Mandatory education is still probably better than the alternative but it does seem to create a constant tension: the system has to serve students who want very different things from it
Mandatory education is still probably better than the alternative but it does seem to create a constant tension: the system has to serve students who want very different things from it
The solution would seem to be a flexible system which identifies and works with the needs of each student.
A school system I attended when I was young divided classes between academic and social --- social classes were attended at one's age level, academic classes were attended at a student's ability levels, I believe that there were also trade school tracks, prompted by students taking Sloyd Woodworking claseses:
https://rainfordrestorations.com/tag/sloyd/
While there is a point that on balance I have to disagree, there are a lot of things I want students to achieve that are just hard and they won't be motivated to. I want every student to have a good education in math, even though it is hard to do that. For that matter, most of it was forgotten by now, but it was hard to learn how to read. Most students wouldn't learn how to read if they were not forced to at some point.
Which is to say, the vast majority of students are not different. There are some much below average kids who need a lot of help but never will reach anything, but the vast majority are very close to average and we don't need particularly anything better for them than anyone else. What we need is to give the programs we give to the most gifted students to the less gifted students because they would benefit from the same attention
The neat thing about stratifying by ability is that it doesn't require any additional resources or special programs. If you have 20 teachers in a school, you divide the student population into roughly 5%-wide ability bands instead of roughly 5%-wide age cohorts with random ability, and that's it.
Mastery learning is also more effective than moving on with knowledge gaps, so this should be expected to raise everyone's outcomes.
> I want every student to have a good education in math, even though it is hard to do that.
That's a laudable goal but I think it backfires in practice: a lot of students struggle with math and consider it to be torture, and will rarely require the skills and insights that learning algebra, trigonometry, geometry, and calculus will offer. Having done that work I find that I use very little of it in my day to day life (personally and professionally (as a programmer)).
I'm not suggesting that path be eliminated, only that it be an expected track for those interested in a STEM career.
For those who are not, just teaching them math literacy that can be used in contemporary daily life (some statistics, math reasoning (investments and debts), etc.
I love math -- it's the language of the universe! But it shouldn't be used to torture kids who will only learn to say "I hate math".
I would argue even the kids on the trade class track would need math:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30685840-practical-shop-...
Sure, my point wasn't to disparage math or its value -- simply that there are 2 distinct tracts that should be followed:
1. STEM: To Calculus and beyond
2. Everyone else: math for mere mortals; practical applied mathematics where every bit of it contains a "here's where it's gonna help you" payoff.
The thing is, I've had shop projects where algebra was quite useful.