Is it good, bad? What can be done better? What problems do you identify? Is it upsetting? are you used to it?
Ask HN: What do you think about the current education system?
1–10 of 34 posts
Re: Ask HN: What do you think about the current education system?
#2I'm in no way an expert, but I've pretty much seen the gamut: private preschool, public elementary school, charter middle school, inner-city public middle-school, elite private boarding school, magnet public high-school . . .
I think the public education system is a travesty, but I know it also doesn't make sense to talk about "the system" as if there's anything approaching uniformity. Detroit Public Schools and Bloomfield Hills public schools are worlds apart.
And even still, today's education system might be the best there's ever been . . . most people learn how to read . . .
This doesn't address higher-education, which is a whole 'nother shit-show . . .
Re: Ask HN: What do you think about the current education system?
#3Humanity screwed up education the day teaching became a profession (to earn money).
Re: Ask HN: What do you think about the current education system?
#4Humanity screwed up education the day teaching became a profession (to earn money).
You do not attract high quality staff by offering $0 salary. Nor do you get high quality staff when they cannot be fired(as is so common today).
Re: Ask HN: What do you think about the current education system?
#5Humanity screwed up education the day teaching became a profession (to earn money).
You do not attract high quality staff by offering $0 salary. Nor do you get high quality staff when they cannot be fired(as is so common today).
I guess my concept of education is completely different then yours. For me education is the idea that we - the current generation - can give knowledge and skills to the next generation so that they are ready to face the challenges of future and the cycle continues and humanity wins. BUT who give a shit to humanity, all we want to teach kids is how to "score good marks and get a good earning job".
The problem of education is not how it is done but the current purpose of "education" is wrong i.e it is "what" that needs to be fixed about education.
By the way "You do not attract high quality staff by offering $0 salary" is exactly whats wrong with education.
Re: Ask HN: What do you think about the current education system?
#6Earlier quoted context omitted.
You do not attract high quality staff by offering $0 salary. Nor do you get high quality staff when they cannot be fired(as is so common today).
I guess my concept of education is completely different then yours. For me education is the idea that we - the current generation - can give knowledge and skills to the next generation so that they are ready to face the challenges of future and the cycle continues and humanity wins. BUT who give a shit to humanity, all we want to teach kids is how to "score good marks and get a good earning job". The problem of educa…
[deleted]
Re: Ask HN: What do you think about the current education system?
#7Earlier quoted context omitted.
You do not attract high quality staff by offering $0 salary. Nor do you get high quality staff when they cannot be fired(as is so common today).
I guess my concept of education is completely different then yours. For me education is the idea that we - the current generation - can give knowledge and skills to the next generation so that they are ready to face the challenges of future and the cycle continues and humanity wins. BUT who give a shit to humanity, all we want to teach kids is how to "score good marks and get a good earning job". The problem of educa…
I could not agree more. I do however think fundamentals are important, our focus is just wrong.
The fundamentals and mentality need to change. However a wise man once taught me that it is human nature is to cheat and find easy ways out - which is why KPI's never work if they are implemented for more than six months or so. So it is necessary to keep goals fresh and change things every so often.
But more to the original point and a specific solution, more things should be taught of how to be an adult, morals, values, goals, communication, persuasion, how to do your tax etc.
Re: Ask HN: What do you think about the current education system?
#8I find the use of examinations and tests to assess the "quality" of the student non-ideal.
It's very possible to perform very well on tests with minimal actual comprehension of the material through memorization. In fact, it's quite possibly easier to memorize solutions than to actually learn to solve them.
Re: Ask HN: What do you think about the current education system?
#9I find the use of examinations and tests to assess the "quality" of the student non-ideal. It's very possible to perform very well on tests with minimal actual comprehension of the material through memorization. In fact, it's quite possibly easier to memorize solutions than to actually learn to solve them.
Do you have a proposed solution to test understanding rather than memory?
I think possibly regular problems. E.g. with learning code, you put each question into a solution by learning the way to do it, and then implement a solution.
Re: Ask HN: What do you think about the current education system?
#10I think it's bad, mainly because it was built at the end of the 19th century and since then it's calcified. It's like having legacy code and instead of refactoring it when you need to make changes, you build more stuff on that, get more technical debt.
To add some context to what I mean, the current system is largely based on the decisions of the Committee of Ten[1]. If you read that short note, you'll notice that it's pretty much applying the lessons of industrialization to education ie. assembly line approach.
The example of the assembly line approach is especially relevant for me because I don't think that it is applicable to humans. Different humans learn at different rates so it doesn't make sense to group them by age. Additionally, teaching everyone the same things, while making things nice and uniform, takes away the biggest motivation for learning - curiosity.
This is completely anecdotal, but the further away I moved from this assembly line education system (from high school to college, from college to self-taught developer) the better grades I got (college) or more money (work) and the more time I spent learning, even things that are unrelated to my main focus because the world is fascinating.
As for an idea on how to fix this, I admit that I don't have a concrete one. I've skimmed the topic and the thing that drew my attention most is the Montessori system[2] system of education. It proposes a few points relevant to what I wrote in the previous paragraph, but also one that I find particularly interesting to developers: "Uninterrupted blocks of work time, ideally three hours".
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_of_Ten [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montessori_education