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Minimum drop out age

Sould the drop out grade be lowered

  • Yes

    Votes: 10 28.6%

  • Keep it the same

    Votes: 7 20.0%

  • the grade shouldent exist and they should stay in school till 12th grade

    Votes: 18 51.4%
  • Total voters
    35
radcen said:
You may have never matured and grew beyond only learning what you minimally have to, but I have. Not only have my opinions and wants & needs evolved beyond the simplistic childish needs for continual play, but I have been back to school as an adult and I absolutely love it. Like The Mark, if I had enough money to live comfortably otherwise I could easily be a "professional student".
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That is a pretty foolish assumption. I've learned things that have interested me and that I found useful. So I not only went past that, but i went way above and beyond that.
 
Tothian said:
That is a pretty foolish assumption. I've learned things that have interested me and that I found useful. So I not only went past that, but i went way above and beyond that.
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So then why are you foolish enough to assume you know what I find interesting and what I don't?
 
Tothian said:
I'd had all kinds of experiences. Even volunteered for a military school - that I enjoyed. Especially the Leadership Class. But it prepared me for the military.

Sitting in a classroom bored to death when all a kid could think about is accomplishing great things. Not living a boring, mediocre life. That's what school was. It made life boring. Life wasn't meant to be boring nor mediocre.
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Perhaps it is a bit idealistic of me, but I think that in this case it was your teachers who were at fault - learning should be engaging and interesting, and if it's not, only part of the fault (IMO the smaller part) lies with the taught.
 
I have 4 siblings, they are all dropouts. One did well enough in the military, retiring after 20 years at age 37. He could have done better but chose to live where the jobs are few and far between. Another did well through sheer work ethic. the other 2 are dirt poor, but not due to being victims of a poor education system. They were disadvantaged, had learning issues. The schools didn't offer any help beyond lowering the standards so they could "pass". Our parents wasted very little of their time helping them.
Once a student is determined to be unlikely to be college material, they should be invited to go to a technical high school where they can learn a trade. No force, just an invitation....
I got my skills in the military, and enjoyed high paying jobs once I got out of Uncle Sam's military. But not everyone is that lucky.
I tell young people today that if they are considering the military, that there are lots of jobs that do not involve carrying a rifle. But if you do poorly on their tests at the recruiting office, don't expect to be offered the training for those jobs. It pays to do the available on line practice exams first, before seeing the recruiters.
In my day, the Vietnam era, being a dropout was not a problem. Pass the GED and you are in. Things are different now.
 
I get the impression from a number of comments in this thread that quite a few folks seem to think that people drop out of school primarily because they aren't being "challenged" enough, or in the right way.

In my experience with folks who have dropped out of school (and unfortunately, given my upbringing, I've got a lot of experience with folks who have dropped out of school) I've found, or at least it's my opinion, that the overwhelming majority drop out because they don't really care for being challenged, period.

There are a great many people who are simply averse to applying themselves to hard work in any of its many manifestations and they simply don't have the discipline to put in an effort now in order to derive benefits down the road.

And it isn't just a problem in terms of education and the workforce.

Just look around you. Nearly 70% of Americans over 20 years of age are overweight with just under 36% of those being obese.

Americans don't have the work ethic and discipline required to eat right and exercise any more than they have the work ethic and discipline necessary to apply themselves in school, go on to institutions of post secondary education and repeat the process, and then go on to graduate school.

Many Americans who do apply themselves in school do so along the lines of the easiest and least rigorous courses of study.

Americans, by and large, are just lazy.

I know there are exceptions to this rule, as it applies to high school drop outs the same as it applies to anyone else.

I have one friend who is a high school drop out who went on to get his GED then went to trade school to learn how to be a Harley Davidson mechanic and now owns his own business. I have another friend who dropped out and spent a great many years apprenticing as a tattoo artist and he, too, now owns his own studio. I have another friend who dropped out of school and is now a First Sergeant of an Infantry Company.

But for every one of those successes that I personally know, I also personally know several others, and I'm sure there must be dozens or hundreds of others that I don't know personally, who find it an insurmountable struggle to simply show up at work early every day, stay late every day, and bust their ass every waking minute they're there - never mind doing anything "exceptional" to differentiate themselves from the herd otherwise.

