# Should Students be Placed in Subject Specific Schools?



## Eren Jaegerbomb (Nov 13, 2015)

After reading this:


https://www.gse.harvard.edu/news/ed/17/01/bored-out-their-minds



I thought that perhaps after 12 years old, instead of middle school and high school, students should instead go to a specialist school in their most favoured subject or according to their talent.

Kind of like in the mediaeval times when people went to guilds to study trades from a younger age than 18.

Then again this might have fundamental flaws if we leave out maths, English and some basic sciences. Maybe critical thinking should be a subject after 12 years old then.

What do you all think?

Did you know by what age you thought you just weren't going to get any further in a specific area no matter how much you tried?

And, does everybody need to know things such as chemistry in depth?

Hmm.

Edit: Or perhaps we need a different approach in encouraging people. I mean, it's handy to know if you're failing, but it's not very encouraging is it?

Edit 2: Scratch that, perhaps we should just go back to days of tutoring? Instead of kids being in a streamlined environment, everybody gets a personal tutor at home, or wherever, like they did in the 19th century, etc.

Instead of parents paying fees for kids to go to school, they pay fees for the government to send out a teacher to your house. However, the teacher gives out material based on the students ability not by age.

Obviously if the kid has a learning difficulty or comes from a bad environment, then the child would need extra support and try to push him or her to get to an appropriate level for their age.

Yes there will be a standard age ability, but don't hinder the kids who are above that ability, and help the struggling ones to reach it...


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## ENFPathetic (Apr 3, 2018)

A combination of individual learning and group learning is best. Individual learning is where children make the most progress. Group learning serves a variety of functions. Socialising. Taking a break from isolated learning. Motivation through healthy competition. Exchanging of ideas. Overall, I think it should be 50/50 split in general but some kids might prefer an 80/20 split or a 20/80 split and so on.

The problem with this is it's not economically viable for most households. And furthermore, even if there was a way to pay for all of the 1-1 tuition, there simply aren't enough teachers to meet such demands. Of course this would quickly change as more people would train to teach to meet the market demand, but this brings us back to the original issue of it not being economically viable enough for most households. Many of the households that can afford it already do this.


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## recycled_lube_oil (Sep 30, 2021)

I wish I had gone to a specialist school. 

I'm the sort of person that if something bores me or I am not interested I just switch off. So at school, History, Geography and Modern Languages (French and German) were topics that I had to turn up to. Then spend most my time in detention as I did not do any homework.

Now if I could of specialised in Math, Physics, Chemistry, IT and Design Technology, I would of done a lot better and been more motivated as I would of been doing something worthwhile.

Instead we had to spend 50% of our time doing pointless crap. 

In a nutshell, I despised school.

College (UK college) was great as I only did what I was interested in. Same with University.


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## islandlight (Aug 13, 2013)

Yes, I think by age 12, you (or your parents and teachers) know where your strengths and weaknesses lie.

When I went to school, people were put into "streams" in high school. From about age 13 you were already preparing for university, manual trades, or low-level white collar work.


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## Handsome Dyke (Oct 4, 2012)

I think there should be more focus on helping students understand the significance of their studies, and we should compare the school system in question with other countries' school systems to help pinpoint the problem (maybe there is a core problem we don't see by focusing on boredom).

People are ignorant as hell in the United States, and there are already people here trying, for dubious reasons, to prevent students from being exposed to various kinds of education, so I don't think more specialization would be good in this particular country, even though it might make school more bearable for students.

Furthermore, I think that considering school in the context of the broader culture is a very overlooked method of educational analysis. Is education truly valued in the culture, not just as a way to get a prestigious career and make money, not just as a way to keep kids out of trouble during the day? Students' attitudes towards school are likely to reflect the cultural value placed on education. Youth get their education from peer groups, houses of worship, social media, TV, etc. in addition to getting it from school and parents, and lessons from the former can take precedence over lessons from the latter.

I definitely agree that critical thinking should be emphasized in school, but I think the number of cultures that project a strong value of critical thinking in general (not just in the narrow domains of school, research, etc.) is rather small. Whatever changes in schools to promote critical thinking must be paired with some sort of cultural shift if the change is to have a strong and lasting impact.


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