No grades, no timetable: Berlin school turns teaching upside down • Hacker News Board

Re: No grades, no timetable: Berlin school turns teaching upside down

#161

Post by abecedarius » Tue, Jul 05, 2016, 12:59 AM UTC

sandworm101 wrote: post #111

jostylr wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Sudbury Schools, there are plenty of rules. If a student broke the rules, their would be a jury of their peers and a sentence to follow out. If she wanted to stay at the school, she would accept it all and acclimate. Sometimes it takes a few weeks, sometimes a few months. Someone who ignores our system of justice would be expelled. It happens. It all depends on whether she wants to be in this environment or not. M…

>> Someone who ignores our system of justice would be expelled. It happens. I hope they don't read Lord of the Flies. I'm not sure that I would want a group of teens, especially peers, to judge me on anything. Didn't Trek TOS also cover this in the episode on the planet without adults?

Lord of the Flies is fiction (and IMO overrated and unbelievable).

Re: No grades, no timetable: Berlin school turns teaching upside down

#162

Post by themartorana » Tue, Jul 05, 2016, 12:59 AM UTC

dang wrote: post #121

themartorana wrote: post #99

This is a child being disrespectful on a monumental level, not outsmarting anyone. It also sounds like her parents are paying a great deal of attention. She may also be a classic psychopath. http://www.m.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/features/sociopath-psyc...

Any internet comment that ends in "psychopath" is probably a bad one—this pattern is a Godwin mini-me—and to get there from one colorful anecdote of adolescent cleverness is a particular stretch. Please don't practice unsolicited psychiatry on HN. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12032277 and marked it off-topic.

Whoa. Agree to disagree, big guy. Not only are the majority of HN commenters practicing amateur everything (especially with politics) but that's not what I was doing.

And further disagreeing, any 12 year old that shows such blatant disrespect - and makes friends with a porn star in the process - is in no way a cute story of "adolescent cleverness." It's something that should get protective services involved.

Re: No grades, no timetable: Berlin school turns teaching upside down

#163

Post by woodandsteel » Tue, Jul 05, 2016, 1:31 AM UTC

specialist wrote: post #83

ada1981 wrote: post #49

Sudbury Valley Schools are the gold standard as far as I can tell from my research. (I spent a number of years as an education/students rights activist; built and ran the country's most famous education blog back in 2009; and have otherwise been doing advocacy work for a couple decades) They are fully democratic and focus on producing empowered self directed citizens who understand how to share limited resources and…

Thanks for the link, thanks for your efforts. I'll definitely read up on sudval.org. "They are fully democratic and focus on producing empowered self directed citizens..." Word. I've run democratic teams. The empowerment is real. I can't explain it; it feels like magic. Those experiences have transmuted me into a full throated advocate for democracy. Democracy, in its multitude of forms, is very much a technology. Ju…

> I wonder why learning can't be more like that?

As John Taylor Gatto explains, it is because our education system was designed back in the 19th century to produce factory workers who would follow orders and do the same boring thing all day long.

Re: No grades, no timetable: Berlin school turns teaching upside down

#164

Post by faklco » Tue, Jul 05, 2016, 1:32 AM UTC

pekk wrote: post #128

specialist wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the link, thanks for your efforts. I'll definitely read up on sudval.org. "They are fully democratic and focus on producing empowered self directed citizens..." Word. I've run democratic teams. The empowerment is real. I can't explain it; it feels like magic. Those experiences have transmuted me into a full throated advocate for democracy. Democracy, in its multitude of forms, is very much a technology. Ju…

> Those experiences have transmuted me into a full throated advocate for democracy. And if a majority of wolves vote for a sheep dinner?

I'm curious what you mean by this in a real world situation? It seems like you're advocating the delegation of liberty into the hands of a trusted authority. What if they decide to do something against the interests of a minority?

Re: No grades, no timetable: Berlin school turns teaching upside down

#165

Post by DasIch » Tue, Jul 05, 2016, 1:33 AM UTC

AnkhMorporkian wrote: post #98

thaumasiotes wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went to a Waldorf kindergarten. I have no negative memories of it, but my mother assures me that I hated it. I suspect that she hated it on my behalf. That said, they apparently voiced strong disapproval of the fact that I could already read, so it's not something I could actually recommend. It probably just didn't come through to the small me.

> That said, they apparently voiced strong disapproval of the fact that I could already read Strange, I had the same experience in a public kindergarten. I never understood that attitude. I could read at a 5th grade level in kindergarten, but that was treated as an evil thing by the teachers because the material they were trying to teach was far below me. I suppose I can understand that in retrospect now that I think…

Waldorf education assumes, for completely unscientific reasons that are about as reasonable as homeopathy, that children go through fairly specific phases at fairly specific ages. Based on that belief certain things are taught at specific ages in specific ways. Any deviation from that is seen as harmful to a child's development.