Americans by and large want to punch a clock, be on location from 9 to 5 (and not one second longer), do as little as they possibly can while they're there (just enough so as not to lose their job), make zero effort to continue their education on their own time and dime in a manner that would be beneficial to their employer, and rush home in order to lay their fat ass down on the couch, eat a burriot, drink beer, and watch other men play sports on their televisions.

The "high school drop out" subset is just the laziest of the lazy.
 
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JJB3333 said:
Ok so i would just like to ask something tha has been bugging me. Sould the drop our grade be lowered.I mean of course i accept that all kids should have an education, but why are we wasting money on so many kids who dont want to be there. We should have it so that say from 9th grade, if the kids want to drop out and riun their lifes, it is their choice. if the parents dont want them to, they can force them to stay in school, but you have all of these kids who are failing classes, ditching, sometimes even going to drugs, and we waste money putting them through year after years of school.

So question: should the drop out grade be lowered from 11th grade
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I don't believe that making it easier for kids to quit school is a good idea.
 
soot said:
I get the impression from a number of comments in this thread that quite a few folks seem to think that people drop out of school primarily because they aren't being "challenged" enough, or in the right way.

In my experience with folks who have dropped out of school (and unfortunately, given my upbringing, I've got a lot of experience with folks who have dropped out of school) I've found, or at least it's my opinion, that the overwhelming majority drop out because they don't really care for being challenged, period.

There are a great many people who are simply averse to applying themselves to hard work in any of its many manifestations and they simply don't have the discipline to put in an effort now in order to derive benefits down the road.

And it isn't just a problem in terms of education and the workforce.

Just look around you. Nearly 70% of Americans over 20 years of age are overweight with just under 36% of those being obese.

Americans don't have the work ethic and discipline required to eat right and exercise any more than they have the work ethic and discipline necessary to apply themselves in school, go on to institutions of post secondary education and repeat the process, and then go on to graduate school.

Many Americans who do apply themselves in school do so along the lines of the easiest and least rigorous courses of study.

Americans, by and large, are just lazy.

I know there are exceptions to this rule, as it applies to high school drop outs the same as it applies to anyone else.

I have one friend who is a high school drop out who went on to get his GED then went to trade school to learn how to be a Harley Davidson mechanic and now owns his own business. I have another friend who dropped out and spent a great many years apprenticing as a tattoo artist and he, too, now owns his own studio. I have another friend who dropped out of school and is now a First Sergeant of an Infantry Company.

But for every one of those successes that I personally know, I also personally know several others, and I'm sure there must be dozens or hundreds of others that I don't know personally, who find it an insurmountable struggle to simply show up at work early every day, stay late every day, and bust their ass every waking minute they're there - never mind doing anything "exceptional" to differentiate themselves from the herd otherwise.

Americans by and large want to punch a clock, be on location from 9 to 5 (and not one second longer), do as little as they possibly can while they're there (just enough so as not to lose their job), make zero effort to continue their education on their own time and dime in a manner that would be beneficial to their employer, and rush home in order to lay their fat ass down on the couch, eat a burriot, drink beer, and watch other men play sports on their televisions.

The "high school drop out" subset is just the laziest of the lazy.
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I pretty much agree with this. I know there are exceptions to every rule, and if you ask dropouts directly most will tell you why they're the exception, but really for most it's just being lazy.

I consider high school the most basic test for adult life. Most of life is boring and mundane. It just is. If you want interesting, it's also what you make of it. If you can't at least finish high school, why should believe that you have the perseverance to finish the job that I might hire you to do?
 
Tothian said:
It's called being a slave.
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What a drama queen...

You weren't enjoying it as kids. You weren't just "learning". You were forced against your own will to go. You had to learn the same stuff every year that you would likely not have much use for in life.
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I did. School was great. Sports. Learning stuff. Girls. Most to almost all things a kid experiences are forced upon them... when you are a parent you will realize this.
 
Let's face it, some people don't care about education and no amount of trying is going to make them care. Why do you really think warehousing kids who don't want to be there is going to somehow magically "educate" them. The only argument I see for raising it to 18 is that a lot of those kids will just end up on the streets committing crimes if they are not required to be somewhere.

In the end though we need fast food workers, and some people will never get their act together, and we need to accept it and quit with this utopian liberal idea that given enough funding, every public school student can go to Harvard.
 
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