<p>thumper, it’s seventh grade you couldn’t pay me to repeat, 8th grade was all right. I loathe the current middle school context - they kids don’t learn anything.</p>
<p>There were plusses and minuses to the German system. We had two 16 year old apprentice draftsmen (girl and boy) in our office. For one it was the inspiration to get back on the university track, so he could be boss. For the other, it seemed to just be as good a job as any. OTOH I had a friend who had gotten stuck being a bank teller who hated it. She had a talent and interest in languages. She tried to get her Abitur (high school diploma more or less) via night school, but found it too hard to do while working full time. And of course once you are at the university you are much more specialized than you are here.</p>