Long ago, when children still worked in the fields, school was not something that was expected of everyone.
In some cultures. Others have had a handle on near-universal literacy for a while now.
Most kids would get enough to read and write on a basic level, and then take over the family farm, auto-shop, grocery store, etc for their parents.
There has never been an era when most kids would take over a family business. That is a nice American ideal, but it has never predominated.
Only the "smart lucky kids" really went all the way to college and such.
Ftfy. Historically, one's intelligence has had little to do with whether or not one had access to higher education.
And we are still astonished by how many people fail abysmally at school.
We are?
Could it be that some people really just can't make it no matter what?
Of course not! If it's impossible for X to graduate high school, then when you fail at making X able to graduate high school, you change the high school. Then you change the college. And then you change the grad school. And then everyone can feel good about how worthy they are, because increasingly, one's worth is measured by one's degrees. And that's dumb.
I don't really want to say some people are just stupid and that's that.
Why not?
Of course, you seem to have worked out that stupid=worthless, and you seem to have defined stupid as failing to achieve in the hard sciences.
This seems rather narrow and inflexible.
the amount [sic] of people who actually succeed in higher education stays the same.
Depends on how you define success. Your own definition--achievement in the hard sciences--kinda' dismisses as utterly worthless entire graduate schools. But other measures, say number of degrees awarded, it's not staying the same at all. Of course, this is a problem when it comes to allocating jobs.
Or are some people really only capable of working the family wheat field, even if there really aren't any family wheat fields left?
Of course. You seem have decided they are the worthless people? Personally, I kind of like to eat.
I think the kinds of students who need this type of program to learn in the first place, probably aren't going to be going anywhere in life school anyway.
Ftfy too.
Real life doesn't reshape itself to whatever is most comfortable to you.
Not entirely true. There is a LOT more flexibility to be found in earning a living than in getting through high school.
Real life and real achievement is always through hard science.
Wtf? I'm reasonably sure I've been living a real life in the ten years since I last spent an afternoon in a lab.
The people who achieve in real life at real jobs are the people who decided to achieved at real learning.
Ftfy too. Either some people are just stupid and incapable of learning at a high academic level, or anyone who doesn't work in the hard sciences in an under-motivated loser. Pick one.
If you're the kind of person who thinks they need the education system to be reshaped to fit your comfort level, you're not really the kind of person who is going to achieve anything substantial.
Again, are they unable to achieve in the educational system because they have sub-par intelligence or because they think they need the education system tailored to their needs?
*Maybe I'm just overly mean and cynical.
Could be.
I've never bought into the whole "everyone is special in their own way" line. I believe there really are some people who are essentially worthless. Maybe that view has bled over into how I view other things as well.
Seems like it. You don't seem able to distinguish between intelligence incapable of high academic achievement (say, perhaps the bottom 80%, or IQs under about 110) and people who are lazy and unmotivated, or to put it another way, essentially worthless.
Which leaves me wondering: Don't you like to eat?
