61–70 of 213 posts
I had exactly the opposite experience. Graduated from Mathematics/Informatics specialized High School, second worst in class - way off below the average grade. Yet I got for free in the University, because was 9th at the national computer science (informatics) olympiad, and this gave me an automatic "A" (still the high-school diploma was taken, so it was a bit of a risk). Anyhow - I hated school :) and too bad never…
New York city?
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The fact that a majority of students enter college having absolutely no idea why they are there beyond the fact that that's what they're supposed to do, is a fairly clear sign that things are very broken. The other day a father got tears in his eyes when I asked him about his daughter who just went off to college. She was clueless. Unrelated to his tears, he was spending 40k/year on her mindlessly and passively atten…
>She was clueless. Unrelated to his tears, he was spending 40k/year on her mindlessly and passively attending random classes. How insane is that? Very insane and totally unnecessary. She could have gone to her state university for 8-9k if she wasn't confident what she was going to get out of it.
This is the state of most people entering college in the United States. A person should not consider college unless they have some focus or understanding of why they are there. With focus, so much more will be achieved with what's given to them.
How do you gain focus? First and foremost life experience. Secondly, applied knowledge in areas that interests you or attracts your attention. This knowledge can be learned at school, though it's a terribly ineffective way of doing so.
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>But the trouble, the reality, is that most students can't do what she suggests, How do you know? Not everyone learns the same way. Personally I find it quite arrogant to assume that you or I are just born with more potential than those who don't end up as "smart". Environment has an enormous effect on learning as does the teaching itself. Lots and lots of students don't understand calculus. But a really talented tea…
I don't buy it. Yes, people learn in different ways, and one teaching method that one person gets perfectly may be entirely inadequate -- or even harmful -- to another person. But all people are not created equal. All people do not have the same level of intelligence. All people do not have the same potential for success (however you want to define success). It's nice in a theoretical/feel-good sense to say that ever…
True, but I'm talking about potential for intelligence and in this I think all non-handicapped people have close to the same potential.
Of course what I have in mind isn't person A is exactly equal to person B (and "intelligence" is probably the wrong word for this), but rather if you could somehow give "points" to the persons level of effectiveness then person A's points would add up to person B's even though they took completely different routes to get there. For example, one person might be able to get insanely good at math, while another is awful at math but is an amazing artist.
I can accept that there may be overall differences in the potential levels between individuals but I don't think that difference should be anything remotely as dramatic as what we're seeing right now (especially in the US).
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>She was clueless. Unrelated to his tears, he was spending 40k/year on her mindlessly and passively attending random classes. How insane is that? Very insane and totally unnecessary. She could have gone to her state university for 8-9k if she wasn't confident what she was going to get out of it.
Exactly. And why stop at 8-9k at a state university? She would be equally clueless and most likely surrounded by even greater confusion. This is the state of most people entering college in the United States. A person should not consider college unless they have some focus or understanding of why they are there. With focus, so much more will be achieved with what's given to them. How do you gain focus? First and fore…
For most of the people I've seen delay college, they only life experience they gain in the meantime is in waiting tables. (Which they usually already had from jobs in highschool anyways.) The only positive effect I've seen is that people realize they don't want to work a shit job for the rest of their lives, and get some motivation for education. On the margin this is definitely a win when it happens, but I've never seen the sort of identity discovery you're describing actually occur.
There's a lot of selection bias here - the majority (all?) of the readers of this site are far more intelligent than the majority. So all (most? many?) of us will probably agree with her (at least as regarding our own schooling). I know I do. But the trouble, the reality, is that most students can't do what she suggests, using our minds for creativity, and not rote work. There really is a difference in intelligence,…
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This is what i've come to experience myself. Often a solid grasp of the core fundamentals of your domain is more valuable that having a half-baked knowledge of various in-depth areas. Like the old man said, (or didn't) , You can always google it from your exobrain. I even recall Sherlock Holmes' character saying something to that effect; he says something about the human brain having finite usable storage capacity (w…
Yes, that was in the first Sherlock Holmes book if I'm not mistaken. Sherlock let it slip that he still thought the sun revolved around the earth. Watson was outraged at such an outdated belief but Sherlock pointed out how it had no bearing on what he did and therefor wasn't worth keeping up with. I too was partial to this because I've always worked under a similar assumption (limited space in your head for all the t…
ok, for all you school-haters out there on HN, one thing that i think is often overlooked in the 'discussion' of how public schooling is such a mind-numbing rote memorization grind is the fact that it is a way of developing grit, discipline, whatever you call it ... the ability to endure through boring or tedious tasks to achieve some measurable goal. i think that for most people, the biggest determiner of 'success'…
Developing grit and discipline in the pursuit of the asinine is as just as harmful if not more, than not developing grit and discipline in the pursuit of the sublime. Much of what passes for education much more closely matches the former than the latter. - A 9th grade dropout.
The dilemma here is that some students when left alone can thrive without having a safety net education regiment, while some may just play games all day and waste away. And perhaps some may get too specialized and lack other basic skills a standardized education would guarantee. I think if there is going to be change, we have to start looking into whether or not those things are true. Lots of kids are home schooled right? The data should be there.
If kids have to learn how to drive then they should do the driving, and school should just provide the vehicle. Can't learn to drive while sitting in a bus (but it's more economical).
In Finland national testing, school ranking lists and inspection systems do not exist. Unfortunately behind this facade it still manages to focus quite heavily on rote memorization.