Genkai OL-san wa Akuyaku Reijou-sama ni Tsukaetai - Vol. 6 Ch. 35.5

[arcosapphire]

Modern post-industrial teenagers are kind of infantilized by extended formal education and low expectations.

That's not really a fair assessment. I can think of three counterpoints.

1. The world is far more complicated now. People used to just interact in a fairly local sphere, but we regularly hear and are supposed to process news from all over the country or even the world. To understand what's going on requires more education and a wider viewpoint now.
2. We understand more about human development and the consequences of needing to grow up quickly. Yes, of course people are capable of it, but it has consequences to their mental health we now understand can, and ideally should, be avoided.
3. Even if some people really can handle it just fine, that's only a fraction of children. It's better to build the system around what doesn't ruin the brains of most children, than to force everyone through the faster path simply because some people can manage it.

 

[raineight]

1. The world is complicated and formal education more useful, true; OTOH our schools often aren't that efficient in teaching that stuff anyway. (Also, I doubt that being a Macedonian general was simple.)

2. I'm very skeptical that brain science has had much if any impact on school structure, the basics of which were set up decades ago.

3. Arguably it'd be even better to find out which children can handle what, and match teaching and responsibilities to them, rather than going at the slowest pace for all. (See point 1 about inefficiency.) But that would take resources and more adult skill. I myself benefit from very accelerated math education, which my public school tried to get in the way of, though my district was more helpful when my parents prodded it the right way. Germany and Switzerland are reportedly better at having blue collar trades be well-paid and respected, so not everyone gets pushed through the square hole of high-school/college academics.

4. Crucially, post-industrial kids aren't all treated the same, and the differences obviously have nothing to do with science. In Japan and much of Europe, six year old kids often walk or take the train to school on their own (as they did in the US a few decades ago); in the modern US you might risk arrest for leaving your 12 year old alone, and Australia reportedly isn't much better. US parents fear crime (somewhat irrationally) and cars (more rationally) killing their kids; that's the difference, not understanding of human development. Japanese kids get home ec classes so they hopefully leave school with some basic cooking skills; US schools have largely dropped anything like that in favor of teaching to tests.

So, even just looking at existing variation between countries, nothing radical, there's a big difference in the independence and world-navigation abilities we expect of kids, and it's more to do with how car-dependent we built our cities than anything intrinsic about kids. Schools with more resources and imagination could find more of those kids who end up making new contributions to math or science at 16. Etc.