Zuckerbergs' New “Primary School”: Private but Free • Hacker News Board

Re: Zuckerbergs' New “Primary School”: Private but Free

#71

Post by ohmyiv » Sun, Oct 25, 2015, 9:02 AM UTC

tzs wrote: post #14

markdown wrote: post #11

Why is "Primary School" in quotes? Are you suggesting it isn't a primary school?

It looks like the submitter (or a mod?) rewrote the title to try to make it clearer, and botched it. The actual title of the article is: "Inside Mark Zuckerberg's new school: Private, but free". The name of the new school is "The Primary School". It looks like the title rewriter decided to try to put the name in the title, but left out the "The", resulting in the confusing title we now have. A better rewrite, if the…

Clarification: It was a mod change. I left the title close to the original except I left out "Mark".

Re: Zuckerbergs' New “Primary School”: Private but Free

#72

Post by kuschku » Sun, Oct 25, 2015, 9:11 AM UTC

cookiecaper wrote: post #68

pbreit wrote: post #54

One-off private schools are never going to move the needle. Even Alt School only caters to folks who don't really need it. Is it really not possible for private industry to address public education? Perhaps "for profit" is just never going to work in education? Kipp?

Modern education in the West is mostly pomp and circumstance. Facts are extremely non-discriminatory; people can't help but learn things and absorb the information that's around them. A key to successful education is putting people in environments and circumstances where the information is so well-integrated that it's difficult NOT to absorb it. That basically means giving people something interesting and valuable to…

One interesting concept used in some schools is that they will focus on only one topic for 2 or 3 weeks – and then another topic for the next weeks, and so on.

When you just focus on one topic for a few weeks you can go far more in depth, engage the students easier, do more complex group work instead of teachers telling them.

Even in normal school schedules it’s important than never (or close to never) the teacher actually teaches – the teacher can guide, but the students should work out how and why something works in groups. From math to history, from english to sports, this works far better, if students are able to discover and investigate on their own.

Re: Zuckerbergs' New “Primary School”: Private but Free

#73

Post by tajen » Sun, Oct 25, 2015, 10:21 AM UTC

pbreit wrote: post #54

One-off private schools are never going to move the needle. Even Alt School only caters to folks who don't really need it. Is it really not possible for private industry to address public education? Perhaps "for profit" is just never going to work in education? Kipp?

In France public schools are 100% free, and private catholic schools have teachers paid by the state + a per-student benefit, so that the remainder paid by families is 200-2000€/year. I find it nice since it promotes alternatives, in case there's a problem with the local school. Contents and efficiency are checked by the ministry, so they don't diverge very much. In Bretagne it's 50% private schools and in the south of France about 15%.

Re: Zuckerbergs' New “Primary School”: Private but Free

#74

Post by just_curioussss » Sun, Oct 25, 2015, 10:21 AM UTC

markdown wrote: post #55

vpanyam wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The name of the school is "The Primary School" http://www.theprimaryschool.org/

Oh ok. In many countries of the world, primary schools are schools that cater to classes between kindergarten and high/secondary school. Calling a primary school "The Primary School" is like calling a brand of bottled water "The Bottled Water".

And who is calling their internet service, Internet? Oh, right, the same person.

What's next, Facebook?

Oh.....

Re: Zuckerbergs' New “Primary School”: Private but Free

#75

Post by zo1 » Sun, Oct 25, 2015, 11:17 AM UTC

ageek123 wrote: post #62

pbreit wrote: post #54

One-off private schools are never going to move the needle. Even Alt School only caters to folks who don't really need it. Is it really not possible for private industry to address public education? Perhaps "for profit" is just never going to work in education? Kipp?

> Perhaps "for profit" is just never going to work in education? Well, government-run certainly isn't working, at least in the US. Charter schools (like Kipp) seem to be doing a lot better.

Unfortunately, when it comes to "state-run" institutions and policies, you're arguing against an ideal, rather than an implementation. I.e. You could argue it is some form of the no true Scotsman fallacy.

Additionally, there is a very prevalent and saturated belief in the current society that views anything with 'for profit' motives as somehow bad/greedy. Consequently, everything that is "non-profit" (including the state) regularly gets undeserved moral brownie points.

