My experience was that the social skills and other intangibles we were supposed to somehow miraculously learn in K12 were never taught. Those with talent learned them, and treated the rest of us contemptuously. They were not, of course, "dicks"; they were behaving properly, unlike their victims.
Academic matters were taught - badly, but at least they were taught. That was where my talents lay, so almost every class was far too easy for me, but at least no one presumed that the "good" and "normal" children could learn mathematics, or history, or whatever, just by being given a chance to use them. (Well, except for the Nuffield method in British schools, which destroyed science education for a generation - fortunately I was not exposed to it, but I know people who were.)
I eventually applied my intellect to "soft skills", learning how to redirect victimization onto someone even weaker than me, among other valuable "life skills". (I'm a bit ashamed of that, but this was the behaviour being modeled by everyone except perhaps the outright bullies. Of course that's not what they called it ...)
Actually, I learned far more than that, helped out by my habit of reading. Reading gave me ideas, including the idea of experimenting. An early set of experiments taught me how to get teachers to ignore me in class, letting me read in peace. (Trial and error taught me what behaviour they most hated; so I did that whenever they prevented me from reading.)
Eventually I became "good at" various "soft skills", such as writing effective resumes, passing job interviews, and similar. Also "looking like a good middle class citizen" to various authority figures likely to treat such people better than anyone who looked "different" or poor. Now I'm presumed to have been one of the "socially skilled" even in those days - people I'd call "bullies or their "hangers on", except to the extent I've chosen an eccentric self-presentation. ...
As you can doubtless tell, I'm still angry about my K12 days. I empathize with those poor kids at e.g. Columbine who couldn't stick it out until graduation, and instead opted for murder-suicide. Perhaps fortunately, by the time I reached the age at which they broke, I was already doing a pretty good job of manipulating the staff into allowing my escape from the worst of the school environment. (I'd also figured out how to handle myself in a punch-up, leading to a reputation that almost eliminated actual physical attacks on me.)
I'm glad I never had children. I simply could not have borne to obey the law by submitting any child I cared about to compulsory public "education".
TBH, that's a fair point. I was somewhat like that, social skills-wise while being less academic than you seem to be.
It would have helped if someone had explicitly explained to me the rules of the social/mating games we were playing rather than letting me figuring them out on my own. PUA hadn't been invented yet back then...
Though, there, I think my parents share some of the blame. They saw me struggling but they only cared about my academic performance (they were high school teachers, Maths and Latin/French).
A very enjoyable read. Many things I agree with, but particularly re. the broad education and interests of those "genius figures", even Dirac, as I recall, for all his eccentricities. A narrow education is definitely not a better education.
Given the poor retention rate of specialised knowledge by the general population (me included), high school better be about something else that knowledge maxing b/c it's abysmally failing at that.
In the French system, we have a degree of choice in high school about our concentration. Because of the prestige attached to it, I chose Maths and Physics (I had no aptitude and no intention of pursuing a career in a scientific domain).
I remember strictly nothing. Not a thing. My daughter is in the same position, presently doing integral calculus. I told her I wish I could help but all I remember is that it's the surface under a curve, its symbol is an elongated S and it goes from a A to a B...
That's what strenuous Maths/scientific studies gave me. Nothing.
So here the question - is there anything to high school beyond babysitting and socializing?
A lot of kids learn what they are capable of doing. They might not remember much of it, but they know that they could write a letter or essay if they had to, they could do some math as part of planning their budget or a project, they could learn enough of a new language if they set it as a goal and so on. Not all of them are going to be particularly good at doing these things, but they'll know that they are within their realm of ability.
Skills atrophy so I am not sure someone who was able to structure an essay in high school to average passing grade could write a worthwhile one 20 years later.
Planning a budget or a project require only basic maths, pluses, minuses, multiplications, the odd division... I'm not suggesting we don't teach that (or basic reading skills) but society goes to great lengths, at great expense, to teach a whole lot more to people who will never have any use of it.
Learning English and Spanish in school taught me that I was rubbish at learning languages. I lived in the UK and in an English speaking universe even in France so my English is okay. I don't remember anything about Spanish and while I sometimes fantasize about picking it up, I know I'll struggle and very likely fail. I certainly failed at trying to learn Russian as an adult (and I would have needed that!)
But even taking your broader point as correct - you'll have tested your ability against a wide range of subjects - it still seems like anything beyond junior high school is overkill. Now, I don't have a super good solution as it's hard to ask 15 yo to commit to a career path. TBF, it's hard to ask 18 yo to do that and we still do it.
But it'd be interesting for education professionals to think about it.
