Qualified Women Continue to Scare Mediocre Men

[SumVeritas]

QUOTE (BackTrak @ Jan 13 2019, 05:10 PM) As an old bastard, I'd love to see formal public education end at 16 with a mandatory 4 year unpaid civil service stint. Optional military service. Roads, Infrastructure, Trades (labor / apprentice work), Basic IT, law enforcement, etc. You pick a field, you learn on the job, you can rotate to something else at the end of the year. After 4 years (age 20) you have the option of 100% totally free college (you paid for it with your labor), or continue with your trade. The system is cost neutral. The kids in the trades that don't continue to the free college offset the costs for those who do. Everyone else benefits from an actual skilled population, not to mention some of these pot holes get filled. We remove demand for unskilled labor which makes "build that wall" die on the vine. Have you seen some of the stuff that WPA built back in the day? You can still enjoy it... (when the government isn't shut down anyway).

I would start implementing this with "work for college" programs at the state level that give kids a non-penalized option to leave high school early to go into trades while giving them credit towards college vouchers. Kids going this route do not get a GED, they get a regular high school diploma at the end of 2 years of work in an approved trade/business. As more people take this route, just keep adding benefits to the kids going the trades route, then make it law.

Imagine a work force that not only can build a house, but can also set a broken leg, and pour a level curb. Ya know... just like those WWII greatest generation vets. Except we don't need the war. We just need to quit wasting everyone's time with state funded youth warehousing. Want STEM? Go intern at GE or General Dynamics. It's on the list. If you're a clown, you get fired. Welcome to the real world!

Having had an extremely poor high-school experience myself and watching my kids get crap memorization and home work assignments for Algebra that can be completed on-line by doing 1+2 = ? tells me nothing's changing for the better. I'm not even kidding. They have to spend 20 minutes on this math website (https://www.khanacademy.org/) doing tests, and they can just do simple math ones. No one checks and no one cares. And my school district is funded and fairly standard for the area.

P1, you can have my vote if you will remove this silly requirement that kids start school at 7:00am (mine get up at 5am to ride the bus, WTF?) Seriously, every study on the subject shows how grades go up and accidents go down with a later school start time.

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-sho ... -for-teens

This used to be the way in my country at the beggining of the XXth century, till 1960ish, it got shot down by both professional and skilled workers unions, and the last nail in the coffin was put by the Chicago economics reforms of the 70s

[raumvogel]

QUOTE (BackTrak @ Jan 13 2019, 05:10 PM) As an old bastard, I'd love to see formal public education end at 16 with a mandatory 4 year unpaid civil service stint. Optional military service. Roads, Infrastructure, Trades (labor / apprentice work), Basic IT, law enforcement, etc. You pick a field, you learn on the job, you can rotate to something else at the end of the year. After 4 years (age 20) you have the option of 100% totally free college (you paid for it with your labor), or continue with your trade. The system is cost neutral. The kids in the trades that don't continue to the free college offset the costs for those who do. Everyone else benefits from an actual skilled population, not to mention some of these pot holes get filled. We remove demand for unskilled labor which makes "build that wall" die on the vine. Have you seen some of the stuff that WPA built back in the day? You can still enjoy it... (when the government isn't shut down anyway).

I would start implementing this with "work for college" programs at the state level that give kids a non-penalized option to leave high school early to go into trades while giving them credit towards college vouchers. Kids going this route do not get a GED, they get a regular high school diploma at the end of 2 years of work in an approved trade/business. As more people take this route, just keep adding benefits to the kids going the trades route, then make it law.

Imagine a work force that not only can build a house, but can also set a broken leg, and pour a level curb. Ya know... just like those WWII greatest generation vets. Except we don't need the war. We just need to quit wasting everyone's time with state funded youth warehousing. Want STEM? Go intern at GE or General Dynamics. It's on the list. If you're a clown, you get fired. Welcome to the real world!

Having had an extremely poor high-school experience myself and watching my kids get crap memorization and home work assignments for Algebra that can be completed on-line by doing 1+2 = ? tells me nothing's changing for the better. I'm not even kidding. They have to spend 20 minutes on this math website (https://www.khanacademy.org/) doing tests, and they can just do simple math ones. No one checks and no one cares. And my school district is funded and fairly standard for the area.

P1, you can have my vote if you will remove this silly requirement that kids start school at 7:00am (mine get up at 5am to ride the bus, WTF?) Seriously, every study on the subject shows how grades go up and accidents go down with a later school start time.

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-sho ... -for-teens

I've advocated a plan like this since the crash of 2008. The Republicans will holler "socialism". And the companies will advocate for more H1-b visas.

