Should child labor be an option instead of high school?

Betonhaus

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Mar 30, 2023
With education being dumbed down, there are many people going into the world with only an 8th grade level of education - and many jobs out there don't even need that.

Wouldn't it be beneficial to instead of teaching kids shit they will never use in life, shift then to a part-time schooling and have them begin work in a trade or something? That way they learn from a younger age about having a good work ethic and managing money, and businesses have cheaper labor that's an alternative to importing Pajeets by the dozen.
 
I wouldn't encourage a 14/15 year old to make that choice at that age. There's probably a very small percentage of people it would fit and their parents would have to be okay with them achieving mediocrity as well.
Theres vo-tech for those interested in the trade aspect.
I don't see how less education is going to make you smarter about money.
 
I don't see why you couldn't cut out the fat of a typical highschooler's day to add in an hour or two of on-the-job experience every few days of the week. You could have a program where a set of local businesses employ students for the quarter or something so kids can end up with valuable firsthand experience doing all sorts of simple but varied jobs.
 
Absolutely not unless you want to create a new underclass that is cursed to perform the shittiest, lowest-paying jobs in society without any hope for social mobility. Today's kids are already going to work until they're 65 at least, why would you steal the few precious years that could be dedicated solely to education with better financial outcomes in the long term? Being paid a pittance for stocking shelves and getting abused by retards will not teach kids anything about a good work ethic or financial management. Early trade apprenticeship programs could be valuable, but they should prioritize education over plain employment.
I don't see why you couldn't cut out the fat of a typical highschooler's day
You really hate fun, don't you?
 
Maybe 5% of people who go to college should actually go to college, and people are coming out of high school dumber than when they came in. Public education is a fucking waste of a childhood. Homeschool your kids, get them a job at the earliest age possible, then pay for trade school.
 
People would just 100% exploit it like they did back in the Victorian era, where children were worked to death or used for the dangerous jobs that adults didn't want. You could have all the laws and infrastructure in place, but it would inevitably descend into slave labour eventually. Many people are awful, and many corporations even more so.
Also, why bother hiring adults then when you can just get a pack of kids who don't need to be paid much (if at all) to do the work instead? It's already proven nowadays that quality of work isn't really an issue in many places anymore, so it wouldn't make a difference in that aspect.
Maybe teens/older, but younger kids no.
 
Sitting in class while the teacher flaps her gums at you about something you couldn't care less about is soooooooo fun and sooooooo educational and a great use of everybody's time.
Did you even finish high school, man? Education and universities are freedom provided that you are fiscally responsible. You are free to study whatever retarded, niche interest you have ranging from medieval feminism to biorobotics under the guidance of an equally autistic faculty. Rather than waste away after getting yelled at by your boomer manager at the construction site or grocery store, you can grab a beer and shoot shit with the faculty or fellow students in the evenings. Sitting and listening to lectures is literally the least important part of an education. Why would you ever waste away such a fantastic time to be exploited at a shitty zero-education job?
 
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I would say no cause most education you receive till 17 is probably essential. People are always going to say its not cause they dont teach you to do taxes and dont teach you to survive in the real world. Thats fair criticism but what school teaches is information processing and how to process information to gain conclusions, university is supposed to teach trades. Yes to some level its indoctrination but that doesnt mean its necessarily irredeemably bad. Contrary to what Null has said I dont like networking cause my autistic brain considers it nepotism so I dont think it should be the primary function of university, even if they encourage it. With that said Internships are basically introduction of children to the workspace, which is probably the basest form of "child labor" which is acceptable. Anything else maybe not unless the child takes an interest in it. An addendum is that the same people who blindly complain about child labor on principle are also the same people who wouldnt complain about children in politics, in experimentation and in the military so I dont consider their opinions seriously.
 
Considering what we now know about how people are, like don't even know basic arithmetics when graduating high school... Yeah, we should go back making high school optional. This is why we got trade high school and academic high school, so people are already making this "colloege or no college" decision at this age already, and if you change your mind you can go to komvux (municipal adult education) as an adult, (take your responsibily for your dumb decisions you made as a teenager retard).
But since most programs are busy retard work to keep people infantilized and drain their parents, just getting a job at ~15 would probably be the best for a majority of people.

I live in the EU (high school is 3 years here), so I already know Amerimutts will seethe at this take. But when you graduate at high school ~18, I doubt that you have changed that much (to change your mind on university vs. a job) for the government to justify making sure everyone gets a chance to go to college. You already made that decision at ~15.

I wouldn't encourage a 14/15 year old to make that choice at that age.
We already are...
I don't see how less education is going to make you smarter about money.
LOL, why is this an argument, the current system is to make people as retarded with money as possible. This is how it is supposed to be, and it's unironically because of academia.

People would just 100% exploit it like they did back in the Victorian era, where children were worked to death or used for the dangerous jobs that adults didn't want. You could have all the laws and infrastructure in place, but it would inevitably descend into slave labour eventually. Many people are awful, and many corporations even more so.
Not an argument, if people want to exploit you, they will find a way no matter you background.

Null has said I dont like networking cause my autistic brain considers it nepotism so I dont think it should be the primary function of university, even if they encourage it.
This used to be true, I had professors saying it out loud (STEM department tend to have 'tism students, so they have to state this shit clearly). But, since everybody is going to college/university (diploma oversaturation/inflation), nepotism by family or even religion is now even more of a stronger predominant than before if you are going to make it. Those "networking" larps today are getting more and more useless (diminishing returns meme).
 
Maybe 5% of people who go to college should actually go to college, and people are coming out of high school dumber than when they came in. Public education is a fucking waste of a childhood. Homeschool your kids, get them a job at the earliest age possible, then pay for trade school.
In order to homeschool, the parents must also understand the curriculum. I'd say the chances of that are about 50/50, today. Of course, idiots raising idiots is not a new concept, but I wouldn't promote the idea.
 
Not an argument, if people want to exploit you, they will find a way no matter you background.
While that's true, my point was being against such exploitation becoming legal or mandatory, which always slopes into much worse things later on.
Sitting back and going 'well people will exploit regardless of what we do or say' is how the west has slipped so far from what it was, with things that were once illegal or not done right out in the open becoming commonplace and even accepted/made legal/seen as insane if you oppose it, no matter how awful it becomes.
 
I think in some universe, you could allow kids in a workforce without it being harmful or exploitative. You would need an entire new set of rules and regulations to protect kids in the workforce and limit the amount of hours they can work (if I were to come up with it, maybe 10-15 hours a week tops, no overtime allowed). It also can't conflict with schooling hours until maybe junior/senior year of high school, and the pay would still have to be minimum wage or higher.

It's still a good choice to keep kids out of the workforce completely, but I think there is in alternative for kids to work that would still be fine.
 
Inasmuch as high school doesn't prepare anybody for life, sure.
 
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