Abolish High School (2015)
This is a poorly researched article. I won&#x27;t bother critiquing every part, but I&#x27;ll get to the meat:<p>&gt; Abolishing high school could mean many things. It could mean compressing the time teenagers have to sort out their hierarchies and pillory outsiders, by turning schools into minimalist places in which people only study and learn.<p>This is impossible to begin with. Any institution that has more than a single individual will naturally result in stratification and hierarchies. Any student who doesn&#x27;t want to go to high school can already do so by opting into home schooling if their parents agree and support that (and can provide resources).<p>Furthermore, how exactly would you only &quot;study and learn?&quot; the author hardly gives proper examples of any of their ambitious ideas.<p>&gt; All the elaborate rites of dances and games could take place under other auspices. (Many Europeans and Asians I’ve spoken to went to classes each day and then left school to do other things with other people, forgoing the elaborate excess of extracurricular activities that is found at American schools.)<p>The article handwaves how exactly you would replace all of the non academic portions of high school by vaguely mentioning anecdotes.<p>&gt; It could mean schools in which age segregation is not so strict, where a twelve-year-old might mentor a seven-year-old and be mentored by a seventeen-year-old; schools in which internships, apprenticeships, and other programs would let older students transition into the adult world before senior year. (Again, there are plenty of precedents from around the world.)<p>The author doesn&#x27;t bother to even explain why this would be beneficial, and what the potential downsides could be. Though I am personally a supporter of mixed-age classrooms, some research has shown it&#x27;s not good (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;journals.sagepub.com&#x2F;doi&#x2F;abs&#x2F;10.3102&#x2F;00346543066003307" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;journals.sagepub.com&#x2F;doi&#x2F;abs&#x2F;10.3102&#x2F;003465430660033...</a>).<p>Interestingly many people who have poor social skills wish to avoid people, but in reality that just delays the inevitable poor encounters you will have with others. What&#x27;s better is to teach people to have good social skills. It&#x27;s a shame that schools don&#x27;t explicitly do this. The author also seems to conveniently ignore the extreme differences between people during high school age.<p>Per the authors own definition high school has already been &quot;abolished&quot; as all of the things they speak of are already possible.