[zombywoof]

QUOTE (BackTrak @ Jan 13 2019, 02:10 PM) As an old bastard, I'd love to see formal public education end at 16 with a mandatory 4 year unpaid civil service stint. Optional military service. Roads, Infrastructure, Trades (labor / apprentice work), Basic IT, law enforcement, etc. You pick a field, you learn on the job, you can rotate to something else at the end of the year. After 4 years (age 20) you have the option of 100% totally free college (you paid for it with your labor), or continue with your trade. The system is cost neutral. The kids in the trades that don't continue to the free college offset the costs for those who do. Everyone else benefits from an actual skilled population, not to mention some of these pot holes get filled. We remove demand for unskilled labor which makes "build that wall" die on the vine. Have you seen some of the stuff that WPA built back in the day? You can still enjoy it... (when the government isn't shut down anyway).

I think there is a significant growing body of evidence that human adolescence does not naturally end until the early 20s. Here's an outline of the system that I see:

5-12: "Grade school." This part of life should be about learning to communicate and learning to control your body. The "school" material should be centered around working in groups to achieve certain goals. For the first few years, everyone has to do a little of everything, but then students are allowed to self-specialize towards the end.

13-16: "Organized socialization." This part of life should be learning to come to terms with things like your sexuality and your gender, the way your body is growing, and dealing with the mind-altering effects of the hormone monsters. There should be more freeform schooling at this point where everyone is expected to reach a certain grade school level competency in each subject and can freely move to where they need to be to reach that level. Sex ed, psychology, and sociology should be emphasized at this age.

16-23: "Apprenticeship." A seven year period in which there's a sort of organized apprenticeship system. The first few years are learning the basics of various trades until you find one you're interested in (and I'm including academia as a trade: the pursuit of knowledge as an academic is no more or less valid than, say, being a carpenter who builds houses). Then the last few years should be a very specialized end to your apprenticeship period: 4 years working directly with a carpenter. 4 years aggressively studying a branch of mathematics.

QUOTE I would start implementing this with "work for college" programs at the state level that give kids a non-penalized option to leave high school early to go into trades while giving them credit towards college vouchers. Kids going this route do not get a GED, they get a regular high school diploma at the end of 2 years of work in an approved trade/business. As more people take this route, just keep adding benefits to the kids going the trades route, then make it law.[/quote]
I would prefer to set a system in which college itself is the work, and you're on the hook for on-campus maintenance. 10 hours a week from each student working some job.

QUOTE Imagine a work force that not only can build a house, but can also set a broken leg, and pour a level curb. Ya know... just like those WWII greatest generation vets. Except we don't need the war. We just need to quit wasting everyone's time with state funded youth warehousing. Want STEM? Go intern at GE or General Dynamics. It's on the list. If you're a clown, you get fired. Welcome to the real world! [/quote]
You mean, like the workforce we have?

QUOTE Having had an extremely poor high-school experience myself and watching my kids get crap memorization and home work assignments for Algebra that can be completed on-line by doing 1+2 = ? tells me nothing's changing for the better. I'm not even kidding. They have to spend 20 minutes on this math website (https://www.khanacademy.org/) doing tests, and they can just do simple math ones. No one checks and no one cares. And my school district is funded and fairly standard for the area.[/quote]

QUOTE P1, you can have my vote if you will remove this silly requirement that kids start school at 7:00am (mine get up at 5am to ride the bus, WTF?) Seriously, every study on the subject shows how grades go up and accidents go down with a later school start time.[/quote]

My dream school day is 9a-4p with dropoff and pickup times from 7a-6p. The idea here is that the first two and last two hours of the "school day" are times where the students are given "free time" to play on the playground, etc. I would love to see this augmented with recreational sports teams wherein your kid is out of school at 4pm and can join the soccer team in which case they go with their soccer team to wherever that team practices, or they can be latchkey, or you can pick them up, or they can stay here where people will be playing on the playground with supervision. Supervision ends at 6pm.

I also have a dream that lunch is provided by the school, as well as a pair of optional meals served at 8a and 5p that are, again, free to user. I haven't workedout the mechanics of the bit for the optional meals yet, but the lunch is easy.

Basically the idea is: as long as your kid is *at school* by 9a, I don't really care when they show up. Some people it makes sense fo rthem to drop off their kids at 7a because THEY go to work at 7:30. Some people it doesn't. Can't make it perfect for everyone, but you can make it easier for most.

[Terran]

I think in Japanese schools the lunches are provided for free, and the students provide some labor in prep and cleaning. They are also super healthy as opposed to the stuff American/Canadian schools serve for a fee

[zombywoof]

Students providing labor for the provided meals is a key feature in my plan, actually. Everyone should know basic meal prep because everyone needs to eat.

My dream of school is basically, "we're going to guarantee minimum level of competence across a wide variety of fields and provide an opportunity for growth beyond that."