Ontario high schools used to have what was called "streaming". Not in the modern sense, as this was abolished by about 1988 or so, but in the sense that a kid going into grade 9 (my school system didn't have "junior high", you went K-8 and then 9-13 at the time) could choose the difficulty level of most courses - basic, "normal" (it was called something else, but the name escapes me at the moment) and advanced. Grade 13 was optional, mostly for kids going on to university, and is now called "OAC"; I think the difference is just in that now you have to pay for your books instead of renting them. I was done with high school a year or two before they changed things (for the worse, if you ask me. Especially when they made phys ed mandatory, glad I dodged that fucking bullet. The female gym teacher was a bull dyke.)
Anyway, it was up to you what level of course you took, but if you were struggling, or seemed to be cruising through too easily, yeah, they could pull you aside and suggest you take a different difficulty (with no penalty), but they couldn't make you.
This was abolished because the dumbasses thought it was "stigmatizing" the Basic level kids. But I did see an article come and go that suggested they may be thinking of bringing this idea back, for the very reasons advocates didn't want to get rid of it - it just kills the interest of the quicker kids to be bogged down by the slower ones, and the slower ones get frustrated with the higher-level info the quicker kids want to know. Plus the fact that the kids who are going to trades college, or who are just going to drop out in grade 10, probably don't care about the higher details of geography and history and will never use it ...
Yeah, I'm envious of such a program. I was one of those "Gifted and Talented" kids, so I was literally bored to tears for nearly all of public school. Since I lived in such a backwoods place, they literally had to invent a program to put me in, but it still was only 1 of my subjects per year. The rest I was stuck just wish I was dead with the braindead regular students.
It probably would have worked out better in one manner if my mother had let me skip the grades like suggested, but she had the belief (likely correct) that sending a 2nd Grader to high school would fuck me socially.
UK. Our highschool in the 90s to early 2000s had this. We had Lower and Upper sets for core classes, math, science, english.
My intake year also had to pick a Mandatory life's skill class, which boiled down to picking between food tech or textiles and then graphic design or physical design (woodwork but metalwork too).
In Year 9 (age 14) they brought in Drama as a class and made all the life skills optional in that only one of the four needed taking.
My daughter is now in year 8 and the content of those classes are abysmal. In Food tech she is barely taught food hygiene, like she knows about the daft coloured chopping boards and washing hands, but knows nothing of food storage (veg above meats, duration), she's been taught how to stitch two fabrics together but it's farcical and does nothing to repair anything to use able standard. Her woodwork has involved zero power tool or machine use, it's all been glue and lollipop sticks like a 6 year old.
Phys Ed got combined with sex Ed and she has still yet to have been even introduced to a cross country run.
The education curriculum is a shambles. I even went as far as complaining a few years ago saying more life skills need teaching and all they did was either say that'ss the work of older education or the parents (the latter I agree with, but time is still limited)
Ontario high schools used to have what was called "streaming". Not in the modern sense, as this was abolished by about 1988 or so, but in the sense that a kid going into grade 9 (my school system didn't have "junior high", you went K-8 and then 9-13 at the time) could choose the difficulty level of most courses - basic, "normal" (it was called something else, but the name escapes me at the moment) and advanced. Grade 13 was optional, mostly for kids going on to university, and is now called "OAC"; I think the difference is just in that now you have to pay for your books instead of renting them. I was done with high school a year or two before they changed things (for the worse, if you ask me. Especially when they made phys ed mandatory, glad I dodged that fucking bullet. The female gym teacher was a bull dyke.)
Anyway, it was up to you what level of course you took, but if you were struggling, or seemed to be cruising through too easily, yeah, they could pull you aside and suggest you take a different difficulty (with no penalty), but they couldn't make you.
This was abolished because the dumbasses thought it was "stigmatizing" the Basic level kids. But I did see an article come and go that suggested they may be thinking of bringing this idea back, for the very reasons advocates didn't want to get rid of it - it just kills the interest of the quicker kids to be bogged down by the slower ones, and the slower ones get frustrated with the higher-level info the quicker kids want to know. Plus the fact that the kids who are going to trades college, or who are just going to drop out in grade 10, probably don't care about the higher details of geography and history and will never use it ...
Yeah, I'm envious of such a program. I was one of those "Gifted and Talented" kids, so I was literally bored to tears for nearly all of public school. Since I lived in such a backwoods place, they literally had to invent a program to put me in, but it still was only 1 of my subjects per year. The rest I was stuck just wish I was dead with the braindead regular students.
It probably would have worked out better in one manner if my mother had let me skip the grades like suggested, but she had the belief (likely correct) that sending a 2nd Grader to high school would fuck me socially.
UK. Our highschool in the 90s to early 2000s had this. We had Lower and Upper sets for core classes, math, science, english.
My intake year also had to pick a Mandatory life's skill class, which boiled down to picking between food tech or textiles and then graphic design or physical design (woodwork but metalwork too).
In Year 9 (age 14) they brought in Drama as a class and made all the life skills optional in that only one of the four needed taking.
My daughter is now in year 8 and the content of those classes are abysmal. In Food tech she is barely taught food hygiene, like she knows about the daft coloured chopping boards and washing hands, but knows nothing of food storage (veg above meats, duration), she's been taught how to stitch two fabrics together but it's farcical and does nothing to repair anything to use able standard. Her woodwork has involved zero power tool or machine use, it's all been glue and lollipop sticks like a 6 year old.
Phys Ed got combined with sex Ed and she has still yet to have been even introduced to a cross country run.
The education curriculum is a shambles. I even went as far as complaining a few years ago saying more life skills need teaching and all they did was either say that'ss the work of older education or the parents (the latter I agree with, but time is still limited)