How Education is Ruining Your Life • Hacker News Board

Re: How Education is Ruining Your Life

#31

Post by WarDekar » Mon, Feb 15, 2010, 10:57 PM UTC

tpyo wrote: post #28

pg wrote: post #14

"Because of the reliance on the corporation, we set out to design an educational system in its mirror image. The linear journey from first to twelfth grade, then bachelor’s, master’s, and doctorate degrees systematized learning in a way that turned people into interchangeable parts and valued mobility." This is false. This progression predated the corporation. The present educational system has been influenced by the…

Yeah, I'm sick of seeing that idea being passed about without sources. I think most of the people talking about it haven't even heard of John Taylor Gatto, which is where it came from. But, do you have sources?

http://www.amazon.com/Dumbing-Down-Curriculum-Compulsory-Sch...

For anyone that hasn't read JTG, this is his most well known work and I highly recommend it (and his others). Surprised that no one had mentioned it yet as it's highly relevant to the issue at hand.

Re: How Education is Ruining Your Life

#32

Post by zandorg » Mon, Feb 15, 2010, 11:08 PM UTC

I dropped out of school and later earned a BSc. I found out later that rather than taking the performance of the highest scholarship award you have, some people and companies take the entire history of your education when deciding on jobs or further education. This seems wrong to me.

Re: How Education is Ruining Your Life

#33

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Feb 15, 2010, 11:38 PM UTC

pg wrote: post #14

"Because of the reliance on the corporation, we set out to design an educational system in its mirror image. The linear journey from first to twelfth grade, then bachelor’s, master’s, and doctorate degrees systematized learning in a way that turned people into interchangeable parts and valued mobility." This is false. This progression predated the corporation. The present educational system has been influenced by the…

[deleted]

Re: How Education is Ruining Your Life

#34

Post by bmj » Mon, Feb 15, 2010, 11:57 PM UTC

pbz wrote: post #20

jcromartie wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think having people be transplanted away from their families and friends for a 4 year hiatus to focus on learning is a crucial part of becoming a well rounded person. If someone asked you how to educate a society and this was the answer you gave, they might think you were crazy.

There are other things you need to learn beside what's in books, like how to live on your own, be responsible for your actions and so forth. Living away from the nest can be helpful in learning these things. I don't understand why this would make you "crazy."

Can't one do this without going tens of thousands into debt (unless one has scholarships or grants)?

Re: How Education is Ruining Your Life

#35

Post by coryrc » Tue, Feb 16, 2010, 12:13 AM UTC

gfodor wrote: post #26

pbz wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are other things you need to learn beside what's in books, like how to live on your own, be responsible for your actions and so forth. Living away from the nest can be helpful in learning these things. I don't understand why this would make you "crazy."

Right. Another big thing I didn't mention explicitly is that college exposes students to people outside their comfort zone. Cross pollination of ideas and culture are hugely important if we want to stamp out racism, ignorance, and intolerance.

From your comment, it seems your political indoctrination is more important than cost (monetarily, level of quality, breaking of relationships, etc) of an education.

Re: How Education is Ruining Your Life

#36

Post by pmiller2 » Tue, Feb 16, 2010, 1:28 AM UTC

jcromartie wrote: post #15

pg wrote: post #14

"Because of the reliance on the corporation, we set out to design an educational system in its mirror image. The linear journey from first to twelfth grade, then bachelor’s, master’s, and doctorate degrees systematized learning in a way that turned people into interchangeable parts and valued mobility." This is false. This progression predated the corporation. The present educational system has been influenced by the…

The progression existed, but it was for the elite. Most people didn't spend so many years in school when they were going to work on a farm or join a trade where they would be apprentice. The idea that everyone should go through 12 years of compulsory age-based schooling and then ideally through college and into an office is fairly recent.

In fact, it's recent enough that my great grandfather (who was born in 1908) never went to high school. His formal education ended in the 8th grade, and that was plenty good enough for him.

