I’d rather skip a middle four. It’s necessary for everyone to learn basic things like literacy and arithmetic, but remember that the idea of setting school leaving age at 18 was supposed to be that you would then have finished your education. If most people are going to be going to college, then school leaving age should be set at 14, so that you can spend those next four years learning something useful instead of just marking time while you memorize the dates of Napoleon’s battles and the agricultural products of Denmark.
Haha yes. Also, the elementary school environment is somewhat conducive to social interaction. But once you reach the individual classes of middle school, everything changes. You have to spend time out of class to socialize with people (meanwhile, if you’re in class, you’re simply taking huge amounts of time to learn what you can self-study in a short period of time). And if you’d prefer to study, then you pretty much wouldn’t talk with anyone. Which is why I pretty much find my middle school years to be the most painful parts of my primary education—although being a teacher’s pet/monopolizing class discussions did help engage me a lot in a few classes.
That being said, my last few years would have also been painful if I didn’t drop out for an early entrance program. And my early years would also have been painful if I discovered my drive to learn at an earlier age
You’re from Ireland afaik thus you probably went through the Leaving Cert. I’m wondering did you experience the same sort motivation killing effects of mandatory but unnecessary and uninteresting subjects just so you could get into a third level course with no relation to the afore mentioned subjects?
Yes, though at least for the Leaving Cert there was some degree of choice, so a decent percentage of the time was spent on interesting subjects; it was a big improvement on the Inter Cert (Junior Cert nowadays) where most of the time was spent on uninteresting ones.
I ended up “skipping” third through seventh grade by spending it at a special education school in which I learned, well, basically nothing. Once I was reintegrated into mainstream schools, the other students had finally caught up to what I had learned by the age of eight.
I would rather skip the first four years of my education than the last four.
I’d rather skip a middle four. It’s necessary for everyone to learn basic things like literacy and arithmetic, but remember that the idea of setting school leaving age at 18 was supposed to be that you would then have finished your education. If most people are going to be going to college, then school leaving age should be set at 14, so that you can spend those next four years learning something useful instead of just marking time while you memorize the dates of Napoleon’s battles and the agricultural products of Denmark.
Haha yes. Also, the elementary school environment is somewhat conducive to social interaction. But once you reach the individual classes of middle school, everything changes. You have to spend time out of class to socialize with people (meanwhile, if you’re in class, you’re simply taking huge amounts of time to learn what you can self-study in a short period of time). And if you’d prefer to study, then you pretty much wouldn’t talk with anyone. Which is why I pretty much find my middle school years to be the most painful parts of my primary education—although being a teacher’s pet/monopolizing class discussions did help engage me a lot in a few classes.
That being said, my last few years would have also been painful if I didn’t drop out for an early entrance program. And my early years would also have been painful if I discovered my drive to learn at an earlier age
You’re from Ireland afaik thus you probably went through the Leaving Cert. I’m wondering did you experience the same sort motivation killing effects of mandatory but unnecessary and uninteresting subjects just so you could get into a third level course with no relation to the afore mentioned subjects?
Yes, though at least for the Leaving Cert there was some degree of choice, so a decent percentage of the time was spent on interesting subjects; it was a big improvement on the Inter Cert (Junior Cert nowadays) where most of the time was spent on uninteresting ones.
I ended up “skipping” third through seventh grade by spending it at a special education school in which I learned, well, basically nothing. Once I was reintegrated into mainstream schools, the other students had finally caught up to what I had learned by the age of eight.