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

theguardian.com

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

#211

Post by tremon »

JanezStupar wrote: post #192
specialist wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The country I live in uses a proportional voting system - and what happens is that one of the smallest and most narrow special interests party gets to be the the point of equilibrium - as nobody can form government without it. And then that party proceeds to blackmail everybody all the time. Thus all the governments need to pander to this particular party and they get to gridlock the government whenever they feel the…

nobody can form government without it

Of course they can, they just choose not to. What you are saying is that the parties are choosing a blackmailer over a self-declared "enemy". That's a choice, it's not inevitable.

Besides, if the political landscape is diverse enough, a minority coalition can be a boon for everyone: it means that the ruling parties must actually learn to cooperate with the opposition instead of dictating policy for the duration of their term.

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

#212

Post by up_and_up »

AMA: We are secular homeschoolers and primarily use self-directed learning as our teaching method. Unschooling/self-directed gives our children extreme freedom to pursue their interests, encourages deep play-based learning, and instills a deep level of self-confidence in them.

Most of our homeschooling friends also use this method of "teaching". We have really become more like facilitators for the next big project they feel like doing.

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

#213

Post by spacecowboy_lon »

e12e wrote: post #210
ckastner wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The key point of democracy isn't voting, it's participation. Your right to vote is the mechanism by which your right to participate is ensured. If you have participation, where all are heard, and real work is made for a consensus, voting doesn't have to have centre stage And yet in practice, the only reason for a political party to hear all (including its opposition) and to seek consensus is to seek the number of vot…

>> The key point of democracy isn't voting, it's participation. > Your right to vote is the mechanism by which your right to participate is ensured. It's a shallow form of participation. Being educated, informed, and being part of the decision process - drafting bills, finding alternatives - forming political parties, being part of committees , being available for election, all the work that is done before a vote his…

And how does the average voter get involved in "drafting bills" I suspect that there are very few of us on HN who have ever done something like that.

I manged to get several thousand people a better pension by using the democratic process but I suspect as a dual wonk/nerd I am in a minority.

I did half consider going to work in the HOC if one of my colleagues had got the speaker ship.

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

#214

Post by pbhjpbhj »

tmptmp wrote: post #184
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hope many times do you think the subject of your comment needed to use long division "later in life"? I found it useful as a foundation to understand rationalising algebraic fractions; but outside that I've probably only used it a few times, none of which would have been essential. What was her degree? Demanding maths when it's not needed by practitioners in a degree subject area seems perverse to me [I love maths FW…

>>What was her degree? Demanding maths when it's not needed by practitioners in a degree subject area seems perverse to me [I love maths FWIW]. Degree is inconsequential. I'd say "if she is a human, she will do better by learning math rather than not doing it." How so? Maths is more about "thinking creatively, clearly and critically about things that are complex and abstract" rather than about doing "arithmetic". And…

I agree with the thrust of your comment, I'm not arguing that maths isn't worthwhile, that it doesn't develop critical thinking skills, push the capabilities of the brain. Neither am I arguing that you should hold back on teaching younger children basic skills, even if it's outside their core competencies and outside their natural area of focus (all that changes quite fluidly when you're young).

What I am trying to say is that at degree level, if you're mastering a field that has no intrinsic core mathematical content that you should be able to get certified in those abilities separate to maths ability. If an employer needs/desires a student to have mathematics abilities then they can request a certificate to demonstrate that.

Suppose things worked the other way and science majors had to produce a paper on Chaucer and Puritanism in order to graduate? Whilst IMO that wouldn't be a wasted educational experience, would be mind expanding, it's pretty orthogonal to the skills one needs as, say, an astrogeologist.

TL;DR more carrot, less stick.

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

#215

Post by spacecowboy_lon »

JanezStupar wrote: post #192
specialist wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The country I live in uses a proportional voting system - and what happens is that one of the smallest and most narrow special interests party gets to be the the point of equilibrium - as nobody can form government without it. And then that party proceeds to blackmail everybody all the time. Thus all the governments need to pander to this particular party and they get to gridlock the government whenever they feel the…

as the Hardline unionists did in the UK which is why northern irland lags the rest of the UK in civil rights

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

#216

Post by sundarurfriend »

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?

> a majority of wolves

The problem lies there, not with democracy - whatever system you use, such an assemblage is going to screw the sheep over.

In a democracy, there's at least a sense of shared responsibility, and hence in real life there'd be a dampening of the wolf's id by each one's conscience.

In monarchic or oligarchic systems (and these terms don't have to be restricted to governments), the top person(s) will still probably end up being a wolf in such a condition, only now the other wolves would be "just following orders" and be more efficient in making dinner.

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

#218

Post by e12e »

spacecowboy_lon wrote: post #213
e12e wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> The key point of democracy isn't voting, it's participation. > Your right to vote is the mechanism by which your right to participate is ensured. It's a shallow form of participation. Being educated, informed, and being part of the decision process - drafting bills, finding alternatives - forming political parties, being part of committees , being available for election, all the work that is done before a vote his…

And how does the average voter get involved in "drafting bills" I suspect that there are very few of us on HN who have ever done something like that. I manged to get several thousand people a better pension by using the democratic process but I suspect as a dual wonk/nerd I am in a minority. I did half consider going to work in the HOC if one of my colleagues had got the speaker ship.

> And how does the average voter get involved in "drafting bills"

This is exactly my point - real democracy means engaging in the political decision process on all levels, and taking/feeling a sense of ownership of/to it.

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

#219

Post by JoeAltmaier »

rweba wrote: post #172

The bottom line is: how well do these "progressive ideas" work in practice? I couldn't find much evidence online that they're more effective in general than the "traditional" approach. I have been a college professor for 7 years, here's what I have been able to PERSONALLY observe in that time: (1) Frequent, regular feedback (quizzes, tests, homeworks, projects) helps a lot for most students. If you just have a final…

It's likely that older collage-aged people will learn differently than primary school children. In fact it may be too late to try self-directed learning, which has been trained out of them?

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

#220

Post by barry-cotter »

Ntrails wrote: post #205
barry-cotter wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The more pertinent question is whether the citizens they produce can read and write, know how to multiply and divide, can name the parts of speech, and have at least a passing notion of the history and culture of their respective countries, regions, and locales. They learn how to read and write. Children are learning machines. They figure out how to do things that are a lot more complicated than learning how to rea…

> People learn to perform quite complicated mathematical operations in the course of their lives, through experience. With the greatest of respect, I do not think a child is going to learn significant mathematics beyond arithmetic by "living". Give them a book and an interest? Sure. A little direction and help? Better. But the number of people who can invent calculus from scratch is pretty low. > most of what most pe…

Knowing calculus and linear algebra has been of about as much use to me as my knowledge of history; none bar intellectual satisfaction. I feel the same way about people who force their interests and prejudices on others even when I share those prejudices. Those people are st best obnoxious. I derived neither enjoyment nor any discernible benefit from having to do P.E. in school. I am not in favour of forcing Math or anything else on anybody for whom it holds no interest. If you can't persuade them to learn it it probably isn't something they're ever going to be interested in.

As to your distaste I feel the same way about many, many things but I'm not the one supporting making everybody "learn" things they have neither interest in nor a facility for.

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