[koonsolo]

How does being an employee differ so much from being a student? You still get either good or bad grades for your work. You do assignments, get rules and processes you have to follow, play well with your fellow students/colleagues, etc.

I would say it's quite similar.

[elliotbnvl]

I'm mostly talking about the rather artificial division of students into grades of equal ages without taking into account the individual's proclivities, abilities and achievements. This separation is entirely contrary to organic human self-organization (even in work places) from a tribal perspective and results in a great deal of social illnesses (bullying, cliques, etc.) that are, although found elsewhere, exacerbated by the artificiality of the group-making (which is necessary for the public school model as it currently exists today to function).

[koonsolo]

At age 12, kids get split up in groups according to their abilities, no?

[elliotbnvl]

Not sure what you're referring to, tbh. Are you talking about the occasional student being promoted or held back a grade? If so, I would say that isn't a granular enough separation to be meaningful.

[koonsolo]

At least in Belgium, at 12, kids get divided into different schools and systems. You can go into trades, which expects you to be ready at 18 to go work as a plumber, electrician, mechanic, secretary, cook, etc. Or you go towards higher education and so get more focus on math and/or languages. At 18 you are expected to not be ready for the job market but study further.

For my own kids, you really see the differences at 11 to become more profound in their classroom, where some are running behind while others excel. So I saw that 12 is indeed the age where a split is necessary.

You don't have that?

Edit: After some Wikipeding, I see you really don't have that. Wow, that is crazy in my opinion. I have no clue how you could ever organize those differences among students. Here is the system of Belgium: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Belgium.

For example my daughter is 12 and she is in a class "STEM and moderns languages". Very focussed on programming, science, math, and they also get Dutch, French and English. Some of her classmates at the end of the schooyear had to switch because their grades weren't good enough.

So in Belgium, there are even different schools for different tracks.

[lurker919]

That sounds so dystopian. What do kids even do at 12? How can you ask them to decide the course of their life at 12, generally they get segregated while choosing an undergrad major around 16 right!

[koonsolo]

At 12, there are already big differences among them.

Let's divide it into kids that like to learn vs kids that like to work with their hands. The 2nd group would learn how to work with metal, wood, .... Way more practical stuff, very little theory. The other group is the reverse of course.

At 16, some kids are really tired of sitting in a classroom. For example plumber track would have these 16 year olds already doing an internship with real plumbers. At 18 they can start their own company already.

It's also no secret that a 16 year old in Belgium learns math that in US you would only see at higher education.

I think it works great, and what I saw with my 2 oldest is that last year when they are all still together at age 11, the learning differences really start to show. It's neither fun for the smart ones nor for the slower ones.

[camdenreslink]

Probably talking about student tracking. It was definitely a thing at my school.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tracking_(education)

[goldfishgold]

Definitely not everywhere.

[hackinthebochs]

Work environments tend to be class sorted. You also have recourse to handle people who behave horribly towards you. Disruptors are removed. Everyone is generally aligned towards the same goal. The two are vastly different.

[vundercind]

Anyone who hits someone, says truly horrible shit about others, doesn’t do the job at all, constantly distracts others while doing a poor job themselves, blatantly sexually harasses people, et c, is highly likely to get fired from a job, and may go to prison.

The same person as a student, gets tons of chances before maybe having to leave. Depending on what they’re doing, you could just be stuck with them for north of a decade. No escape.

I mean, we can joke about how actually such people still exist at work, but it’s a far less widespread problem and manifests differently.

You can look for other jobs if you want out of a bad work environment. Probably, you’ll be able to find somewhere else to go. Getting out of a bad class is way harder.

There’s a couple huge differences.

[koonsolo]

As discussed in another thread already, it seems my own Belgian system differs very much from the US system. (I basically found out with this discussion :D)

And to be honest, I have no idea how you can make the US system work, so I probably agree with you. Come to Belgium and let your kids study here :D.

[elliotbnvl]

I had no idea that Belgium has already implemented a lot of this stuff! That is amazing and gives me a lot of hope.

I wonder if there’s literature analyzing Belgian academic outcomes alongside American academic outcomes.