"We've invented adolescence, and stretched it out too far" says psychologist

[Lord Avalon]

If there's school all year round, then Alice Cooper's School's out for Summer loses all meaning.

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Originally posted by Odin
IMO the main problem with the current educational system is that it is all about stuffing facts down kids throats when we should be teaching critical thinking and researching things. Our education system suppresses critical though and creates a population of obedient consumerist sheep and makes kids resent school. I remember reading that smart kids actually have a higher then average drop-out rate, THAT'S how F-ed up our education system is.

Another, as I said above, is our one-size-fits-all style of educating kids that ignores personality and learning style differences, the "one size" invariably being rote memorization and obedience. Some kids may learn best by rote memorization, but the majority don't.

Technically though, the goal of the current education system was to produce factory workers, not consumerist sheeple. That's just a convenient side effect.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Wycoff


Good for him. I'm sure that that means every single 14 year old is capable of being a mature adult.

Your anecdotal evidence and life experience makes you confident that 14 year olds are generally capable and responsible enough to be legally independant. Mine tells me that they aren't. Where do we go from here?

How about we look at the past where people old enough to work were adults, and were no longer treated as children.

Or we could forget the past and look at other cultures today where the same thing happens. Children need to be protected. A human who has made it to 14 no longer requires the same sort of protection, and should not be treated like a child.

Anecdotal?

Your entire life experience and frame of reference is anecdotal. It's the self inflicted wound of a single culture out of many that has only been current for 100 years or so in that culture (and not universally there, mostly in cities and towns) and has little to do with what younger people are actually capable of.

I grew up in the Appalachians. Rural enough for you? Kids (including me) helped out around the farms, sometiimes running heavy machinery and sometimes driving farm trucks. They didn't run the farms, and they damn sure didn't own the farms. At the end of the day, they went home to mom and dad. I'm not saying that 14 year olds are babies. I'm saying that they still have a lot of growing to do and, by and large, not ready for fully adult responsibility.

And how many people who turn 18 suddenly, magically own the farms? Is owning the farm a requirement of adulthood?

[Rufus T. Firefly]

NYE, it's telling that all of your examples are rural. I made the same point a couple of pages ago, but then suggested that this model was no longer viable in advanced industrial economies with small rural populations. So how do you see that working?

Oh, and I'd suggest you not cite other countries where kids are treated like adults at 14. I've lived in some of those countries and, while the kids do indeed grow up, you wouldn't want them in your society.

[notyoueither]

My first example was urban.

A young man thought school was no longer his thing. He went to work as an appretice mechanic.

He obviously made well, or well enough to be elected to a provincial legislature by his neighbours some 30 years later.

[Kuciwalker]

He dropped out of school and ended up a politician? That's not a point in your favor, nye.

[notyoueither]

Actually, first he became a tradesman and was successful at that.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by notyoueither
My first example was urban.

A young man thought school was no longer his thing. He went to work as an appretice mechanic.

He obviously made well, or well enough to be elected to a provincial legislature by his neighbours some 30 years later.

Honest question: How common is apprenticeship in Canada? Because its not at all common in the US -- certainly not common enough to absorb even a small percentage of our teen population.

[notyoueither]

Very common.

[notyoueither]

Not everyone who works in trades do them though. It takes 4 years minimum, and usually more to become a journeyman. And then there will be some schoolrooms and tests to get there. Not everyone wants to follow that path.

Many people work in the trades with the skills, but without the papers.