My experience was that the social skills and other intangibles we were supposed to somehow miraculously learn in K12 were never taught. Those with talent learned them, and treated the rest of us contemptuously. They were not, of course, "dicks"; they were behaving properly, unlike their victims.
Academic matters were taught - badly, but at least they were taught. That was where my talents lay, so almost every class was far too easy for me, but at least no one presumed that the "good" and "normal" children could learn mathematics, or history, or whatever, just by being given a chance to use them. (Well, except for the Nuffield method in British schools, which destroyed science education for a generation - fortunately I was not exposed to it, but I know people who were.)
I eventually applied my intellect to "soft skills", learning how to redirect victimization onto someone even weaker than me, among other valuable "life skills". (I'm a bit ashamed of that, but this was the behaviour being modeled by everyone except perhaps the outright bullies. Of course that's not what they called it ...)
Actually, I learned far more than that, helped out by my habit of reading. Reading gave me ideas, including the idea of experimenting. An early set of experiments taught me how to get teachers to ignore me in class, letting me read in peace. (Trial and error taught me what behaviour they most hated; so I did that whenever they prevented me from reading.)
Eventually I became "good at" various "soft skills", such as writing effective resumes, passing job interviews, and similar. Also "looking like a good middle class citizen" to various authority figures likely to treat such people better than anyone who looked "different" or poor. Now I'm presumed to have been one of the "socially skilled" even in those days - people I'd call "bullies or their "hangers on", except to the extent I've chosen an eccentric self-presentation. ...
As you can doubtless tell, I'm still angry about my K12 days. I empathize with those poor kids at e.g. Columbine who couldn't stick it out until graduation, and instead opted for murder-suicide. Perhaps fortunately, by the time I reached the age at which they broke, I was already doing a pretty good job of manipulating the staff into allowing my escape from the worst of the school environment. (I'd also figured out how to handle myself in a punch-up, leading to a reputation that almost eliminated actual physical attacks on me.)
I'm glad I never had children. I simply could not have borne to obey the law by submitting any child I cared about to compulsory public "education".
TBH, that's a fair point. I was somewhat like that, social skills-wise while being less academic than you seem to be.
It would have helped if someone had explicitly explained to me the rules of the social/mating games we were playing rather than letting me figuring them out on my own. PUA hadn't been invented yet back then...
Though, there, I think my parents share some of the blame. They saw me struggling but they only cared about my academic performance (they were high school teachers, Maths and Latin/French).
A very enjoyable read. Many things I agree with, but particularly re. the broad education and interests of those "genius figures", even Dirac, as I recall, for all his eccentricities. A narrow education is definitely not a better education.
Given the poor retention rate of specialised knowledge by the general population (me included), high school better be about something else that knowledge maxing b/c it's abysmally failing at that.
In the French system, we have a degree of choice in high school about our concentration. Because of the prestige attached to it, I chose Maths and Physics (I had no aptitude and no intention of pursuing a career in a scientific domain).
I remember strictly nothing. Not a thing. My daughter is in the same position, presently doing integral calculus. I told her I wish I could help but all I remember is that it's the surface under a curve, its symbol is an elongated S and it goes from a A to a B...
That's what strenuous Maths/scientific studies gave me. Nothing.
So here the question - is there anything to high school beyond babysitting and socializing?
A lot of kids learn what they are capable of doing. They might not remember much of it, but they know that they could write a letter or essay if they had to, they could do some math as part of planning their budget or a project, they could learn enough of a new language if they set it as a goal and so on. Not all of them are going to be particularly good at doing these things, but they'll know that they are within their realm of ability.
Skills atrophy so I am not sure someone who was able to structure an essay in high school to average passing grade could write a worthwhile one 20 years later.
Planning a budget or a project require only basic maths, pluses, minuses, multiplications, the odd division... I'm not suggesting we don't teach that (or basic reading skills) but society goes to great lengths, at great expense, to teach a whole lot more to people who will never have any use of it.
Learning English and Spanish in school taught me that I was rubbish at learning languages. I lived in the UK and in an English speaking universe even in France so my English is okay. I don't remember anything about Spanish and while I sometimes fantasize about picking it up, I know I'll struggle and very likely fail. I certainly failed at trying to learn Russian as an adult (and I would have needed that!)
But even taking your broader point as correct - you'll have tested your ability against a wide range of subjects - it still seems like anything beyond junior high school is overkill. Now, I don't have a super good solution as it's hard to ask 15 yo to commit to a career path. TBF, it's hard to ask 18 yo to do that and we still do it.
But it'd be interesting for education professionals to think about it.
I love pretty much all your essays, but this one really rang the cherries. Thanks!