). The kids of those parents who basically ign
My parents intervened more than that, and it really showed with my youngest brother, however when he hit his teens, he had to become the "oldest", as I was in college, and it was him and our middle brother, who has Down's Syndrome. That pretty radically changed his temperament, having to pick up that responsibility.
A lot the friction between us was erased about then, when HE was now the one in the position of responsibility, and the one that would get in trouble when the parents came home and found things
What kids do need is to go to college AWAY from home... [snip] Sending someone off to boarding/military/vocational schools when they are in their mid-teens will do nothing but help to alienate the child in a time when they might be alienated enough.
You are absolutely correct.
I went to a private high school that had both boarding students and day students. In the school's 100-year history, the boarders have never performed as well as the day students.
Yet, on the flip side, commuter-dominated colleges us
"You learn a lot, grow a lot, and change a lot in those years but you are still under the light security blanket that the college envrionment creates."
Huh you must have gone to a vastly different college than I did... My college was horrible in the 'light security blanket' area, in fact they were involved in screwing me over more times than I want to think about...
If I'd gone farther away from home for college I would have eneded up a bum living on the street when the college tossed me out of my apartment
I went to a really good, Canadian, public high school with a lot of really good teachers and a pretty good "advanced" track for gifted students - honours Math, and honours English.
And as your typical Slashdot gifted geek-type, kicked ass even at the higher levels from the advanced track.
(I also took a lot of shop electives, which really paid off in a BIG way later in life... but that's a digression)
Because school was so easy, I got to having a pretty high opinion of myself - which is a nice way of saying
When I mean AWAY I mean outside of a single day's drive. No going home on the weekends for laundry, food, family time.
I come from a country where that's barely possible without studying abroad. In fact, I don't think there's a country in Western Europe you can't drive across in a day. We seem to cope.
In Australia its not uncommon for 18 year olds to move out, even if their going to a university in the same town. Furthermore a lot of students move in with their significant others right off the bat, there are no "half-way" settings generally and you do mature fast.
Sending someone off to boarding/military/vocational schools when they are in their mid-teens will do nothing but help to alienate the child in a time when they might be alienated enough.
Kids need time to be apart *AND* they need time to grow but seperating them from their family at this point of their lives is hardly the way to do it. Wait for them to be of a mature enough age 18+ here in the States and don't let the little bastards come back.
I went to a boarding school for a year and liked it. (Tur
All science is either physics or stamp collecting.
-- Ernest Rutherford
As a former teacher, I agree--it's not fixable (Score:2, Interesting)
It is not really natural or right for kids of a certain age to be sitting in a desk all day. Boys especially need to have a break at certain stages of their growth, usually about 13-15 yo, when they should be sent away from home to some sort of boarding school/military school/vocational school arrangement, at least for a time. It all depends on the kid.
Once again, E
Re:As a former teacher, I agree--it's not fixable (Score:5, Insightful)
I guess I was one of those kids that didn't need that. What kids do need is to go to college AWAY from home... When I mean AWAY I mean outside of a single day's drive. No going home on the weekends for laundry, food, family time. These people need to stay the fuck at school and experience the "half-way house" experience that College helps to create.
Sending someone off to boarding/military/vocational schools when they are in their mid-teens will do nothing but help to alienate the child in a time when they might be alienated enough.
Kids need time to be apart *AND* they need time to grow but seperating them from their family at this point of their lives is hardly the way to do it. Wait for them to be of a mature enough age 18+ here in the States and don't let the little bastards come back.
You learn a lot, grow a lot, and change a lot in those years but you are still under the light security blanket that the college envrionment creates.
Re:As a former teacher, I agree--it's not fixable (Score:2)
College isn't for everybody, the military isn't for everybody, travelling the world isn't for everybody. I've seen each of these experiences help friends figure their way through life, I also can see how being forced into the wrong situation could do more harm.
It's really an individual
Re:As a former teacher, I agree--it's not fixable (Score:1)
Which, to me, is a good thing.
Get them dealing with problems themselves, instead of running to mommy and daddy. A boarding school environment may not, exactly, be the wrong place. It would depend a LOT on how the school was ran.
And if they feel they need to talk to their parents, modern communications make this utterly cake-walk.
Make the kids start to deal with teachers and their parents as if
Re:As a former teacher, I agree--it's not fixable (Score:2)
100 years ago the majority of people didn't have education past 8th grade (nevermind past 12th grade) and they didn't have an average life expectancy of nea
Re:As a former teacher, I agree--it's not fixable (Score:1)
Why? because while he hadn't gone on to school (dirt poor and needed money growing up), he still valued learning (no cares about education, but learning was key).
Always quick to teach small lessons about things, the way th
Re:As a former teacher, I agree--it's not fixable (Score:2)
Most people, even the young ones, didn't work the factories and sweatshops that you're probably imagining. It's even said that asking someone "who they worked for" was an insult... most were proud to work for themselves, doing whatever it was that they did.
My own grandfather became a father at age 18. He likes to play the hick, the dufus... but you'd never meet a more capable man. Hard to imagine
Re:As a former teacher, I agree--it's not fixable (Score:2)
According to who? Evolution keeps the characteristics that work; and in this case it seems to have worked out very, very well, given that their are more than six billion of us on the planet. The idea that teenagers are somehow mentally incompetent is a bogus one; if it were true then the species would have either adapted for earlier maturation or died out, especially in light of the fact that for more th
Re:As a former teacher, I agree--it's not fixable (Score:2)
Intellectual maturity. What a pseudo-intellectual, lame excuse for saying that you hit 21, and still haven't accomplished anything with you life except receive papers saying that one day you will.
Re:As a former teacher, I agree--it's not fixable (Score:2)
Unfortunately, you need to start earlier than the teens to make those lessons stick. It seems like once kids have reached their teens, barring any life-altering experiences, their basic attitudes about life & society have solidified and they will resist any attempts to "retrain" them.
I've read some interesting case studies dealing with sibling rivalries (disclaimer: IANAParent). The kids of those parents who basically ign
Re:As a former teacher, I agree--it's not fixable (Score:1)
A lot the friction between us was erased about then, when HE was now the one in the position of responsibility, and the one that would get in trouble when the parents came home and found things
Re:As a former teacher, I agree--it's not fixable (Score:1)
You are absolutely correct.
I went to a private high school that had both boarding students and day students. In the school's 100-year history, the boarders have never performed as well as the day students.
Yet, on the flip side, commuter-dominated colleges us
Re:As a former teacher, I agree--it's not fixable (Score:2)
Huh you must have gone to a vastly different college than I did... My college was horrible in the 'light security blanket' area, in fact they were involved in screwing me over more times than I want to think about...
If I'd gone farther away from home for college I would have eneded up a bum living on the street when the college tossed me out of my apartment
Don't knock military school.... (Score:3, Interesting)
And as your typical Slashdot gifted geek-type, kicked ass even at the higher levels from the advanced track.
(I also took a lot of shop electives, which really paid off in a BIG way later in life... but that's a digression)
Because school was so easy, I got to having a pretty high opinion of myself - which is a nice way of saying
Re:Don't knock military school.... (Score:1)
Re:As a former teacher, I agree--it's not fixable (Score:2)
Re:As a former teacher, I agree--it's not fixable (Score:2)
Re:As a former teacher, I agree--it's not fixable (Score:2)
Kids need time to be apart *AND* they need time to grow but seperating them from their family at this point of their lives is hardly the way to do it. Wait for them to be of a mature enough age 18+ here in the States and don't let the little bastards come back.
I went to a boarding school for a year and liked it. (Tur