alt Hacker News> If you try and force kids to study when they don't want to "for their own good" you're not actually helping them. Everyone needs to find their own path. Let people fail.
this rhetoric is pretending to be an alternative to coercion. IMO the ideas you are talking about are well trodden and are still coercion nonetheless.
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Coercion explains it perfectly. A lot of kids see no future because of the environment they live in, so they have exactly zero motivation to study
You are missing the point. Getting a certificate for all of the programs you passed and still graduating could completely change the course of a person’s life. Community college has certificates and associates degrees to let people start working when they reach a practical limit in their general education.
I could be mistaken but my interpretation is that "studying for your own good" is being contrasted with "studying so you don't fail". If you actually fail students, they'll have a second motivation beyond trusting some authority figure's advice. Namely consequences.