I lived in Germany for a number of years, and my son ended up in the German system. They are kinda practical about this. By the end of the 4th grade, they place the kid into one of three categories. They are reasonably sure about the kids who will end up going to university....so they lead them off to a better educational system, which challenges a kid. The second group....are mostly kids who show some abilities, but aren’t as ‘keen’ as the first group. They occasionally forgot homework or just lost attention in class. Then the third group comes up...the kids who show that they don’t have much interest and rarely show any talent at things other than average abilities.
The money and resources are split up. The lesser kids will end up as truck-drivers, clerks, or general skill people.
If you look at this from a practical standpoint....it ends up making sense. Most parents don’t want to hear that junior is a loser by the 4th grade, but the truth is that you only have a certain amount of resources for education. You might as well use them as best as you can.
Yes. The classical education system in America worked much like that till the 1890's when the nascent Progressive movement decided to "democratize" education. A small percentage of people are truly educable. The rest, though, can be trained to do something worthwhile.
We've allowed our entire system to become training -- in the name of fairness and democracy. The smart kids either suffer or are home-schooled.
Brave New World.....you are assigned by Big Brother to your place in life. Top Down determination by self-appointed “gods” who can see the “future”. They decide....no individual freedom and initiative and uniqueness, since rigid rules control and dictate. What a system for slaves of the state.
The flaw is, of course, that each person is unique and not a termite and people make mistakes and are biased or easily bribed. Certain children—as proved throughout history look “dumb” until they blossom—and some blossom considerably late—like 18, like a St. Thomas Aquinas.
The Prussian school system of Germany was reviled by Pastor Bonhoeffer’s mother -—breaking the souls of the children—so she made sure her children were never in the “System” until after 7 years or 8 years of age where their worldview was sound (Belief in God). She didn’t want her values that she wanted in her children to be erased in those fragile earlier years where time away from parents destroys, not only parental bonds and values, but, IQ and Faith in a Higher Power than the State. All her children were brilliant.
The Prussian schools made Hitler king. All those Hitler Youth “thinkers” were nothing but brainwashed ideologues-— socialists who are devoid of rationality. No logic and reason-—just blind allegiance to “mass conformity” which is the purpose of the Prussian system of “education”.
Creative, problem-solvers, who believe in strong principles and God, like Lincoln, never was in a brainwashing, conditioning system where you are forced to “group think” and learn that all humans are animals-—the same as termites. The uniqueness in the US system—before John Dewey—produced moral, God-Fearing people who had no trouble standing up to the mob thinking.
Prussian system is mass indoctrination. It is designed to destroy individuality and uniqueness in man—and belief in God. It is absolutely evil.