So, their disapproval is not strange at all, it's completely consistent with their view, which is that teaching children younger than 7 about abstract things like reading is harmful.

What is strange is that Waldorf is still a thing. I strongly suspect that a large number of people sending their children to these schools would've never done so, if they were introduced to the theory behind them in detail beforehand. It's certainly not the place to send a child, if you dislike the cookie cutter approach of public school systems, as Waldorf schools are even worse in that respect.

Re: No grades, no timetable: Berlin school turns teaching upside down

#166

Post by ionforce » Tue, Jul 05, 2016, 1:35 AM UTC

jostylr wrote: post #151

rumcajz wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing I was always interested in w.r.t. Sudbury Schools (but never met anyone with personal experience to ask about it) is how do the students, being trained in democratic way of doing stuff, deal with real life once they finish the school. They start working for a corporation with strict command & control hierarchy, they have to deal with political system where your vote has basically zero value etc. One's naive…

I work with a young school so the experiences are not quite there yet for me personally. Sudbury Valley School did do a study of its graduates at one point and found that they led very satisfactory lives embracing challenges everywhere: http://www.sudval.org/05_alumni.html#03 There is a lot of entrepreneurship involved in their pathways. Our first graduate wanted to become a pastry chef and upon graduating our school…

Is it slavery if it is the only (statistically) viable reality?

Re: No grades, no timetable: Berlin school turns teaching upside down

#167

Post by wapapaloobop » Tue, Jul 05, 2016, 1:44 AM UTC

berlin2016 wrote: post #140

wapapaloobop wrote: post #7

We school-educated people associate learning with authority and it's hard for us to truly grasp that education takes place most efficiently under conditions of freedom. Repealing Hitler's 1938 law against home education would be an important step for Germany.

No law against home education has been passed in 1938, nor is the school law of 1938 still in effect. Either way, there is no law against home education per se, you can educate your children at home all you want, as long as you also send them to a legally approved school. This school could be public or private, religious or not. There are basic requirements to be fulfilled. The fact that children are forced to attend…

If an activity is illegal than naturally only radicals will express a dissenting opinion on the topic. But this has no bearing on what is right.

>could've done a better job at education

There is no test that can be made to compare different educational systems since neither knowledge nor creativity can be measured. My guess is that the students who perform best in exams are the most damaged in terms of their ability to think independently. They also become the strongest defenders of the system that did this to them.

>anti-authoritarian profile

Can you see the paradox in being made to attend an 'anti-authoritarian' institution for years on end until it changes who you are and kind of person you will become?

Re: No grades, no timetable: Berlin school turns teaching upside down

#168

Post by hunter_n » Tue, Jul 05, 2016, 1:44 AM UTC

ada1981 wrote: post #49

Sudbury Valley Schools are the gold standard as far as I can tell from my research. (I spent a number of years as an education/students rights activist; built and ran the country's most famous education blog back in 2009; and have otherwise been doing advocacy work for a couple decades) They are fully democratic and focus on producing empowered self directed citizens who understand how to share limited resources and…

Reminds me of an experimental school my grandparents had started in Australia around the Second World War. Unstructured lessons in nature and student involvement in decision making.

Sadly it had to close due to lack of funding at the end of the war. There is a short documentary made before closing showing the student parliament and school life - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kg7TJ2WRndM

Re: No grades, no timetable: Berlin school turns teaching upside down

#169

Post by Razengan » Tue, Jul 05, 2016, 1:55 AM UTC

mindcrime wrote: post #150

cup wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So vote my way or civil war?

Would you voluntarily submit to being eaten then?

That hardly sounds civilized.

What if the sheep can't arm themselves? What if the wolves are better armed?

Re: No grades, no timetable: Berlin school turns teaching upside down

#170

Post by eru » Tue, Jul 05, 2016, 2:05 AM UTC

specialist wrote: post #149

pekk wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Those experiences have transmuted me into a full throated advocate for democracy. And if a majority of wolves vote for a sheep dinner?

Everyone's grumpy about our (USA) elections, which use a terrible voting system (winner takes all), and then cynically conclude that all democracy is bad news. Because people are stupid. And can't be trusted to do the right thing. Because reasons. How do you currently choose new hires? Decide to ship (go/no go)? Probably something like Roman Evaluation. How do you triage defects or choose features? Probably something…

There's also the possibility to vote on values, but bet on beliefs.

Ie vote on your priorities and what you want to get done. Then use a prediction market (possibly on a very informal level, if it's a small group), to decide on a policy to reach those goals.