Re: Zuckerbergs' New “Primary School”: Private but Free

#76

Post by marincounty » Sun, Oct 25, 2015, 11:31 AM UTC

SFLemonade wrote: post #24

mtgx wrote: post #4

Speaking of Facebook, does anyone know if this is true? https://www.youbetrayedus.org/facebook/

I wouldn't be surprised at all. Zuckerberg worries me in a very ominous and looming way. He has access to a lot of data and his company is a massive source of public influence. And he's repeatedly abused that power with little to no public knowledge or blowback. Initiatives like his free limited internet and the primary school seem like attempts to control information and future generations, disguised as philanthropy…

He doesn't scare me. I just thought people would get tired of his site by now. I can't figure out the appeal anymore, unless you come from a third world country, or are under a dictatorship, or you in you twenties, married, or with kids.

Don't get wrong, I don't hate his site. I just don't get the appeal anymore, but it might be me. I'm older and I can take only so much of the social posturing, 5000 friends, photos that are so self-aware--I cringe, the constant positive affirmations about a person's looks, the crying out for a attention, and praise, the nosey algorithms, etc.

I have one question, and it's geared towards Americans, "What are you getting out of Facebook these days. I'm not trying to be cute, or clever. I'm just curious.

Maybe it's my fault. I have used Facebook in order to look up old friends. I have found that so many people seemed to have caved into social pressures, and become politically correct conformists(which is fine), and I understand why they need to protect their online identity. It just depressing looking at people who raised their hands in class, tried to fight certain aspects of the system just settled, and went along with the Villagers. I'm not even bothered by that--it's the phonyness, or I hope phonyness?

Has anyone over thirty, gone on Facebook and looked up someone you used to know, maybe that women/man that was different than the rest; and viewed their profile, and said, "I must get in touch with that person!". I have found complete opposite effect.

I'll admit it's probally just me, or I'm being too negative, or my experiences on Facebook is not typical.

Re: Zuckerbergs' New “Primary School”: Private but Free

#77

Post by zo1 » Sun, Oct 25, 2015, 3:37 PM UTC

ageek123 wrote: post #63

datashovel wrote: post #52

Perhaps I'm initially too cynical about what appears at face value to be selfless philanthropy, but I won't consider these efforts to be anything but self-serving unless they're willing to share data about their successes / failures with other educational institutions and governments.

How is this self-serving? How does it directly benefit Zuckerberg?

At the very least publicity.

Re: Zuckerbergs' New “Primary School”: Private but Free

#78

Post by forrestthewoods » Sun, Oct 25, 2015, 4:56 PM UTC

asgard1024 wrote: post #69

forrestthewoods wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh huh yes. The sum wealth of humans today is vastly larger than that of humans 100, 500, 1000, 5000, and 10000 years ago. Vastly.

Yeah, maybe it isn't zero sum when you include time dimension, but at each point in time, it still is zero sum. Why that matters? Because humans need to eat at every point in time, and have limited timespan. In fact most of the today's wealth was generated by people who are long dead. Despite this wealth being effectively "free", it is still a zero sum game how to distribute it.

New wealth is literally created every second of every day.

Re: Zuckerbergs' New “Primary School”: Private but Free

#79

Post by seunosewa » Sun, Oct 25, 2015, 5:26 PM UTC

datashovel wrote: post #52

Perhaps I'm initially too cynical about what appears at face value to be selfless philanthropy, but I won't consider these efforts to be anything but self-serving unless they're willing to share data about their successes / failures with other educational institutions and governments.

Selflessness is not important. What's important is doing things that are beneficial to society. If you can also help yourself while doing that, there's no shame in that. That's great! Too many people spend their resources on the selfless pursuit of useless things.

Re: Zuckerbergs' New “Primary School”: Private but Free

#80

Post by datashovel » Sun, Oct 25, 2015, 9:15 PM UTC

ageek123 wrote: post #63

datashovel wrote: post #52

Perhaps I'm initially too cynical about what appears at face value to be selfless philanthropy, but I won't consider these efforts to be anything but self-serving unless they're willing to share data about their successes / failures with other educational institutions and governments.

How is this self-serving? How does it directly benefit Zuckerberg?

$77.4 billion for the Department of Education across the entire US.

The article mentions that this $1 billion investment will go toward "free education and free healthcare for low-income students in the Palo Alto area".

So comparing the two it's obvious that the investment is going into an unsustainable model. The way I'm thinking about this, that could be for one of a few reasons.

1) They want to pour a lot of money into research and development to figure out how to improve education. Concentrate a bunch of money into one place to figure out how to improve the overall model.

2) They want to show how they can do better than public education system.

If they're after #1 I can see no reason why they wouldn't try to give back by sharing data from their research.

If they're after #2 then it's obvious they're simply creating a facade (an unsustainable "model" implementation of what primary education should look like). Depending on the results they'd be looking to sway public opinion that private sector can do better than government.

Needless to say, #1 is constructive, and #2 IMO is highly destructive.