Re: How Education is Ruining Your Life

#37

Post by pmiller2 » Tue, Feb 16, 2010, 1:46 AM UTC

The problem certainly isn't that "education" is ruining peoples' lives. It's that the way our schools are structured (with the exception of some private schools), they're almost certain to squeeze anything resembling creativity and free thought out of a child before he learns his multiplication tables. One of the fundamental functions of schools seems to be to keep kids occupied, lined up in rows of desks, while their parents are at work.

I think the reason we could get away with this type of educational system in the industrial era is that factory work doesn't require a whole lot of knowledge or critical thinking skills. For that matter, neither does low-level management at most companies (I'm thinking of the "shop foreman" or "team leader" type positions here).

Educating people for a knowledge economy is likely to be more labor-intensive than the 30+ student per teacher classrooms we see sometimes in public schools today. So far, the best model I've seen that even comes close to educating children to be creative, critical thinkers without fundamentally denying what it means to be a child is the Montessori model. Unfortunately, the Montessori model isn't a practical one upon which to base the entire country's education system right now, in no small part because there just aren't enough teachers to make it work.

I really wish I had the answer, but I don't.

Re: How Education is Ruining Your Life

#38

Post by mnemonicsloth » Tue, Feb 16, 2010, 2:10 AM UTC

pg wrote: post #14

"Because of the reliance on the corporation, we set out to design an educational system in its mirror image. The linear journey from first to twelfth grade, then bachelor’s, master’s, and doctorate degrees systematized learning in a way that turned people into interchangeable parts and valued mobility." This is false. This progression predated the corporation. The present educational system has been influenced by the…

A fundamental change due to industry: before modern education, it was the teacher's fault if the student didn't learn. You don't tell the local nobleman that his son and heir did a C- job. Today, we see education as an opportunity for students to demonstrate how hard they've worked, usually as part of the job-qualification process. Actual learning is still important, but secondary. (Will this be on the test?)

Democratic credentialism is probably better than elitist humanism, but in a niche-and-network economy education has to be applicable and customizable. If it won't fit in a few blog posts, today's internet has a hard time teaching it.

-nb-- Education's medieval structure died in the late 1800s when the ancient religious universities (Oxfords, Harvards) swapped it for the PhD model. Some of them were still pushing the geocentric universe at the time.

The PhD developed to meet the research staffing needs of the German chemical industry.

Re: How Education is Ruining Your Life

#39

Post by pbhjpbhj » Tue, Feb 16, 2010, 2:24 AM UTC

mnemonicsloth wrote: post #38

pg wrote: post #14

"Because of the reliance on the corporation, we set out to design an educational system in its mirror image. The linear journey from first to twelfth grade, then bachelor’s, master’s, and doctorate degrees systematized learning in a way that turned people into interchangeable parts and valued mobility." This is false. This progression predated the corporation. The present educational system has been influenced by the…

A fundamental change due to industry: before modern education, it was the teacher's fault if the student didn't learn. You don't tell the local nobleman that his son and heir did a C- job. Today, we see education as an opportunity for students to demonstrate how hard they've worked, usually as part of the job-qualification process. Actual learning is still important, but secondary. (Will this be on the test?) Democra…

>Some of them were still pushing the geocentric universe at the time.

OT: Have you heard of Relativity? What's wrong with choosing an arbitrary reference point to be local.

Re: How Education is Ruining Your Life

#40

Post by mnemonicsloth » Tue, Feb 16, 2010, 2:29 AM UTC

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #39

mnemonicsloth wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A fundamental change due to industry: before modern education, it was the teacher's fault if the student didn't learn. You don't tell the local nobleman that his son and heir did a C- job. Today, we see education as an opportunity for students to demonstrate how hard they've worked, usually as part of the job-qualification process. Actual learning is still important, but secondary. (Will this be on the test?) Democra…

> Some of them were still pushing the geocentric universe at the time. OT: Have you heard of Relativity? What's wrong with choosing an arbitrary reference point to be local.

"Some of them had refused to accept a heliocentric solar system before until that time."

Are you saying that's unclear? I still find it hard to believe, so I can't tell.