"Bull. Most people have any interest in learning beaten out of them by our crappy factory/prison like educational system. Because you know what's not conducive to learning? Having no choice as far as subjects; having no choice how long you spend on them; having no choice on who to learn from; having no choice who you learn with."
Most people don't really want to choose and if given too many choices, will be overwhelmed and not get anything accomplished.
New learners of language, for example, have no idea where to start, which teacher to choose, or which subject they need to learn.
I work for myself and I've been working on my current project for over a year. There were so many times I wanted to give up and so many boring parts, but I slogged through it all, because I know the end result will be a great accomplishment.
I've met so many developers that get bored when they have to work on something that has the slightest hint of monotony. I feel like that's one of my greatest assets and I
We should encourage discipline when learning..and the method you suggested with 50 minute segments, etc does the exact opposite.
Experienced teachers know exactly what someone needs to learn to get to the point where they can learn for themselves.
This is what k-12 is all about. Once you get into college, you most definitely have the choice.
There may be students that get to this point faster..which I think is what AP classes are all about.
"How much work would most developers get done if they had their day broken into 50 minute segments, five minute transition times, and six different projects they were required to work on every day with equal consistency?"
I have no idea about other developers, but for me, not much. This sounds like a terrible way to develop any project.
"PG has a classic essay on makers vs managers on scheduling, and he places emphasis on how for work like programming, getting into the material takes time. I see no reason this wouldn't apply to learning."
The mistake here is assuming everyone has the mind of an engineer/software developer.
"My mother runs a Montessori preschool. Consistently, the kids that go off to first grade come back with stories of attending traditional school and wondering when they get to start doing something instead of sitting at their desk. Or when they can do something new instead of going through material they already know with the class"
Children shouldn't be making these decisions. When I was in school, I hated math. If given the choice, I would have played video games all day. Looking back, I'm glad I was forced to sit and learn all of those math skills that I pretty much use every day. Part of learning is memorization, which can't be skipped. Another part is having the discipline to do something you don't really enjoy, but need to do it to achieve a goal.
"It bothers me greatly when someone blames the nature of people for problems that are systemic in nature"
Systems are created around human behavior, not vice-versa. My wife learned in an environment like you envision: lots of choice and very little structured learning. Since no teacher told her what to study, she now has huge gaps in knowledge that she really has no time to make up as an adult. I would never want to put a child through that as it depriving them of their future success.
"it feels no different from the ridiculous number of ADHD diagnoses we have these days, which seems to largely stem from not giving kids space to be kids."
ADHD is over-diagnosed, but removing the structure from our current education system has nothing to do with it.
I also think that we need to teach kids to put down the ipad and phones when they are learning. Having a thousand distractions doesn't help.